Kurt Hagardorn, Ten Singles (Bladen County Records)

[August 22nd, 2007]

[ROOTS POP] You’d be forgiven for mistaking Kurt Hagardorn’s Ten Singles for a broadcast block from a radio station called LITE FM or a mail-order collection of forgotten ’70s pop hits. The singer/songwriter, a Portland transplant from Chapel Hill, N.C., clearly has a deep affection for the era (along with the usual Beatles/Beach Boys influence).

Lucky for us, Hagardorn smoothly incorporates the sounds of his throwback idols into something all his own on Ten Singles , an album that took him six years to write and record after the demise of his indie-rock outfit, Gumption. Six years well spent, as the songwriter makes the whole thing sound pretty effortless.

The first track, “International Travel Advisory,” finds Hagardorn fighting the temptation to open with one of his hallmark blasts from the past. Instead, he meshes Wings-era McCartney with the nerd-synth travel-rock of the Rentals’ second album (complete with a Casiotone drum breakdown). But his love for Sunday-morning country quickly prevails on “You Are My Girl,” a pedal-steel- and twang-powered love song that any trucker would be stoked to tune in to on a barren stretch of road.

Some of Hagardorn’s best numbers are also his twangiest. His band (which includes Portastatic bassist Matt Brandau and prolific Portland studio drummer Ned Failing) is even able to pinpoint the sound of particular songs—Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” or Harry Nilsson’s take on “Everybody’s Talkin’,” for example—and attach their emotional residue to Hagardorn’s own (usually worthy) compositions.

But the Southern-raised songwriter dabbles into other genres as frequently as country: psychedelic rock, power-pop and an occasional distorted garage cut. His vocals’ subdued calm and the album’s instrumental playfulness give Hagardorn’s true identity away every time, though: He’s a country kid who found Cheap Trick and Big Star (in that order) somewhere along the line. And it’s the acoustic tracks that you’ll be humming for days.

Most of Ten Singles is inherently easy (I find myself listening to it two or three times without really noticing the repeat), and its lyrical themes usually follow standard boy meets/loves/loses girl conventions. But such are the conventions of pop music: It’s the tunes, not the words, that’ll haunt you. So when Hagardorn manages to slip in some existentialism for dummies (“Yesterday’s over and tomorrow’s never begun”) and unnecessary profanity (“The shit don’t get no better”) along the way, it’s just a bonus.