Van Hunt: "What Were You Hoping For?"

I was telling a friend earlier today that, when I first heard Van Hunt’s “Dust,” off his self-titled debut album, it signaled a sea change in music for me.  Here was someone who was using all the elements hitherto explored in the worlds of R&B, rock, and pop, and yet there was an immediate, audible difference in Van Hunt’s material.  Unlike other artists examining the music of the past, he wasn’t doing so in an isolated, deliberately retro sense.  He was contemporary and vibrantly so, with all the psychedelic flair of the Beatles and Hendrix, but in a strictly post-millennial framework.  Everybody instantly wanted to draw comparisons to Prince, but that wasn’t quite correct either.  While both artists were certainly genre-defying, Hunt had an edgier, bleaker outlook that was as honest as it was uncompromising.  Tracks like the aforementioned “Dust” and “Out Of The Sky” were among the funkiest things released in their DECADE; this cat was poised for something big.

A couple of years later came the On The Jungle Floor record, which should have made Van Hunt a superstar.  Radio-ready singles like “If I Take You Home” and “Hot Stage Lights” came bursting out of the gates, while tender ballads like “Daredevil, Baby” and “Mean Sleep” showed that Hunt could pen a beautiful melodic line with the best of them.  Still, I have to confess to the fact that, while I liked this album, after the initial excitement wore off, it didn’t have the staying power of its predecessor, nor did it contain such a unifying, powerful, rugged and raw emotional core.

Regardless of whether or not I was as enamored with Jungle as I was with the debut, I continued to remain excited about Hunt’s subsequent work.  For a time, it seemed that the controversial Popular, the follow-up to Jungle, was prepped for a legitimate release.  Then, slowly but inexorably, rumors began circulating online that Blue Note, the label set to carry and promote Popular, was having “creative differences” with Hunt.  Initial promo EP’s and full-length promo copies were sent to radio stations, and then, out of nowhere, BAM!!  The plug was pulled.  Popular was stillborn, and while all the tracks from the album eventually made their way to the internet, the damage was done.  Hunt was understandably pissed, and seemed to beat a hasty retreat from the spotlight in lieu of what had occurred.

Which, in a rather circuitous fashion, brings us to the release of “What Were You Hoping For?”  After reading the above paragraphs, I’m sure you know that I was awaiting this with baited breath.  It’s hard to dig a musician so much, only to get to the point where you must at least contemplate the possibility that you may never hear anything from them again.  So, in light of all of this, does Van Hunt’s long-awaited, brand-new, official, oft-discussed, third (fourth?) album live up to the hype?  The answer, dear friends, is an emphatic and unequivocal YES.  In fact, Hunt is bolder and more experimental here than he has ever been before, taking risks and chances that pay off in dividends throughout the record.  I can’t think of anyone, in ANY musical era, who has sounded like this.  This is Prince, Jimi, Beatles, Stones, Clash, Bad Brains, Pink Floyd, Badu, Maxwell, D’Angelo and a million others all rolled up into one, but, most importantly, it remains distinctly VAN HUNT.  From the opening crunch of “North Hollywood” to the closing strains of “Mysterious Hustle,” this music exists purely on its own terms, and in its own stratosphere, with many exhilarating twists and turns along the way.  “Watching You Go Crazy Is Driving Me Insane” is straight-up punk rock, the gnarliest and grimiest thing in Hunt’s oeuvre.  “Designer Jeans” and “Plum” are practically genres unto themselves; awash in lust and psychedelia and full of alien melodic changes that only Hunt could write.  “Falls (Violet)” and “Moving Targets” show that Van still exceeds at writing achy, heartbroken ballads.  “Eyes Like Pearls” is the most straightforward thing here, no coincidence then that it was issued as the album’s leadoff single.  It’s a stomping, almost Zeppelin-esque romp that is beyond joyous to listen to and revel in; it makes me remember everything that I’ve always dug about Hunt while still propelling his song-craft into the future.  It also keeps the listener’s attention focused on the second half of the record, which is magnetically fascinating in how esoteric it is.  “A Time Machine Is My New Girlfriend” continues in the punk vein of “Watching You Go Crazy…,” though its central message is more tongue-in-cheek, and less despairing.  The title track and “Cross Dresser” are out-of-left-field treasures, and when “It’s A Mysterious Hustle” finally ends the whirlwind ride, one is left to ponder what it is that has just happened for the last hour.  The simple solution to that quandary?  Play the shit again!!!!

When Van sings, “it’s a mysterious hustle/you got to figure out this hustle/to overcome/the place where you come from,” it serves as a metaphor for his entire career up to this point.  He’s letting all of us know with this album that he is back, in no uncertain terms, and he is again ready to challenge our preconceived notions of what music is and can be.  Even more significantly, it seems that he is gradually coming to terms with all the people he has been and is continuing to evolve into.  Thus, What Were You Hoping For? isn’t just groundbreaking…it’s revolutionary.