God’s Favorite Customer is the next chapter to Honeybear: the story of the hedonistic shroom-addled Hollywood waster who fell in love and started to grow up, even if the occasional pelvic thrust, sardonically raised eyebrow or over-dramatic fall to the floor wouldn’t go amiss.
Forgoing the epic sweep of his previous album, Father John Misty takes things down a notch, but still delivers a beautiful, unique album.
Josh Tillman is still self-absorbed. But his fourth full-length as Father John Misty exhibits a new sense of empathy and vulnerability while losing none of his wit.
There’s little to adorn most of these songs—lyrically economical, sonically without much pageantry—but the intimacy and honesty results in some of Tillman’s most stunning songwriting.
Pure Comedy was a prophetic document of America, as easily applied to the shit storm in our own broken country as to the Trump administration but God’s Favorite Customer is far more relatable on a universal scale.
Unlike I Love You, Honeybear and Pure Comedy, which were rooted in performativity, God’s Favorite Customer is sincere, raw and melancholy.
On God’s Favorite Customer, he is no longer a barefooted celestial wanderer who bestows witty take-downs of the human condition. He is flesh, blood, and flawed.
Tillman sheds the postmodern pyrotechnics and recognizes the limits of irony and sarcasm that were the foundation of his previous releases. In doing so, Tillman renders his Father John Misty character entirely human for the first time.
His sound is unique, but so familiar. It’s a wonderful mix of indie, folk, pop, and rock. This album in particular is reminiscent of the Beatles.
God’s Favorite Customer is less than half the length of his 2017 LP Pure Comedy but the details are still there, Tillman’s verbose nature still intact.
Thematically, God's Favorite Customer is a sober reflection on a marriage falling apart after the honeymoon period of 2015's I Love You Honeybear.
Father John Misty means to provoke and soothe in equal measure, which is precisely what he does on God's Favorite Customer.
Tillman’s gift for melody and his penchant for droll, evocative lyrics pull these 10 songs back from the brink of morbidity.
God's Favorite Customer is a 10-track demonstration that when bleakness and fun can be married this well, wanting it any other way is churlish.
It’s smart and knowing, flitting between perspectives with ease. Barely a year after his last, Josh Tillman makes this shit look easy.
God's Favorite Customer showcases Tillman at his most levelled: sly-tongued and biting, emotional and soulful, articulating life's most complex feelings in a way we can all understand.
Josh Tillman returns as Father John Misty on God's Favorite Customer, blurring the lines between artist and alter-ego and trading humour for heartbreak on a concise record that's as sombre as it is satisfying.
What lifts God's Favorite Customer beyond homage is Tillman's slicing, free-associative candor as he examines the cost in sanity and constancy of his craft and touring life.
As ever, the music is lush and 1970s-styled, albeit not as lush as before: it’s only rabbit fur in texture, rather than mink. But Tillman’s voice ... is as wonderful as ever, clear and true, and warm and approachable, even if close examination reveals the deep damage beneath the veneer.
The end result sees Misty at his most desperate, heartbroken state, making a solid comedown record from I Love You, Honeybear and Pure Comedy that doesn’t quite hit the profound highs of its predecessors, but gets carried quite a long way on the backs of its honest songwriting.
Even though it's a little disappointing to hear Josh playing it so safe stylistically on the heels of Pure Comedy, God's Favorite Customer more often than not delivers the sharp songwriting that Father John Misty is known for and admirably tackles some pretty dark and personal topics.
God’s Favorite Customer is at times more than I could bear, but the grand nobility of struggling to find a sense of inner peace—or an actor’s ideal of inner peace—sounds lovelier, homier, and looser here than Misty has allowed in the recent past.
Some of the changes are sweeping and obvious, but much of Misty’s/Tillman’s growth is quieter. J. Tillman may have sworn off the reckless grandeur of I Love You, Honeybear (still his best album to date), but the draw of Customer is its small victories and modest shifts in character.
God’s Favourite Customer isn’t quite perfect - it lags in the final furlong as piano ballads are fallen back upon one too many times (the title track, ‘The Songwriter’) and lacks the unified overarching narrative of ...Honeybear - but it continues to showcase one of the finest songwriters of a generation. We need his barbed and brilliant tunes more than ever.
For all this fuss, it’s disappointing ... that much of God’s Favorite Customer doesn’t pack anywhere near the sonic punch that gives life to his first three records.
Josh Tillman too often feels hopelessly lost inside his own head on God's Favorite Customer.
True, God’s Favorite Customer isn’t a bad album, yet it still feels like the weak link in the grand scheme of things. Fans of his previous work will still get a lot out of Misty's latest, but despite its subject matter, this album feels a little safe and inconsequential.
Finally, my FJM journey is completed (besides one EP apparently). And I gotta say, it ended fairly strongly! Like many have said, it is pretty disappointing to hear something so similar to his past works after the creative bounds he made on Pure Comedy, however I think that he takes what he was doing on album like Honeybear and perfects it to an even greater degree. The opener starts out loud and confident, and though that's a minor detail I think it immediately separates Favorite Customer from ... read more
A self reflective and honest approach to the struggles of an ageing man who is aware of his own mortal transgressions. This is the most personal Tillman has ever been, singing the woes of his life in a way that is near Dylan-esque. God's Favourite Customer is a reminder of our imperfections and doubts, and to allow yourself to not take things so seriously.
Sonically, it is similar to Honeybear in the way that the production is very light and aesthetically pleasing, relying heavily on catchy ... read more
God's Favorite Customer, with its mental passageways and extremely charming sound, is about as good as singer/songwriter albums get.
This album is so consistently good and satisfying to listen to, the only issue I have is the last song's lyrics are very simple, but other than that, each idea is executed to its highest level and the lyrics remain painfully relatable.
I love it. It's so mixed up, it's so beautiful, witty, dark, twisted, smooth, crazy, poppy, and honest. Love his unblinking honesty to an audience. It does feel a bit like vaudeville sincerity, but I am sure it is all true.
Not quite as pretty as 'I Love You, Honeybear', nor as it quite as ambitious as 'Pure comedy', but what Misty gives us here is still worth checking out.
1 | Hangout at the Gallows 4:55 | 92 |
2 | Mr. Tillman 3:03 | 89 |
3 | Just Dumb Enough to Try 4:02 | 87 |
4 | Date Night 2:30 | 81 |
5 | Please Don't Die 3:24 | 87 |
6 | The Palace 4:09 | 79 |
7 | Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All 2:23 | 82 |
8 | God's Favorite Customer 5:21 | 91 |
9 | The Songwriter 3:45 | 81 |
10 | We're Only People (And There's Not Much Anyone Can Do About That) 5:02 | 81 |
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