Beef Gordon – American Paranoid
Beef Gordon. stage name and musical alter ego of Rochester native and former Buffalo Sex Change frontman Phil Pierce, has just released the follow up to his 2019 debut Queen Shade & Etc. The album is American Paranoid, and it conceptualizes a dive into the conspiratorial sides of American culture from the lens of Beef himself, taking aim at hot topics like politics, aliens, super stardom, and gluten. Pierce’s satirical brand of art pop won’t be lost on fans of artists like Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Father John Misty, and Deee-Lite; it borders on shtick but Gordon is careful to preserve the sanctity of his craft. Either way, it’s fun and it works. American Paranoid is our Album of the Week.
Normally, it would be challenging to avoid using “Pierce” and “Gordon” interchangeably, a move that might reduce Beef Gordon to mere costume. But that’s not the case here. Beef is all his own; armed without much more than a keyboard and his wit, Pierce fully leans into the Beef Gordon persona like a form of musical method acting. The result is a thoroughly self-vetted and inventive artist whose “authentic self” really shines through on his sophomore effort. It feels honest in an absurd kind of way.
This time around, Beef has enlisted Nick Hotto to contribute jazzy saxophone riffs to his stripped-down new wave compositions. The sax turns out to be the ultimate complement to the Beef brand, enhancing the satire and adding a certain degree of sex appeal to the tracks. “Pop Star” is a good example–Hotto’s expressive use of the horn throughout the track listens like an inner dialogue as Gordon self-examines: “Maybe I’ll be a pop star! Then I can learn how to comb my hair and… learn what clothes to wear.”
Gordon continues to croon his way through the issues on the rest of the album, tongue in cheek, touching on the futility of one’s civic duty (“Don’t Vote”), processed foods (“Wheat is Poison (in the USA)”), and the prospect of extraterrestrial invasion (“Project Blue Beam”). With the addition of the sax and some acoustic guitar, American Paranoid is decidedly more analog than Beef’s 2019 debut while still yielding to his signature Casioesque minimalism. It’s a winning new formula that really lends itself to the concept of Beef Gordon as his own artist–a passionate, comically ill-informed entertainer with a bone to pick.
American Paranoid is now streaming on all major platforms and is self-released. Get yourself a copy on vinyl here.
Categorised in: Album of the Week
This post was written by Ronald Walczyk