Michael Goodman is a musician/multi-instrumentalist based in NYC-via-Providence-via-NYC again. His music recalls the chord progressions of the radio hits of the ’50s and ’60s and long-forgotten power-pop bands of the late ’70s.
“Night Person” kicks us off in a fitful burst of hooks, but hints at the meditative melancholy that permeates the new record, What We Want. As much as this album positively overflows with soaring melodies and hooks that permanently settle between your heartstrings, it is also soundtrack for those long, deeply restless nights. “Waking Hours” is some of Goodman’s finest songwriting to date, a strikingly subtle ballad; the instrumentation is perfectly understated, and the harmonies, doused in reverb, are almost painfully lovely.
Like those of some of the best young songwriters, Goodman’s lyrics are peppered with recurring imagery: flowers and fever, sleeping (but mainly lack thereof) and waking, early mornings and late nights plagued by uncertainty. He captures the ends of relationships and the beginnings of others through the eyes of the sleepless nights that bookend them.
This is pop music for nervous young people, tossing and turning because we don’t know just what we want.
[audio:Waking Hours.mp3|titles=Waking Hours|artists=Goodman]
“Waking Hours” by Goodman
