Ted Leo and The Pharmicists – Hearts of Oak

Until recently, I’ve harbored only one gripe with Ted Leo and The Pharmacists: The Tyranny of Distance (2001), that sweet bomb dropped on the playground of guitar pop, boasted an album cover closely resembling the Pacific Life logo. “That’s it,” I thought, “there’s no unadulterated art left. Well, at least it wasn’t Victoria’s Secret again.” But all was forgiven when the music assured me Leo wasn’t dabbling in something so flimsy as mutual funds. His currency remains the immutable elements of any great pop song: chord change, vocal range and turn of phrase.
And yet, I’m compelled to tell anyone looking to own only the essential Ted Leo record that the much-lauded Hearts of Oak isn’t it. Of course, if you’re taking this kind of reductive approach, I might ask you, why Ted Leo at all and not Mellencamp? But that sort of inflammatory elitism obscures his fundamental irresistibility. When Leo’s on his game, he’s the life not just of the pop literati party but of anyone’s.
Take the album’s should-be leadoff track. There’s no better way to lament our country’s slow democratic suicide than through a litany of paranoia and conservatism followed by the innocent refrain, “Where have all the rude boys gone?” As is always the case with Leo, whose tireless, boyish vocals could buoy any lyrical millstone, there’s as much eloquent rallying as there is protest. “Bridges, Squares” offers image after image of a world in which we can still be agents of our fate, fate free from dogma and full of creativity:
“This is not the time to ossify,” Leo insists. “It’s not the end of wondering why. It’s not in your faith or your apostasy. It’s not the end of history.”