The Modern Lovers album cover
The Modern Lovers

The Modern Lovers

1976
Home Of The Hits

For the rest of his career, Richman leaned into his “First time I’m hearing of this!” charm and goofy-ass striped shirts that looked too young on him when he was twenty-one, when the Modern Lovers debut was recorded in 1972. He said “bye bye, old world,” and the band, very specifically drummer David Robison of future Cars fame, gave him a machine heft his stand-up philosophy never had again. Richman worshiped the Velvet Underground, but I hear Neu! and The Stooges, without knowing what Richman and the band thought of either. It is a rare blend of raw and direct and gentle and rock hard. Richman is very hard to dismiss as a singer. How could he not mean it? His combo of naivete and relentlessness is too annoying to fake, and too winning to be annoyed by.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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