Tobias Jesso Jr.: "Hollywood"

It begins silent enough that you can you practically hear a squeaky spotlight finding its way to Tobias Jesso Jr. There he is, on an empty stage, in an empty theater, playing piano and singing to some half-asleep spotlight operator about colossal defeat. It’s not fair, but it never is: he’s been praying since he was 10, he’s been brought up right, but he just can’t get his head around how he’s supposed make it work in L.A. Worse, he knows the city couldn’t care less about another doe-eyed transplant packing his bags and heading back to his home in Vancouver. Jesso said his new record is about “Los Angeles, failing, and a breakup” and “Hollywood” triangulates all three.

Think of it as the film negative to Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind”, with the colors reversed, and the medium thin and flimsy. But don’t slot this into the large canon of songs about how L.A. sucks. The way his vintage voice rolls over the piano it’s more of an apology to the city. Hollywood isn’t the subject of his ire; instead Jesso turns it on himself, and examines self-doubt in the shadow of showbiz: “I don’t know if I can make it/ and I don’t know if I should.” The story of getting chewed up and spit out by Hollywood is as old as the city itself, but in the simple elegance of Jesso, that’s sometimes all a story needs to be seen in a warm, new light.

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