And now for something special. Tobias Jesso Jr is a 29-year-old, 6ft 7in Canadian who in 2012 got a gig in Los Angeles playing bass for an aspiring pop star called Melissa Cavatti. All was fine until Jesso had a car crash, his girlfriend, off whom he had been living, dumped him and his mother got cancer.
Returning to Vancouver to lick his wounds and help his mother (now in remission), he wrote Goon, a collection of songs about his breakup, on the family piano. It was an instrument he could hardly play, which is remarkable given how accomplished the album sounds. What makes Goon really stand out, however, is its entirely natural sense of warmth and character. It’s a debut that puts him up with John Lennon, Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson as a master of straight-talking piano balladry.
Recorded with a handful of musicians from Los Angeles’s alternative scene, including JR White of the defunct duo Girls and Jonathan Rado of the non-defunct duo Foxygen, Goon features one perfect song after another, all driven by the familiar mix of indignation, self-pity and reflection that heartbreak brings.
“Why can’t you just love me?” Jesso moans on Without You (not a cover of the Badfinger/Nilsson song, although close in spirit) and on the peerless How Could You Babe he tries to come to terms with the news that his former girlfriend is now with someone else — and fails to do so. The clear narrative and lack of metaphor is appealing because it is so evocative of what it feels like to be dumped, lost and alone.
Jesso seems to be a sunny soul who went through a bad time. “If I could change, could I ask you on a date?” he pleads with doomed optimism on The Wait, while the discordant chorus of traffic noises on Hollywood signal his disappointment about not making it in LA. “Guess I’ll say goodbye to Hollywood,” he concludes as the song shuffles to a defeated end.
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Needless to say, music this good couldn’t stay unknown forever. Adele and Taylor Swift are two superstars currently singing Jesso Jr’s praises and his appearances on late-night US chat shows have gone down a storm. With Beatles-like melodies and rich harmonies accompanying the kind of lyrics that are as personal as they are relatable, Goon is a modern classic steeped in a rich songwriting tradition. (Out Tues, True Panther Sounds)