Travis: After a long, unplanned absence, Travis and Tyler are back to discuss another album. Sometimes, we discuss something that’s a favorite for one or the other of us, and sometimes we discuss something entirely new to us, and sometimes, well, sometimes we wing it on something we’re kinda maybe possibly familiar with if only in a slight way. Tonight, that album is Heart Shaped World by rockabilly/early rock and roll revivalist Chris Isaak. Heart Shaped World is Isaak’s third album, and it propelled him into stardom on the back of the hit single “Wicked Game,” which was featured in David Lynch’s Wild At Heart and also became a big MTV hit due to its very sexy video costarring Isaak and supermodel Helena Christensen being beautiful and horny together on a beach. Obviously “Wicked Game” is fucking awesome, and anyone who would disagree is an unfun poopypants. The rest of the album? Let’s discuss.
Tyler: Let’s do. One way or another, I think this bad boy gets off to a fine start with the title track. “Heart Shaped World” has swagger, it’s mesmerizing and even swings. And, that Isaak fella can croon and belt in equal measure. We’ve got a few twists and turns to come, but I’m a fan of how we’ve begun.
Travis: Agreed on the opener. It sets the Elvis/Roy Orbison tone, has some nice spy-movie (or maybe spaghetti western?) guitar licks, a nice key and tempo change at the end. “I’m Not Waiting” follows in the same vein. As I was listening I was thinking about how a lot of this would be tabbed “alt-country” nowadays because it has a little twang, but feels like good old rock and roll and vintage pop to me.
Tyler: It really does. You said it yourself, this album at its most “country” is rockabilly, and lots of early rock and roll was as well. Not just the rock, but the roll. We’ve got an outlier or two here—“In The Heat Of The Jungle,” hello—but yeah, this is largely a revivalist celebration.
Travis: After a number of listens, I like a good portion of the album. I wish some of the rockers, like “Don’t Make Me Dream About You,” had a little bit rawer production. On that and a few other of the uptempo songs, the guitar work is nice but it also sounds too perfect in a way. Reminds me of the review I read of the New Pornographers’ second album that, in describing how polished it was, said it sounded like Neko Case had never pooped.
I think that crisp production works much better for the ballads, though, like “Wicked Game” obviously and “Kings of the Highway” and “Blue Spanish Sky.”
Tyler: I was a bit surprised that things are as palatable as they are on the production end. “Wicked Game” sounds great, but a lot of good singles were broken off of subpar too-sheeny albums from this period, the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. This album has sheen, and it’d likely be a more rollicking listen with less polish. As it stands, I was kinda relieved the first time through.
Travis: Sheen is a good word. I don’t think it goes TOO far in that direction, I mean the drums don’t sound like they’re triggered by drum pads or anything like that, I’d just like a little more snarl on the guitars on a song like “Wrong to Love You” which is good but is probably better in a live setting.
Tyler: Yeah, songs like that are just a little too note-perfect. They could be heavier, in a good way.
Travis: To me the album has one real honest-to-god dud, and that is “In the Heat of the Jungle.” It is in the tradition of early rock and rollers to have some sort of borderline-offensive ooga-booga schtick song, but I don’t like them from the originals and really don’t like Isaak’s here. My other skip on the album is “Diddley Daddy.” It’s a typical album-ending cover: fine, nothing wrong with it, adds nothing.
Tyler: Yeah, “Heat of the Jungle” is rough. “Borderline-offensive” is being generous. I like “Diddley Daddy” in that it’s silly, it’s got those Orbison back-up singers, and it gives Isaak opportunity to rip it up a bit vocally. Much to my chagrin, I was unaware that it’s a cover.
Travis: It’s a Bo Diddley song, I think the Rolling Stones have covered it too, probably others. And yeah, the less said about “Heat of the Jungle” the better.
Overall if I were to give the album a grade, it’d be a B, maybe B+ if I was feeling generous. I really think it’s important to spend some time on the album’s highlight and centerpiece beyond the mentions from the intro. “Wicked Game” is a first-ballot hall-of-famer, a well-deserved hit that feels both retro and completely timeless, sexy and sad, and features one hell of a vocal performance.
Tyler: I absolutely had a good time with this one. We could’ve chosen far, far worse for an album to experience over an extended pause. “Wicked Game,” indeed, is the peak. It’s gorgeous.
Travis: I saw this band called Widowspeak, who is sort of a shoegaze-Americana indie rock band with a female vocalist, a while back and they covered “Wicked Game.” She couldn’t hit the high notes as well as Chris Isaak does.
Tyler: He crushes it.
Travis: Another note on “Wicked Game.” That distinctive guitar lick was composed by Isaak’s lead guitarist at the time, James Calvin Wilsey, who was known for his distinct slow and evocative guitar style. He was replaced in Isaak’s backing band, Silvertone, after the album following this one, likely due to his drug habits making him unreliable. He has sadly passed away since then.
Tyler: That’s a damn shame. That lick is immortal. You hear those first one or two notes and “Wicked Game” has you.
Also, yep, what a video.
Travis: It’s crazy to think back to how much a video could make or break a hit song at that time (1990ish).
Tyler: Yeah, I don’t think “Wicked Game” becomes the behemoth it did without the video.
I had fun with this album. We could’ve done a whole lot worse for records to experience over an extended break. There was no dread when I queued it up.
Travis: In the early 2000s, Chris Isaak starred as “himself” in a strange Showtime sitcom called, you guessed it The Chris Isaak Show. In it, he is portrayed as awkward, klutzy, and kind of bumbling with women. I’m guessing, at least somewhat based on the “Wicked Game” video, that the real Chris Isaak was less bumbling with women.
The show is worth a watch if you can find it. It’s sort of a romantic comedy as there is a will-they-won’t-they thing with his manager. His band, for the most part, plays themselves, and his guitar player at that time is a pretty natural comic actor.
The Chris Isaak character also asks the advice of a woman who portrays a mermaid at the club where they hang out.
Sort of like a topless, beautiful version of Wilson from Home Improvement.
Tyler: This sounds like a masterpiece.
Travis: A formula that works.
I’ve poked around the Chris Isaak catalog a bit, but the only album I’ve really taken in before our exercise on Heart Shaped World is Forever Blue. It’s the album two after this one (his fifth) and opens with “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing,” which people our age might remember as soundtracking the very naughty red-band trailer for Eyes Wide Shut. But it and the album are really good–it’s a breakup album, so there’s a little more fire to it than Heart Shaped World. I’d recommend anyone who likes anything Isaak has done giving it a listen.
Tyler: It does appear that he’s taken a bit of a sabbatical from recorded originals, as his last pair of full-length releases are Christmas albums.
Travis: Good for him. Hopefully he tours and does what he wants and gets some sweet “Wicked Game” residuals.
Tyler: Hear hear.
Writers' Loom 