Randy Newman – ‘Little Criminals’
A heightist rant, a love letter penned by The Vampire of Düsseldorf, and a perverted physicist: all of this and more is contained in the hilarious Randy Newman masterpiece, Little Criminals. The Dean of Satire stays out of these stories, a mere bystander to the words that cascade from his mouth in a distinctive drawl, as an array of deluded bastards, downbeat mourners, and overly eager grooms are given the spotlight and Newman adopts the role of their trusty conduit behind the piano.
Little Criminals is an assortment of little stories all penned by their own little authors, and none of them are to be trusted. They are, however, to be taken seriously. After all, this is empathy exemplified. One of the key issues with humanity is that we assume everyone thinks like us, or at least in a manner adjacent to how we think, just versions of ourselves either gone awry or, in the rare instance, idealised. However, you can’t really sidestep into the mindset of a man who races around clamping down on people’s collars. So, it is best to simply get the story straight from the vampire’s mouth.
Newman does this magnificently, showcasing how music can move beyond the novel when it comes to postmodernism. His arrangements offer a more textured approach to nuance than tricks of prose can offer. Take the opening track, ‘Short People‘, for instance: its perfect pop chords and simplicity are indicative of the shallowness of misanthropy. It’s a ludicrous pairing that, in turn, highlights the insanity of prejudice.
“Why should songwriters have to work under strictures that short story writers don’t have to work under?“ Newman asked in the press release. “Why do you always have to write about yourself?“ Well, he’s liberated from that notion with this work of comic brilliance. He makes use of pop’s formulaic structure to turn his stories into set three-minute vignettes where the brooding music provides the depth of great prose.
With its billowing sense of atmosphere, ‘In Germany Before the War’ is a self-contained movie with dissonant chords and Prokofiev instrumentation serving as screenplay direction. ‘Rider in the Rain’ mocks the zeitgeist’s Eagles-like penchant to view the old-time ideals of America with romanticism by cleverly revealing the realities of the bloody, lawless times thanks to the tale of the daftest little cowboy who ever blindly besieged the land.
Pop songs can be platitudinal, but Newman is never commonplace once on Little Criminals. In fact, his short story styling is so refreshing that the musicology barely gets the credit it deserves. So seamless are the scores he lays over the twisted words of his off-kilter protagonists that they go unnoticed in some ways, like acting at its best when you forget the person on the screen was recently on the cover of a magazine.
Hits? Even the melodies that could be deemed commercial are so willing to be misunderstood that they’ve never been fit for widespread consumption. But the beauty of the album comes from the boldness of Newman’s ability to bravely pronounce the words of the characters he has created – misguided folks who walk among us, making life a crock of shit, but for a moment, we can be glad of that because at least the big fat joke of humanity serves up punchlines like Little Criminals.
