I am in receipt of Here Go Magic frontman Luke Temple’s new record, Good Mood Fool, the follow-up to Don’t Act Like You Don’t Care, which was one of my favorite albums of 2011. Catchy, deep and beautiful. Plus, seeing that “Ballad of Dick George” pretty much told the arc of my own life (seriously, friends who heard the song’s first verses repeatedly asked, “Dude, is this about you!!?”), that an album will never leave my heart.
Good Mood Fool? It made me think of Jolie Holland’s on-stage comment, about a year ago in Denver, that nothing is dumber than a music writer who says things like, “If Radiohead and Pink Floyd had a baby, it’d be the Verve” or “Arcade Fire is like Bruce Springsteen meets the Feelies.”
So, in honor of the gorgeous Ms. Holland, let me sum up Good Mood Fool in one truly indisputable sentence: If Miami Vice and Weekend at Bernie’s had a child, this album would be the perfect soundtrack for a documentary about that child’s birth, which would probably happen at the record store from Pretty in Pink, because Molly Ringwald would of course be the midwife.
Adam Perry 