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Jay Date

To people of a certain age, singer-songwriter Jay Brannan’s winsome, love-bitten folk songs may trigger a defensive “oh, he’s just young” reaction. Much of his debut full-length CD, goddamned (available digitally today), sounds like journal entries set to music. And it’s hard not to cringe at the opening cut, “Can’t Have It All,” when a home-alone Brannan sings, “F--- this, This can’t be my life, I’ve moisturized ten times tonight.” But the young man, who literally laid himself bare in John Cameron Mitchell’s explicit sex film Shortbus, knows a thing or two about tweaking conventions.

Possessing a soft, virtuous voice that’s this-close to a choir boy’s, Brannan’s largely acoustic recordings pimp the trappings of your standard, sincere folkie. But if that moisturizer line didn’t tip you off, his sense of humor is easier to register than, say, Ani DiFranco’s — probably since the target is often himself. The appeal of songs like “At First Sight,” “Half-Boyfriend” and the delightful “Housewife” is that they both send up and embrace the emotional immaturity we never fully grow out of, try as we may.

So go on and peg Brannan as “young.” Just don’t write him off before giving goddamned a few spins.


goddamned will be available digitally today, and on CD July 15, from Great Depression Records.