Darko the Super got a lot of critical acclaim for his album Great White Buffalo, and behind the verses in the record were samples from the one and only Dean Friedman, whose influence is unquestionably felt on every part of the tracklist. In tribute to Friedman’s legacy, a new compilation of his greatest hits (and the 20 songs featured as samples in DTS’s aforementioned LP) is out now in the form of The Dean and I, and it’s enough to get longtime fans and newcomers to the discography equally excited this winter. While Friedman is one of the unique indie songwriters of his era, he feels just as relevant in the revisited “Hi-Rise Romance,” “The Deli Song (Corned Beef on Wry),” “Special Effects” and “McDonald’s Girl” as he did back in the day.
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Where whimsy and emotional hesitancy contrast with one another in “You’re Such a Flirt,” “The Kite Song,” and “Nookie in the Mail,” it’s easy to see where this player found a much simpler formula with “Buy My Baby a Car” and “Wind Blows, The,” ironically released at conflicting points in his career. Friedman’s style was always on the experimental side, and you could make the argument that his blunt taste in surrealism (i.e. “Little Green Lady”) was far ahead of its time when taking into consideration how postmodern a lot of contemporary pop/rock has become. There are shades of an unknown future lost between the verses here, and yet it doesn’t take a whole lot of diffing to find it.
The Dean and I, by Dean Friedman
The Dean and I by Dean Friedman, released 24 January 2022 1. You're Such a Flirt 2. Lucky Stars 3. Wind Blows, The 4. Little Green Lady 5. First Date 6. Buy My Baby a Car 7. Nookie in the Mail 8. Special Effects 9. The Kite Song 10.
“Sentimental Fool,” “How Does This Story End,” and “Yo-Yo” aged especially well in my opinion, and their instrumental opulence is made all the stronger by the charisma Friedman affords these tracks through little more than his presence. He’s got a way about him that makes it rather curious why he never blew up any bigger than he did, with songs like “100%” and “Let Down Your Hair” suggesting proto-alternative rock themes that would become a standard in pop music not even fifteen years later. Retrospection can bring forth a lot of new revelations in the right circumstance, and I think that’s one of the great lessons revealed in The Dean and I. Darko the Super deserves immense praise for spotlighting this criminally underrated gem of a singer and songwriter, particularly given the aesthetics of modern pop in 2022.
Darko the Super
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Whether it be the affirming lyrical presence of “Rocking Chair (It’s Gonna Be All Right),” the warmth of “Are You Ready Yet,” or the more deliberate tones of “Don’t You Ever Dare” or even “The Kite Song,” The Dean and I gives any listener well over twenty different reasons to believe in Mr. Dean Friedman. His legacy has never gotten as bright a shine as it’s enjoying in this collection of what I would call his most definitive identity songs, and although the performances were recorded more than a generation ago, they sound as though they’ve been waiting in a time capsule to be released unto a more appropriate chapter in history.
Clay Burton