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Now that Fountains of Wayne has found some long-deserved commercial success, I hope that Ivy isn't relegated to the status of Adam Schlesinger's "other" band. Ivy -- Schlesinger, Andy Chase and Parisian-born vocalist Dominique Durand -- released their full-length debut, Realistic, one year before FoW put out theirs. Two years later, they signed to a major label and released this follow-up. An exponential leap over the somewhat tentative debut, Apartment Life already sounds like a lost classic. I impulsively purchased it from a used bin a few years back, thinking I hadn't heard anything from it -- that is, until I recognized one track ("This Is the Day") from the There's Something About Mary soundtrack, another ("I've Got A Feeling") from Orange County, and a few I'd heard while browsing at The Gap.
This bright, sometimes bittersweet collection now seems like part of the mid-to-late '90s lounge-pop movement, along with Saint Etienne's Good Humor and The Cardigans' First Band On The Moon. However, despite Durand's distinctive vocal style (like Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg crossed with The Breeders' Kim and Kelley Deal), there's something particularly American about this album. Its three-minute pop songs capture the ennui of living in New York City (where Ivy is based), enduring the mendacity of day-to-day living with desire and dreams of occasionally, if only temporarily, breaking free. I can't think of a better introduction to this trio than the album's opener, "The Best Thing". As crisply strummed acoustics and three-chord keyboard lines give way to loud, crunching guitars in the chorus, Durand sings of a young, newly liberated protagonist on the verge of discovering a world she never knew existed ("She's driving fast / she took the family car / she's getting high / she's never seen so far").
The album continues with one ringing, joyous, sun-soaked song after another. "I've Got A Feeling" optimistically yearns for a new love. With a swing in its step and an arsenal of jazzy horns, "This Is The Day" grasps a rare opportunity with urgency and ecstasy (listen to how playfully Durand precedes the song's chorus with the line, "she's never coming back"). The electric bossa nova of "I Get The Message" has an acquiescent chorus that's as simple and compelling as the best ABBA ("I don't know what to do / whether I leave or stay with you / I get the message either way"). Like "The Best Thing", the glorious "Get Out of The City" cascades past in a rush of crystalline hooks and blissful, colorful observations such as, "All the windows down / take a look around / everything is melting in the sun / nothing's getting done."
If the album's upbeat, outgoing tracks instantly grab you, its more somber, reflective ones sink in over time, making Apartment Life one of those rare beauties that never sounds dated or tired. The calmer, quietly glistening "Never Do That Again" opens with a couplet that marks a graceful shift from the previous tracks' giddiness: "The cat's on the carpet / the phone doesn't work / I hate when it's quiet / it means that you hurt." "Baker" makes a Bacharach-ian trumpet and violin sound fresh, adequately complementing the track's elegant character sketch of loneliness. In contrast, the loud, fuzzed-toned dream pop of "You Don't Know Anything" sounds like the band Garbage was always trying to be, as Durand dismisses a former lover with a surprising (if still subdued) venom. Very few bands could sell a song with a title and chorus of "Ba Ba Ba", but Ivy do it well, starting off all gentle like the Velvet Underground's "Stephanie Says", then gradually morphing into a feedback-heavy drone nearly worthy of White Light/White Heat.
The escape plotted in "Get Out of The City" has consequences, made apparent in the moodier three tracks that follow. "These Are The Things About You" coats pensive, suspicious thoughts in an easygoing, laid back sheen. Desperation starts to mount in the vaguely menacing, fabulously titled "Quick, Painless and Easy", but that's only a prelude to the exquisite closer, "Back In Our Town". Like a sobering, down-to-earth counterpart to Apartment Life's more carefree moments, it signs off with a series of overlapping vocals, including some by Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, whose voice blends in perfectly with Durand's. As she plainly, repeatedly, devastatingly sings "Everything is all right", her words linger long after the song fades.
I've listened to this album alone in my apartment on a rainy afternoon, at three in the morning while wrestling with insomnia, and while peacefully strolling along the Sunset Cliffs at San Diego's shore. I mention these memories because they are forever linked to Apartment Life. The album's themes are common, their execution brilliant, their resonance very deep, whatever the setting or situation. Since then, Ivy has released Long Distance (2001), a far less consistent set that nonetheless contains their greatest song, the lush, lulling "Edge of The Ocean", and Guestroom (2002), a cute collection of covers. But even if they never record their own "Stacy's Mom" or are forever thought of as someone's side project, Ivy have already made a near-perfect record that's going to be awfully hard to top.
One caveat: Sony 550 reissued this album in 1998 with a different cover and remixed versions of a few tracks. Chase re-reissued the album on his own label, Unfiltered, in 2003, so look for the cover art shown above.
-- Chris Kriofske
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