What the Brokenhearted Do pains the fall of a fictional man, a man who finds that the life he led wasn’t where it’s at after all, as his sleepless nights meet his wake-less days. It’s a breakup album for a non-existent relationship, a set of nostalgia and love for something that never actually was.
The record finds the perfect balance between theatre and comedy. Ironically, by trying to be something as formulaic as a break-up album, wherefrom the outset we understand that everything is fake, there is actually newfound trueness. It’s a concept album, but where the concept is not an imaginary band or a moon-based hotel, but something that we have all lived through to some degree. It’s about goodbyes and broken hearts, the end of an era and the closing of a door, a matter of fact and a time in a life which we can all find somewhere in our own experience.Â
Just because it’s fictional doesn’t mean that it should be written off, as I’ve seen some mainstream reviews have, this is one of the few chances for the regular person, what Americans would call the ‘average Joe’, to recognise that comedians are not there just to make you laugh, they are artists too, able to create in multiple mediums as any other. Heidecker has surprised some here but not me, he has always been something more than a funny guy and this is a testament to that.
FYI: Jonathan Rado’s mix yet again shows that he is, in fact, a frizzy-haired knob goblin, a king of the pots and a master behind the decks. At this point, he only needs to kill his future wife now to surmount Phil Spector in my producer rankings…
Haiku Review
Pitchfork knows shit all,
This is a concept for us,
To attach ourselves.
Listen to Tim Heidecker on Spotify and Apple Music.
