Release Date:
Tuesday, July 18, 2000
Artist:
The John Doe Thing
It’s frightening to think that most 15-year-olds know John Doe only as the father on the WB’s X-Files-meets-Dawson’s Creek melodrama, Roswell. Of course, their parents might recognize Doe from the time he spent fronting the artsy, angry, trash-punk pioneers X, with his then-wife Exene Cervenka. In the early ‘80s, Doe brought both melody and an occasional country twang to punk, a mix that would be imitated ad nauseum in the two decades that followed. Freedom Is…, his third solo album, is a surprisingly straightforward affair that hones in on the pop side of Doe’s musical personality. Perhaps he’s getting a little long in the tooth—this batch of earnest ballads and mid-tempo rockers lacks the sleazy aesthetic that informed X’s best stuff. Thankfully, the songs are usually good enough to survive without it.