Review: “The Good Life (Is Wasted),” by Lambchop


TRACK 8

“The Good Life (Is Wasted)”

From Lambchop’s Mr. M

Liner notes: Crooning with a woozy flair that suggests he just awoke from a long nap, basso front man Kurt Wagner could be a down-home Lou Reed on this sardonic toe-tapper, wherein he confesses that “the good life is wasted on me.”

Behind the music: Lambchop, originally known as Posterchild, began a quarter century ago and has been billed as “Nashville’s most fucked-up country band,” thanks to its signature blend of dark sentiments and smooth sounds. Among its provocative works, the 2000 album Nixon comes with a reading list of books about our 37th president.

Check it out if you like: Leonard Cohen, Glen Campbell’s work with Jimmy Webb (“Wichita Lineman”), and the late outsider folkie and Lambchop collaborator Vic Chesnutt, to whom Mr. M is dedicated.

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