When The Raconteurs first emerged as a high-profile side project for The White Stripes' Jack White, the new band promised to shine a light on one of its lesser-known members: singer-songwriter Brendan Benson. Power-pop aficionados — and virtually no one else — knew Benson for his string of timeless and wonderful solo albums (One Mississippi, et al), and were only too happy to share him with the world.
Benson remains best known for his Raconteurs work, but he's still saving his best songs for solo albums like the zippy and fantastic My Old, Familiar Friend, which seems to emerge from about four eras of pop-rock at once. Crisp and relentlessly catchy, the album practically oozes hooks, mixing cockeyed love songs with sublime kiss-off anthems like the irresistible "Don't Wanna Talk."
For all its exasperated pleas for silence, "Don't Wanna Talk" reveals a few extra layers to the wrecked relationship at its core: "You've proven to be a hard habit to kick," Benson sings in between choruses wherein he replaces "La la" with "Lie lie." That bit of futile longing gives the song a bit of heft to go with its irresistible chant-along choruses. By the end, it's small wonder that he (and we) will inevitably come back for more.
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