San Francisco Days (1993)

Chris Isaak is a Roy Orbison pastiche so good that, with his pouty James Dean good looks, he was a natural for David Lynch and the Twin Peaks franchise. He appeared in Fire Walk With Me as an FBI agent on approximately the same psychic wavelength as Special Agent Dale Cooper. Isaak’s biggest commercial splash occurred with his previous album, from 1989, Heart Shaped World, home of the #6 “Wicked Game,” his only hit (which makes him technically you-know-what). He has carried on since, with a half-rack or more of albums over the years. In many ways San Francisco Days represents the beginning of the back side of his career, featuring, for the last time, Isaak’s secret weapon of lead guitarist Jesse Calvin Wilsey, the so-called “King of Slow.” Wilsey helps make the best song here, “Can’t Do a Thing,” with his sultry play. But the song is also a good example of Isaak’s songwriting skill, which is not negligible. He’s got an Orbison / Lynch theme about dreams and dreaming running through much of his material, but in “Can’t Do a Thing” it takes a notable turn. The singer rues a relationship he is still not over, taunting her passive-aggressively, in his mind, with the things he can imagine. And she can’t do a thing to stop him. Example: “Makin’ love with somebody / Exactly like you.” The sad, irresistible “Except the New Girl” follows, continuing the best part of the album, with a tender loser sensibility and Wilsey’s piercing play on the lower strings. “Beautiful Homes” positively glides. “Waiting” may or may not be a response to “I’m Not Waiting” on Heart Shaped World. Yes, much of San Francisco Days, even the best, is not far from the usual Orbison place, taking a somewhat rancid turn occasionally. But I have to forgive because Isaak and Wilsey make love-sickness work so well and so effectively. “I Want Your Love,” a total smoothie, plays more in the rockabilly mode, a reedy organ taking command. Orbison played rockabilly too, of course, but in the end the better model for Isaak might be Neil Diamond, which he seems to signal in a way by closing the album on a perfectly conceived cover of “Solitary Man.” Diamond was a great songwriter too, and even moody bruised singer in his own right, but the way Isaak records and sequences his cover here feels significant, even if it’s not much in the running for best tune on the album. Then here comes the rest of Isaak’s career.

Heart-Shaped World (1989)

I've never been able to get a handle on Chris Isaak exactly. The bruised rootsy James Dean approach is generally palatable and even convincing enough, though sometimes perhaps too much so, verging on shtick. You can play this one too much. Revisiting Heart-Shaped World recently reminded me more than anything of time lost in coffeeshops with posers—Starbucks, specifically, where I believe I once purchased Isaak's next album San Francisco Days. Remember when Starbucks used to sell albums? What a franchise. Heart-Shaped World includes Isaak's biggest hit in "Wicked Game" (which topped out at #6 in 1991). An instrumental version made it into David Lynch's movie Wild at Heart and later Isaak got a plum role in Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me as FBI Special Agent Chester Desmond. My problem with "Wicked Game," which is suitably moody on the subject of unrequited love or something like it, starts with the way he chose to blur the word "love" in the chorus into the word "lust": "No, I don't wanna fall in luhh - sss / With you." It's just too cute by half, a big broad wink, as if the singer knows he's too good-looking ever to be rejected and desperately wants you to know it too. The longing hurt is just another pose in the coffeeshop after all. This guy doesn't fall in love, he falls in lust, passing sexual infatuation. It's the stoic and the agony of cool. Isaak almost has the chops to put as much ache into his vocal as Roy Orbison himself. But that's one way he comes up short of Orbison—there are enough tells to know his singer doesn't mean it. Isaak's brand of star appeal goes directly to Elvis Presley as much as James Dean or Orbison, of course. Men are hurt in love in Elvis songs too, you call tell by the trembling lip, but actually no, not really. Elvis, always, is above the mess—it's one of the things that made him fat. For these guys it's either about sex or mothers and Isaak sadly does not have that range, as his mother rarely if ever comes up. I'm carping a lot but Heart-Shaped World (and San Francisco Days too, for that matter) often plays sweet and easy and can give a room a glow. It's quite an attractive surface but maybe only a surface.