Mo Troper has announced a new album, Svengali, which will be out May 3 via Lame-O Records. This is his sixth long-player of original material and follows last year’s album of Jon Brion covers.
The first single from Svengali is “Billy Joel Fanclub,” which might be the only love song to ever reference Joel’s The Nylon Curtain epic “Goodnight Saigon.” Says Mo, “When I was a kid I was literally forbidden from talking about the Beatles at the dinner table. I could only listen to music in the basement or through headphones. As a result I feel a lot of shame whenever my enthusiasm for anything is apparent. I apologize constantly for being excited about things. ‘The Billy Joel Fan Club’ is about falling in love with someone who shares your specific interests and nurtures your enthusiasm. It is a true story, about someone who founded and asked me to participate in something called The Billy Joel Fan Club. To bring it full circle, I tried to make it sound exactly like a Paul McCartney song from 1967.”
The video for the song takes things to Hollywood Blvd and weirder fantasy territory. Watch that below.
SVENGALI:
1. Bleach
2. The Billy Joel Fan Club
3. Too Far Gone (Chainman’s Theme)
4. Spark World
5. You Always Loved Me
6. The Face of Kindness
7. You Called Me Your Baby
8. For You To Sing
9. A Piece of You Broken Through My Heart
10. Recipe For Loving
11. Good Hair
12. Before I Went Bad
13. Push Around