Have some cheese with that whine

The Austin Sessions

Edwin McCain

ATC Records

In the…

The Austin Sessions

Edwin McCain

ATC Records

In the last decade, Edwin McCain has become a moderate sensation, writing and singing well-intentioned and harmless pop songs under the guise of a folk-rocker who travels America in a Miata, not an empty train car.

His biggest hits – 1997’s “I’ll Be” and 1999’s “I Could Not Ask For More” – have succeeded with a sandpapered romanticism that listeners seem to find fresh. On The Austin Sessions, McCain holds onto his formula for dear life with 12 mostly acoustic songs accompanied by a smooth jazz saxophone on topics of a) women who have gone, b) alcohol that has been drunk, and c) women who have gone.

Like the romantic comedy of music, even the dirty moments of his songs seem freshly mopped (“The good, the bad, the happy and the sad/ Her perfections, her every little flaw/ I want it all, I want it all.”), and occasions of wit (“dark like a Kennedy’s veil”) are decreased, not enhanced, by his singing style.

Nowhere is this more evident than on a cover of “Romeo and Juliet,” the Dire Straits’ song, that is rendered illegitimate by 7 1/2 minutes of flat lined whining – no up or downs or un-manufactured emotions. It’s representative of the fact that, even with another’s material, McCain cannot lift a song to something memorable and lasting. He’s not bad at anything he does, he’s just so damn plain.

Claiming an Austin pedigree and covering Dire Straits doesn’t change the fact that McCain – like his friends Hootie and the Blowfish – is a pop singer. Underneath the jangly guitars are standard pop-melodies and the raspy voice doesn’t add the hurt-personality it strives to. McCain’s scored top 40 hits with Dianne Warren songs, but other singers who fit that category are LeAnn Rimes, Celine Dion, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. McCain is country-folk for people who buy torn jeans to look weathered.