Just clownin’ around
As strange as the idea of cult filmmaker David Lynch releasing an album of original music seems, it does make a certain amount of sense. He’s a director known for his meticulous sound design, he’s had a hand in shaping the soundtracks of the films he’s directed and music could provide an ideal vehicle for his trademark surrealism.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work out that way. To its credit, Crazy Clown Time sounds about as Lynchian as possible — it’s a weird, often unnerving experience that sounds like nothing else — but Lynch doesn’t have the mastery of music that he does of film, and he doesn’t have enough ideas to sustain a sense of urgency across the album’s 70-minute runtime.
There are a number of issues with the album, but none bigger than the fact that Lynch simply cannot sing. He frequently hides his voice behind layers of electronic manipulation — probably the only commonality between Lynch and T-Pain — but when he steps out into the open and just sings, without adornment, it’s frequently painful to listen to.
His voice has a squeaky, high-pitched tenor that, at its worst, is nearly unlistenable. He probably hoped that this would lend the music an otherworldly, disturbing feel, but he takes it too far and comes off more annoying than disconcerting.
Even looking beyond the dubious vocals, the album is only partially successful. Like Lynch’s filmography, it’s at its best at its most go-for-broke insane, like when he’s delivering a spoken-word rant on dental hygiene on “Strange and Unproductive Thinking,” or giving a terrifying description of a party gone wrong on the deeply unsettling title track.
It’s moments like these that best showcase Lynch’s trademark ability to blend the innocent and the threatening and achieve a kind of strange alchemy. When the album works, it’s as mystifying as anything out of Twin Peaks — but too much of it is tragically bland.
“Bland” isn’t a word often associated with Lynch, and none of the songs, taken out of context, could be called ordinary — they’re all too surreal for that — but the songs are too similar taken together to be consistently interesting. Nearly every song on the album is some variation on a mid-tempo dreamy blues number, which makes prosaic what initially seemed unusual.
There are moments that break away from this formula — the amped-up opener “Pinky’s Dream,” the only track to feature guest vocals (from Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O), the throbbing synth-rock of “Good Day Today” — but too much of Crazy Clown Time is, frankly, boring. It’s an allegation that has probably never been made against Lynch before, and hopefully never will again.
VERDICT: Crazy Clown Time is an intermittently successful album weighed down by repetition and Lynch’s weak vocals.
