RIYL: Soul Coughing, Beck, Cake
The press kit pegs Sad Man Happy Man as a back-to-basics return to form for Mike Doughty – and sort of intimates that this move was prompted by negative fan reaction to 2008’s Golden Delicious – but unless you’re one of the world’s most hardcore Doughty supporters, you aren’t liable to notice much of a difference between Sad and Golden, or, for that matter, 2005’s Haughty Melodic. The arrangements are acoustic-based, and most of them are more stripped down than much of what he’s done in the last few years, but the two most immediately identifiable ingredients of any Doughty song are his warm buzzsaw of a voice and his love of inane, infinitely repeatable phrases, and both of them are in plentiful supply here. Doughty’s lyrics (or the parts of them that make sense, anyway) have never shied away from bleak themes, and the same holds true here: Sad Man Happy Man’s tracks detail relationship problems (“Diane”), drug addiction (“Lord Lord”), and our current financial woes (“Pleasure on Credit”), all shrouded in the same deceptively goofy arrangements his fans have come to know and love.
It is, in short, a Mike Doughty record – and whether that thought fills you with anticipation or dread, none of these songs will do anything to change your mind. Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, though, they’re mighty easy to sing along with. (ATO 2009)
