Milestones: 'Resigned'

MICHAEL PENN
Resigned
[57 Records/Sony – 1997]

Brendan O’Brien is best known as a top-tier producer whose credits include everyone from AC/DC to King’s X and from Springsteen to Stone Temple Pilots. But for a while in the mid-‘90s he entertained the idea of running his own label, the Sony-distributed 57 Records, whose roster included such talented singer/songwriters as David Ryan Harris and this gentleman right here.



Sean and Christopher’s older brother (and Aimee Mann’s husband) won an MTV Best New Artist award for his single “No Myth” in 1989 but hasn’t made much of a name for himself with the public at large since. (He’s a well-known composer around Hollywood, tho: he’s got Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights and the HBO show‘Girls, among other credits.) For his third and arguably best album, he joined 57 and had his boss produce and play some tasty bass parts, resulting in some of the most satisfying guitar pop of the ‘90s.

Presumably busy with soundtrack work, he hasn’t released an album of new material in a decade, so it’s hard to discern where his solo career is headed at this point. Regardless, the man's catalog is worth exploring, with this particular release sure to reward all who deign to give it due attention.

Highlights: “Try”, “Me Around”, “All That Implies”, “Selfish” (feat. Mann on backing vocals), “Cover Up” and “Figment”.