| · Presenting David Byrne: Diva.
Growing up, there was a television program called Harriet’s Magic Hats that for some reason or another my brother and I always ended up watching after school. In it, the young Harriet rummaged through a large box of old hats and upon placing one on her head warped away in a cheesy special effect to an environment suitable to the selected chapeau. Usually she’d end up somewhere crap like a dairy farm or a sewage plant, spending the next 25 minutes milking a cow, exclaiming how wonderful it all was. David Byrne’s always been a bit like Harriet with one primary difference – whatever hat he puts on his head most often takes us somewhere genuinely interesting if not downright exciting.
For Grown Backwards, Byrne makes perhaps his biggest leap yet with straight-faced renditions of his favourite Bizet and Verdi opera moments placed side-by-side with more typical self-penned material, a choice Lambchop cover ("The Man Who Loved Beer") and even a token dance track ("Lazy"). Backed by Rufus Wainwright (a somewhat more skilled vocalist at this type of thing), Byrne stretches his still-awkward voice to the limit over the nooks and valleys of "Au Fond du Temple Saint" from Bizet’s Les Pecheurs de Perles, and the results are a near-perfect example of emotion over technicality. Of the originals, "Tiny Apocalypse," recorded with the same Scottish indie players who took a part in last year’s brilliant Lead Us Not Into Temptation, and the cheeky "Glad," ensure Byrne retains his untouchable status as elder statesman of the leftfield.
As a whole, Grown Backwards is a patchwork mess thrown against the wall that somehow works. Sure, the hats may not always fit, but give credit where credit’s due – of any hat, David Byrne can wear that of the true artist with more right (and silver-haired style) than many others.
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