Record Collection
2004
The Handler
About This Album
It's more than a little surprising that Sean Tillman has been able to make a three-album career out of Har Mar Superstar. While his randy send-up of urban music doesn't quite reach code-red, Weird Al levels of jokiness, Tillman's music and shtick (wow, a chubby white guy singing about sex!) always come closer to novelty music than sultry R&B. Not that it needs to be genuine -- at his best, Har Mar Superstar is sincerely fake. Har Mar Superstar played the irony of the contrast between Tillman's look and sound to the hilt, and You Can Feel Me added major-label bling to the mix; while both albums had more than a few fun moments, they weren't exactly consistent. On Har Mar's third album, The Handler, the fun moments are fewer, and the disappointments more frequent; there's nothing as clever as "Power Lunch" or as gleeful as "EZ Pass" here. Throughout the album, Tillman sounds less confident than he ever has before, deploying backing vocalists to underscore affirmations like "Har Mar is so sexy!" and shout "woo!" on "Transit" and "Body Request" to remind everyone (including himself) of how much fun we're supposed to be having.
Track List (try tracks 3,4,5,6 and 7)

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