Jonny Polonsky - There Is Something Wrong With You
(Eggbert)

The Chunky Soup slogan is, or at least was, "The soup that eats like a meal," right? The implication is that a bowl of soup shouldn’t be enough to satisfy hungry little you, yet in the case of Chunky, it does. As midwestern pop wonder kid Johnny Polonsky puts forth his second release, a song cyle that’s over way too quickly yet proves more filling than most 75-minute discs, the analogy seems to work.

Most wouldn’t consider six songs clocking in at less than 16 minutes to be a full-length release. Hell, you could listen to this entire record twice in the time it takes to play The Allman Brothers’ "Mountain Jam," and you’d still have time leftover to take a quick piss. But much like his 1996 American Recordings debut Hi My Name Is Jonny—a mini masterpiece that took a full 24 minutes for its 10 tunes—this record is, as John Wesley Harding said of the debut, "exactly as long as it should be." Anyway, enough dwelling on this guy’s penchant for rock and roll brevity; fact is, he does what he needs to do in a very short amount of time without skimping on anything, and as the Colonel told Elvis to do, he always leaves you wanting more.

Polonsky’s guitar-driven rock songs with traditional pop structures and a sonic blueprint lifted from the Nirvana/Pixies school still sound powerful and fresh. "Long Gone" is a manic two-minute blast of fury that would sound like Hüsker Dü if that band had ever made a well-produced record. Woulda fit in perfectly on a Sugar record. This guy can even bust a ballad; "You Are My Star" avoids triteness, retaining full integrity while also being the kind of song you could play for your mother.

Pop thrills like these aren’t easy to come by. Let’s hope Jonny’s got a stockpile of songs to grace us with in the years to come. He’s a great guy to be a fan of. Besides, when they finally make the boxed set, the whole thing will fit on one disc. address: www.eggbert.com

YEAH YEAH YEAH, 2001