America the Beautiful

I have a theory about bands with geographic names:  there is an inverse relationship between quality of music and geographic expanse. Thus, the bands that are named after insignificant or modest geographic features (Okkervil River) are actually pretty good. But the music gets progressively worse as you move from small towns (Fountains of Wayne) to big cities (Boston), then states (Kansas), then countries (Japan). Eventually you end up with Asia, at which point you declare musical war and unilaterally nuke your iPod.

By that logic, the band America should be fairly dismal. Maybe they were named after a country, and maybe they were named after a continent, but in any event most music critics would tell you that they were lousy, and recorded the worst sort of puerile schmaltz. Purveyors of hit after soft-rock hit in the early ‘70s (“Horse With No Name,” “Ventura Highway,” “Lonely People,” “Sister Golden Hair,” and many others), America managed to sell millions of albums while alienating virtually every hipster in the world. The Rolling Stone Record Guide offers a typical take:  every album is rated with either 0 stars or 1 star.

But here’s my dirty little secret:  I like America, and I always have. America been very, very good to me. I liked them back in the early ‘70s, when, to put a positive spin on it, they unveiled those gorgeous Crosby, Stills and Nash-like harmonies on hit after sunny hit. And I like them in 2007 on their new album Here and Now, which reprises the same tried-and-true formulas, and which finds principal songwriters Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Martin united with decidedly younger fans and musicians such as Ryan Adams, Ben Kweller, Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha, and members of My Morning Jacket and Nada Surf. All of that indie star power could easily overwhelm the proceedings, but the kids are smart enough or humble enough to lay back and tastefully augment Bunnell’s and Martin’s new songs, which sound a lot like the old songs. Aside from two great covers (MMJ’s “Golden” and Nada Surf’s “Only Love”), Here and Now is Dewey’s and Gerry’s show, and if the songs still whisper sweet nothings, and if they still faintly reek of old hippies selling peace and love, man, then they also have the distinction of being immediately and immensely hummable. They are what they are: smartly crafted, hook-filled, acoustic pop songs about not much of anything in particular.

As geographic band names go, this is a fairly good one, and I may have to revise my theory.