Because The Hold Steady Doesn't Deconstruct Its Summer

The Hold Steady's new album, "Stay Positive," shouldn't be good. It quickly sounds like the band and label, Vagrant, realizing they were on the cusp of (relative) stardom, wrestled with infusing their music with expensive production qualities and diluted hooks, while staying true to who they are. There are some very weak moments on the record and the keyboards can be mixed too loud.

But the band's lead singer, Craig Finn, really saves the whole thing, through sheer will. He won't take no for an answer, whether the question is "Are we going to like this song?" or, most especially, "Are we going to have a good time?" I love the previous record, "Boys and Girls in America," because it sounds like a ridiculously stereotypical college party, with joy, ecstasy, a knowing wink, and a huddle of girls trying to console their friend who's inexplicably crying in the corner. "Stay Positive" doesn't really get there (maybe the Hold Steady isn't trying to get there), but Finn gives it plenty of mantras, such as "We're gonna build something this summer," and when in the first single, "Sequestered in Memphis," there's the cheesy drop-out with chorus over drums, he cuts right through it with a sneer of "I went there on business." Overall, Finn reminds me a lot of Wilco's classic, "Being There," as both always think about a life of rock & roll. (The horns and chorus' vocal melody in"Sequestered in Memphis" also sound a lot like those in "Monday.") But while Wilco ponders the ambivalent, trying parts of it, Finn rushes through it, treats it like it's always a party. Oh, and he's charming because he somehow creates a full album of vocals when his range only spans five notes.

My two friends who've liked the Hold Steady for long before I don't like them much anymore. One says they're "out of clever." The other, from Minnesota, misses all the Minneapolis references -- much of the Hold Steady, before they moved to Brooklyn, were in Lifter Puller out there -- and says he's noticed the crowd really change at their shows. They're both right (while I haven't been to a Hold Steady show, that's turned me off to bands before, too; we're such snobs), and the next Hold Steady record will probably be dismal. There are only so many times Finn can rescue everything on sweat equity. But, for now, as I'm sure he'd say, Who cares? Quit agonizing and analyzing every little detail and worrying about two years in the future, and enjoy the moment.