I first heard Fitz and the Tantrums’ “Moneygrabber” maybe two months ago on XM, but in the interim it seems to have exploded into the mainstream – in the past week alone I’ve heard it in Whole Foods and in a restaurant in Chandler (neither of which was playing an XM feed). It’s the best song on their debut? album Pickin’ Up The Pieces
“Moneygrabber” is an energetic Motown-tinged three-minute burst of vitriol directed at a gold-digging former lover, driven by a rousing chorus that bookends two brief verses that are subdued in comparison. The contrast works because the verses are short and because the song opens with the chorus, putting that energy into your head and creating a calm-before-the-storm feel to each verse before the singer launches into the angry “this is your payback/moneygrabber” chorus. (It’s a bit lowbrow, but I laughed once I realized the second verse concluded with the singer’s statement that he doesn’t “think twice for the price of a cheap dime whore.” Don’t hold back, man.)
Where “Moneygrabber” is primarily a rock song with Motown fringes, the rest of the album presents more of a balance between the two elements (with hints of New Wave), with a few songs that wouldn’t be out of place on an oldies station. The first half of the album is mostly upbeat even when the lyrics aren’t – the soulful organ-heavy opener features the line “ooh what a lovely day/for breaking the chains of love” – and the songs are punchier, with nothing over 3:10 until track five. The very poppy “L.O.V.” features multiple tempo changes and some outstanding hooks in the vocal lines, particularly the melody of “all these words are the sweetest embrace,” one of many riffs on the album that reminded me not of a specific song from the 1980s but of the general feel of pop music from that era.
The back half of the album includes one outright power ballad, “Tighter,” which I could see crossing over and creating the kind of pop success that ends or derails a band’s career because they become associated with love songs (or, in this case, a lost-love song). But side two* is generally slower without becoming understated or subtle, and the album ends with a down-tempo song, “Rich Girls,” that manages to work in some black humor around whether it’s better to date rich girls (who’ll break your heart) or poor girls (who’ll take your money).
*Raise your glass if you’re old enough to understand what “side two” of an album means.
The weakness here, by far, is the quality of the lyrics on some of the lesser songs. “Dear Mr. President” is embarrassing, the one skippable song more for how dated and inane the words are (I think it’s supposed to be some kind of protest about the lack of funding for social services, but the preachiness over a stereotyped picture of American poverty makes me cringe), and the disc as a whole is full of the kind of empty lines that populate most pop records, with very little you haven’t heard before.
I can get over bad lyrics when the music is both catchy and different, and I can’t think of the last time I heard a group meld rock and old-school soul this well. (Little Caesar doesn’t cut it.) The production is clean and I liked how easily I could pick out individual instruments or the two voices when they’re singing in tandem. “Moneygrabber” is the Fitz song I’ll still be listening to for years, but the rest of the disc is wearing well even after a dozen times through it, a solid first effort that will likely prompt a host of imitators once the public catches on to it.
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Incidentally, I see the Roots’ classic Things Fall Apart
