Earlier this year I did a post about discovering Jenn Champion and her Kickstarter campaign to get her new album The Last Night Of Sadness made. Because I backed her campaign, I got my signed CD, a handwritten postcard and a download of the album two weeks before today’s official release. Recently, I’ve had some Kickstarter reward issues but Jenn exceeded my expectations and restored my faith in all divas.
The Last Night Of Sadness is an appropriate album title and is just as dark as the cover implies, in my gay opinion. The electronica sound of the album is slow and bumping with lyrics that are personal and brooding. The theme of the album and songs like “Graves” and “Good News Bad News (We’re All Gonna Die)” is how fleeting life is and accepting our own mortality. This album is real and honest in a way that’s almost uncomfortable, especially when it comes to trips to rehab (“28”) or the traps of addiction (“Jessica”). Some others get lost in the promise of fame (“Famous”) and wealth (“Millionaires”) thinking those are the paths to salvation. Whatever your flaws or struggles, The Last Night Of Sadness offers hope, especially in the department of love (“Love Song (Think About It)” and “Think About It (The Turn)”). The key is to do what you have to in order to survive (“Breathing”) and to celebrate (“Happy Birthday”) when you make it through. A silver lining might be tarnished and broken but it’s still there.
When a new album comes out, I put it on my car’s USB and listen to it non-stop until my post is done. The Last Night Of Sadness has been on heavy rotation these past few weeks, so my partner has heard it quite a bit. We don’t often agree on music, but when we got married, he took me in good times and bad. Which means to him. the quality of concerts I drag him to (how many times can he see Charo before he threatens divorce, the answer is three). However, he’s gone on record saying that if Jenn tours, he wants to go. I’ll be holding him to that because this is one album I want to hear live.
