Tony Lucca – Come Around Again (Lucca Music, 2008)
purchase this album (CD Baby)

Like a lot of white suburban teens, I spent a good portion of the early ’90s in a state of wild-eyed musical confusion, huddling in the corner with my Van Halen and Billy Joel CDs while scary, pissed-off dudes like Kurt Cobain and Ice Cube yelled at me over a chorus of screeching Corgans. Those were dark, troubled times — years when I’m fairly certain I must have wondered on at least one occasion why more acts couldn’t sound like Toad the Wet Sprocket.

That was a long time ago, and I have long since ceased to pray for a plague of sensitive dudes with guitars to descend like Gap-attired locusts upon the airwaves. Apparently, however, prayers take a few years to reach the Big Guy, because since the late ’90s, we’ve witnessed an incredible proliferation of singer/songwriters, the likes of which haven’t been seen since James Taylor had a mustache. Even for someone who was raised on this stuff, and who has a higher-than-average level of appreciation for good old-fashioned songcraft, it’s gotten out of hand — I’m running out of different ways to say an album is competently written and tastefully performed, but not all that different from Dude With Guitar X, Y, or Z.

Which brings us to Tony Lucca, and what is apparently his sixth album, the recently released Come Around Again.

Lucca was a member of the next-gen Mickey Mouse Club known simply as MMC, where he performed alongside Britney and Justin, but his music is rooted in rock and Wonder Bread soul, not sugar-frosted R&B; if you can make your way past the album cover, which makes it look like Chad from the IT department had a few too many Spider Monkey Margaritas at the office holiday party, you’ll find that Lucca’s a rather talented guitarist and vocalist. His songs, meanwhile, are a bit of a mixed bag. (more…)