In one of the most famous scenes of HBO’s “The Sopranos,” the main character and mob boss Tony Soprano laments to his therapist, “I find I have to be the sad clown, laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.” In the mind of the mob boss, joviality is a cover for the trauma and stress that eats him alive. On the other hand, for Jake Lenderman, who goes by MJ Lenderman, there seems to be nothing funnier than the sad clown. Lenderman operates at the strange intersection of humor, sadness, the mundane, and the beautiful. In his fourth studio album, “Manning Fireworks,” Lenderman finds the perfect balance between these competing moods. The funny, the tragic, the ordinary, and the beautiful complement each other to create one of the best albums of the year.
These themes are not new to MJ Lenderman. His third studio album “Boat Songs” featured a similar blend of tragic humor, and hopeful mundanity. He writes about fighting with his partner at Six Flags, “beat down rodeo clowns,” and the simple beauty of his dad seeing Dan Marino (legendary Miami Dolphins quarterback) before seeing dolphins the very next day from a friend’s boat. “Manning Fireworks” expands on these images and stories, but with a wittier touch.
Where Lenderman was once clever, he is now laugh-out-loud funny. This is clearest on the lead single “Rudolph,” which opens with “Rudolph waking up in the road/ Dew dripping off his red nose. / Blue and black tire track torn/ Through a beautiful doe./ Deleted scene of Lightning McQueen/ Blacked out at full speed.” In the next verse, he turns his attention to a Catholic priest-in-training who hits on the clergy nurse, dramatically proclaiming to her, “I wouldn’t be in the seminary/ if I could be with you.” Lenderman seems to be imagining the life he would have had, had he stuck with his dream of being a priest. “Wristwatch” similarly finds humor in flexing “a beach home up in Buffalo/ And a wristwatch that’s/ A compass and a cell phone.” Yet, in classic Lenderman style, this is only the precursor to lamenting a lost love, who he would trade all the “luxury” for.
In other songs, tragedy takes precedence over humor; yet, Lenderman never devolves into unoriginal melodrama. He sings of a breakup backdropped by a “half-mast McDonald’s flag” and the pain of a person he relies on moving from his small town to New York City and changing the way they dress. These simple images add a unique character to universal experiences — like breakups and losing a friend.
Sonically, this album involves richly woven textures of both electric and steel lap guitar. Lenderman is no stranger to warm country licks, fuzzy pedal driven riffs, and a touch of psychedelia. His voice, similar to his earlier albums, does not feature the expansive range or technical skill of a pop singer, nor does it possess the softness of many of the popular indie acts today. His singing is melancholic, crooning, and rough around the edges. This lack of polish and bits of vocal dissonance only add to the rawness of the album.
In short, “Manning Fireworks” is a triumph. Lenderman does not radically depart from what worked on “Boat Songs” but has improved upon all the things that made that album great. He is more mature, his pen is sharper, and his instrumentals are richer. All of this combines to make “Manning Fireworks” one of the funniest, saddest, and most beautiful albums of the year.
