Pete Yorn

Oh, the red flags raised against Pete Yorn’s debut disc: The pretentiously bundled, lowercase title. The Walt Whitman quote in the liner notes. Yorn’s physical resemblance to the male lead in that Melissa Joan Hart movie with the Britney Spears song. His vocal resemblance at first blush to Eddie Vedder. The shitty album cover. The artsy, yet chick-filled Sam Bayer video. The fact that Columbia initially pushed Yorn by offering musicforthemorningafter as a $9.99 disc, a relative freebie. It was easy to smell a rat.

Now, of course, “Life on a Chain” is busting out all over radio. And in that context, among the summery dross, it’s the most convincing, memorable thing to fly out of car speakers all year. On the album, “Life on a Chain” is quickly forgotten, a hooky, urgent song buried by the next thirteen, many of which are ponderous by comparison. The album doesn’t really pick up again until halfway through its 54 minutes, and when it does, with “Murray,” Yorn is at his absolute Vedderiest. But if anything, it’s that second half that makes the case for music… as 2001’s most satisfying big-label rock album. The songs, arranged simply and played by more musicians than are evident in the mix, rarely stand out the first time through, but almost every chorus has a sticky aftertaste that lingers. You play the album, decide it’s just alright, play it again, then keep it in the player all day, trying to make sense of how something so familiar can be suddenly necessary.