Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs)

Background and recording

Half of the album's songs were written when Hood moved to Athens, Georgia in 1994, before the Drive-By Truckers were established and soon after his previous band, Adam's House Cat, disbanded. The other half were written in 2004, shortly after Hood's child was born. However, the songs weren't recorded until 2005. Most of the instruments on Murdering Oscar were played by David Barbe, Will Johnson, and Scott Danboum, who had previously performed with the Truckers as sidemen (as well as Hood's father David Hood).

Jewly Hight compared Murdering Oscar to Chinese Democracy, writing that while Axl Rose "obsessively retooled Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy in 14 studios over 13 years, all the while stringing along the public with empty promises of a finished album," Hood handled his long-in-the-making album rather differently—namely, by leaving the album essentially unchanged from its recording in 2005 to its release four years later. Hood has attributed this delay between the songs' recording in 2005 and Murdering's release four years later to "record industry bullshit."

Music and lyrics

The songs on the album were influenced by Hood's new marriage, the birth of Hood's child, and the success of the Drive-By Truckers. Steve LaBate described Murdering Oscar's music as "a little of everything Hood’s done so far, plus a few dashes of discovery." Stuart Henderson, writing in PopMatters, described its music as "grinding three-or-four chord garage rock, [and] drive-heavy reverb," and its lyrics as "throaty storytelling, a hefty dose of gallows humour, and a few slow-burning excursions into some poor schlub’s bleak night."

"Murdering Oscar" tells a tale of a "morally elastic hitman" inspired by the Woody Allen film Crimes and Misdemeanors. "Pollyanna," the oldest song on the album, blends "filthy guitars" and "lucid, hopeful piano". "Pride of the Yankees" is a "bleak, uncharacteristic piano waltz." Hood wrote the song "I Understand Now" about "the value of growing up and starting to comprehend advice he heard long ago." The sarcastic "Screwtopia" is "a deadpan swipe at suburban emptiness." The optimistic "Granddaddy" is about having a child and growing old. "Belvedere" is a bad-date song about "a creepy guy", according to Hood. "The Range War" is a cover of a Todd Rundgren song. "She's a Little Randy" finds Hood in a silly mood. "Foolish Young Bastard" is "a put-down aimed at an old manager." "Heavy and Hanging" was written in response to Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994. "Walking Around Sense" is addressed to the daughter of a dysfunctional rock star. "Back of a Bible" is about a man who writes a love song on the back page of a Bible.

Reception

The album received generally favorable reviews from critics when it was released, with a Metacritic score of 80/100. Several critics described Murdering Oscar's music as more intimate and personal than Hood's previous work. Jon Pareles also noted that Hood's music on Murdering Oscar discusses both depressing topics, such as murder and suicide, as well as more positive ones such as "family and continuity" on "I Understand Now". Joshua Klein wrote that Hood was "surprisingly sanguine, even mature" in the way he addressed both positive and negative topics on the album, and Mark Deming said that the album's songs were "dark but compassionate character studies." Greg Kot gave Murdering Oscar three stars out of four and wrote that it "maintains a certain raw immediacy;" Similarly, Deming commented that the album "consistently cuts closer to the bone" than Hood's debut solo album Killers and Stars. An anomalously negative review came from Jesse Cataldo, who wrote in Slant that the album had "little variation and even less bite".

Different critics made different comparisons between the album and the work Hood did with the Drive-By Truckers: Ken Tucker wrote that "Where the music made by the Drive-By Truckers can expand to epic proportions without becoming overblown, Hood's solo songs are smaller scale, more intimate", while PopMatters' Stuart Henderson wrote that "None of the songs here would be out of place on either of the last two Truckers albums", and that "The sound, then, remains the same, but just a little less the same." Henderson also argued that the music of Murdering Oscar discusses variations on the story of "the lonely, forgotten everyman", which he called one of Hood's favorite themes. Cataldo criticized the album for being far inferior to Hood's work with the Truckers, saying that on Murdering Oscar, "Hood falters, resulting in an uninterrupted stream of watery drivel that drifts by much too slowly." He attributed this in part to the absence of the Truckers' other songwriter, Mike Cooley.

Accolades and commercial performance

The album was ranked #330 on the 2009 Pazz & Jop, and #39 on Robert Christgau's 2009 "Dean's List".

Murdering Oscar peaked at #153 on the Billboard 200 on July 11, 2009.

Track listing

1. Murdering Oscar
2. Pollyanna
3. Pride of the Yankees
4. I Understand Now
5. Screwtopia
6. Granddaddy
7. Belvedere
8. The Range War
9. She's a Little Randy [from Randy and the Mob]
10. Foolish Young Bastard
11. Heavy and Hanging
12. Walking Around Sense
13. Back of a Bible

Musicians

Production