![]() “It’s Money That Matters,” a vicious parody of 80s materialism, became his last chart hit on the strength of listeners who mistakenly thought it a celebration of same. RANDY NEWMAN LITTLE CRIMINALS RARELY CRACKHe hasn’t scored a single pop hit that wasn’t profoundly misunderstood most famously, his monster hit “Short People” (from Little Criminals, his only album to crack the Billboard Top Ten) gathered frowns from humorless people who thought the hulking Newman was legitimately mocking the small-statured, while it sold hundreds of thousands of copies as a novelty hit to people who likewise thought he was serious but were A-OK with goofing on the height-deficient. Worse still, he’s misunderstood in both directions: people who take him at face value are either offended or perceive him as an ally in giving offense, while people smart enough to detect the presence of irony in his work but not smart enough to dig a little deeper tend to write him off as a smarmy elitist. This is a terrible misunderstanding, and it’s a misunderstanding that keeps Randy Newman from being appreciated for what he is: one of the Great American Songwriters of the latter half of the 20th century. For everyone who is stunned by the depth and feeling of the dozen character studies on his outstanding Little Criminals album, there’s someone who sees a West Coast smartass laughing himself sick at hapless lowlifes he doesn’t care to understand. For everyone who loves Good Old Boys, his brilliant concept album about life in the South, there seem to be a dozen who hate what they perceive as its snobbish insincerity. In too many critical assessments, Newman, the supreme ironist, is attacked for his sneering insincerity, his mean superior mockery of characters (caricatures?) who are beneath him. But it’s not that he’s sincere, either people who unreservedly adore the laid-back cartoon of Southern California life don’t stick lyrics in their songs about supplicant homeless people. It’s not that he’s cynical at a certain level, Randy Newman probably does love L.A., or he wouldn’t have lived there most of his life. But then you hear him singing the praises, inexplicably, of run-down Victory Boulevard you hear him sing about “that bum over there, man, he’s down on his knees” you remember that this is Randy Newman singing - the least likely man on the planet you can picture tooling along with the top down, the Beach Boys cranking, and "a big nasty redhead" at his side. Evidence of this curious duality can be found in his best known song, “I Love L.A.”: it became a massive hit and was even used as an anthem for the 1984 Olympics, and listening to the overblown synthesizers and canned drums, it’s easy to mistake the song for what it appears to be: a big, blowsy love letter to Los Angeles. of A., he’s a resident of Hollywood, a city that simultaneously generates massive amounts of irony and seems superhumanly immune to it. Unfortunately, he’s not only a product of the U.S. The most supremely ironic songwriter ever produced by a country that has never had a particularly friendly relationship with irony, Newman might be a superstar if he was French, or even French-Canadian. If there’s any American pop musician who embodies the notion of knowing something is no good but loving it anyway, it’s Randy Newman. (Randy Newman, "A Wedding in Cherokee County," from Good Old Boys) If she knew how, she'd be unfaithful to me Man, don’t you think I know that she’s no good? Man, don’t you think I know she hates me? THE HIGH HAT | POPS&CLICKS: The Sincerest cynic: Randy Newman, great American songwriter? ![]()
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