Real Love Baby/Rejected Generic Pop Song March 15 #3 by Father John Misty

\11.6.18\

An artist I have heard referred to as a “Hot Ticket” by Aziz Ansari in Master of None and white person sex music by someone, who I promise isn’t me. People in popular culture and popular journalism love to love this “self-aware sex symbol” for his good looks, smooth and folky toons, and his relationship with his wife, Emma Tillman. Starting rough in Seattle, Josh Tillman (Father John’s birth name) began writing songs and eventually opening for Damien Jurado in his early 20’s. The Indie Folk power band, Fleet Foxes, for a brief time got to call Tillman theirs as he replaced Nicholas Peterson on drums in 2008. Staying with the group for several albums and tours, he parted ways in 2012. After the “Fleet Years,” Tillman would go under the name Father John Misty. In an interview with Interview (yes, you read that right) he considers J. Tillman to be an alter ego. Following Fear Fun, Tillman’s first release as Father John, he went on to be featured on Kid Cudi’s album Indicud and wrote the soundtrack for the short film The History of Caves. The next few years saw new albums and a drastic rise in popularity for this Seattle-made man. His last album (as in most recent) was God’s Favorite Customer. This came out on the first of June 2018 and caught this writer off guard.

For a single released in 2017 it’s odd of me to talk about albums released later on. Most singles are released to promote an upcoming album. The catch with this one is there was no upcoming album to promote as this was only published solo. Even more odd is the B side single “Rejected Generic Pop Song March ’15 #3.” Also not belonging to any album, the only trace one can find online are the odd YouTube uploads and Genius lyrics. RollingStone.com published a piece talking about this saying that during Father John’s songwriting for pop artists like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, he published a number of tracks on SoundCloud titled “Generic Pop Song” all numbered and not appearing in any official capacity from him. As far as I know, the only published work of this is on this 7” which makes it just that much special.

The only 7” this month to have a traditional larger cut out in the middle, the vinyl is lovely, but overshadowed in color by the outer sleeve and labels. With a cover created by Catalina Velasquez, the art is more vibrant than the sun and really captures the mood of the whole album.

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