I wish there was a reward, but she took it all

Over the past few weeks, my heart and my head have been filling up and up with excitement about the music of Frankmusik. We've long passed the stage at which I might have had a chance at writing eloquently and with restraint about it--any sparks of verbal inspiration about the songs themselves stand no chance against the tidal wave of desire to write "Oh my gosh, I LOVE this" that's been steadily building. At this point, all I can really do is allow it to crash, and maybe try to spread the impact of that crash out over a couple of days--sure, it's going to be over the top and make a giant mess, but maybe somewhere among the debris some points will get across.

I've been reading in several places the feeling that this has been an underwhelming year for albums and I'd have to agree. If we had an album that looked something like this, though (in no particular order)...

3 Little Words
Just Fine
Missing You
Pinch Myself
Gotta Boyfriend
Made Her Smile
In Step
Done Done
Beep Beep
Run Away From Trouble
In My Shoes
Save My Tears
That Much Is True
Vacant Heart
Waiting
When You're Around
Better Off As Two

...you'd not only have one of the longest albums ever, you'd also have an easy best album of the year winner. You'd still have more than enough other great tracks to toss out b-sides and EP tracks right and left. To be fair, that's taking tracks from both 2007 and 2008 and you'd have a lot of sample or interpolation clearance to go through, but given how long people work on albums and the prevalence of samples nowadays, I don't think either of those facts is ultimately a restriction.

It's certainly been at least more than a year since I've been this excited about a new pop talent. The fact that someone is making music this fresh, this clever, this catchy, this fun, this gorgeous, this able to bring out both the side of me that wants to dance (on a giant keyboard) and my...earnest side, equally the perpetual romantic and the perpetual broken heart, is something I can't stop marveling at. That someone can make pop this good, this un-boring (I know, what an endorsement--"Un-boring" is the sort of quotations artists live for)--and even write lyrics I love--is almost unfair for other pop acts. How can a song with a great chorus possibly compete with a song that is great throughout? If I get used to quality like this, can everyone else compete with my new higher expectations?

For that matter, can he even compete with those expectations? Placing too much hope, too much faith in an artist can be a good way to get your hopes crushed, to end up feeling let down--but sometimes you just have to be that romantic and rush in, give yourself up completely and sincerely, in the hopes that this time, maybe, just maybe, it's for real. After all, if we didn't, no one would make and we wouldn't deserve music like this.

Buy the 3 Little Words EP here (physical) or here (digital). Edit: see also: XO's review of it (the physical version). His debut full-length album, Complete Me, is due out in March 2009.