Brett Dennen

One Liner: Gentle ginger with some chilled tuneage

Poster Position: 12

Thoughts: A friend of mine loves this dude, for reasons I've never quite understood, because otherwise that guy loves rap, rap, and more rap.  I've got nothing against this brand of laid back indie folky rock stuff, but my buddy's devotion is a little odd.  Based on his rec, I went and listened to the 2008 disc Hope for the Hopeless a few years ago and liked it well enough.  Kind of Jason Mraz or Jack Johnson style stuff.  But the two older albums definitely weren't doing it for me.  I forgot about Dennen and moved on to other tunes, but now, listening to his new album, he's actually pretty solid. That new disc, 2016's Por Favor, has a old school Paul Simon flavor that I like quite a bit.  The most popular track from that album also throws a little Dead vibe on there in my ears, and its pretty good. "Cassidy" has just under a million streams on Spotify.

Just kind of sounds like a jaunty stroll down the beach with your girl on your arm.  Sweet little love song.  The more I listen to this album, the more I like it a lot.  "Where We Left Off" is a beauty, and "Bonfire" is a good one as well.  This is a good album of relaxed tunes. I'm actually going to save it to listen to more after this ACL fest is over.
Dennen's 2013 album, Smoke and Mirrors, is a little more slickly produced and I don't enjoy it quite as much.  His most popular track is from 2006's So Much More, and is called "Ain't No Reason," which has racked up 22.1 million listens.

So earnest.  Like a modern "We Didn't Start the Fire" with just true pronouncements and observations about how crappy we all are because we don't take care of everyone else.  WAY TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD, BRETT!  Sounds like Ben Harper here to me.

For some reason, I guess it is the pictures on his album covers, I thought he was going to be one of those dudes who released his first album when he was 12 or something, but no, his first one came out in 2004 when he was apparently 24 or 25.  He still looks pretty dang young in photos.  Before his two most recent albums, he's got a Definitive Collection album from 2013 - the Greatest Hits album is not dead! - but after listening to that, 2011's Loverboy, 2008's Hope for the Hopeless, and 2005's Brett Dennen, I can very easily say that his new album is significantly superior to those older tracks.  They aren't bad by any means, just more soft-spoken folky music that I'm never really drawn to.  I doubt I'll go see him, but I bet if I did it would be a pleasant way to spend an hour.