Big Bad Beautiful Dreams

AMG Review of Big Bad Beautiful Dreams

Stewart Mason
All Music Guide

Perhaps sick of constantly getting confused with the guy who played bass for Guided by Voices and wrote for Spin magazine, Bay Area singer/songwriter Jim Greer has at least temporarily stopped releasing albums under his own name in favor of the nom de four-track Diamond Jim. Aside from the change in nomenclature, Big Bad Beautiful Dreams isn't much different from Greer's previous work. As a songwriter, Greer is surprisingly comfortable at a midpoint between lo-fi confessional singer/songwriterism and a more atmospheric, keyboard-based brand of electronic dream pop, as if Elliott Smith had lived to collaborate with Stereolab. One might not expect such seemingly divergent styles to work so well together, but Big Bad Beautiful Dreams has a surprisingly elegant shape to it as a whole, and the electronic and acoustic aspects of the arrangements mesh perfectly. With its Big Star-like harmonies by Herman Jolly (like Greer, one-third of a loosely affiliated collective called the Bedroom Trio), "Broke a Lover" is a brief but gorgeous evocation of vintage '70s power pop, while the trio of quirky instrumentals (one of which, "Wash It Out," is a live quasi-funk workout) provide pleasing textural contrasts between stark piano allads like "Save Me" and more elaborate and electronic tunes like the hazy, downtempo "Under a Half Moon." Throughout, it's Greer's personal lyrics and direct vocal style that hold the album together.