Baby Bird / The Happiest Man Alive by Todd Pontius Baby Bird Recordings Indie rock elitism ascends new pinnacles of depravity when it calls into question "everyone else's" ability to distinguish a good song from a bad one. Babybird's first single "Goodnight" debuted at number three in the UK Top 40, and the record appeared at number nine, but that shouldn't be your reason for liking or disliking the music. The Happiest Man Alive is a good record, inventive and charming, and occasionally disarming. But I wonder if Babybird will find the same success in the U.S.? Things are different across the sea. Stephen Jones (a.k.a. Babybird), has done a fine job of inventing himself in the UK press as an eccentric (britspeak: "daft") iconoclast alone recording songs in his bedroom. The Happiest Man Alive certainly has that kinda feel to it, and, unlike Lou Barlow, Jones seems largely able to discern his genius from his excrement. The music is pure pop, consisting primarily of Jones's voice piled on top of thin, shit-sounding keyboards and what sounds like Indonesian karaoke beats. The liner notes say "All songs recorded on a 4-track tape recorder no bigger than a VCR," and this is probably true, but don't buy it. The songs are not so much written as arranged, and the audio quality is a bit woofy, but the record sounds good. The real appeal, however, is Jones's breathlessly stoned wit (...or maybe breathless and stoned? Stoned breathless?). Records like this don't have lyrics, they have lines, lines like "Got a hole in my chest / Push in some blood / I'm about as female as a sexual retard." This is why Babybird became big overnight-songs like "Sundial in a Tunnel" and "Horsesugar" are incredibly catchy. In fact, Babybird sounds a bit like Beck without the blues or The Magnetic Fields on Prozac. The biggest beef I have with The Happiest Man Alive is its Britishness. At times, the sounds on this record are almost too perfect. Don't be fooled: The Happiest Man Alive is not the output of a guy living in a cave with a Casio, a Roland 303, and a 4-track. There are moments where the beats sound too hip, the samples too sly, and the lyrics too precious. I feel like I'm being manipulated. In the British music scene stylishness is celebrated. Of course, my friend Erin will say, "But Todd, you don't listen to pop music anyway." She's right. But I can't resist lines like the following, from Babybird's UK hit "You're Gorgeous" (a song not on this record): "You took me to your rented motor car and threw me on the bonnet / You got me to hitch my knees up, and pulled my legs apart / You took out an instamatic camera, and pulled my sleeves around my heart."

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