Obscure Gems: The Boy Least Likely To - Best Party Ever

I wish I had been there when instrumentalist Pete Hobbs and lyricist Jof Owen got together and started making music as the Boy Least Likely To. First, just to see all of the different instruments Hobbs uses, and second to see if they really tried for the sound they came up with for "Best Party Ever".
I had a friend listen to this 2005 album just recently and after the first song she said, "This is the perfect happy sound." And it is. Hobbs uses washboards, banjos,triangles and a slew of other percussion instruments that you don't normally hear in an album. The result is the sound of walking through a park on the first day of summer while a friendly blue bird lands softly on your shoulder and starts bobbing its head with you to the music.

After a listen I was really ready to dismiss the album as a novelty, but I gave it another chance and found the music combined with the lyrics to provide many different layers.
The lyrics are dark, contrasting with the happy-go-lucky washboard driven instrumentals. They combine to make an album not about being a child (the music) and not about being an adult (the lyrics) but about being an adult and watching your inner child be crushed to death.
Take "Monsters" for instance:

And the thing that really frightens me
Is that the people I used to love

Are turning into monsters
Getting married having babies
Telling me how great their life is
And how happy I would be if I could
Just be more like them

Adult are monsters, get it? Leading crazy lives that involve marriage (stupid!). Owen also sings about a boy and his imaginary friend, a tiger, growing apart:
"It's hard sometimes to be friends with something/that eats butterflies and pencil sharpeners"
in such a way that you feel like a jack ass for not being seven.

Lyrically the album consistently and playfully tells you life sucks, but in the end you can't worry about the little things. The album is catchy and poppy as hell, I dare you to listen to Warm Panda Cola a couple times and not randomly have it pop into your head.

Of course, I do, like most albums, have a nostalgic attachment to this album. I was introduced to it while I was in Wales and it, along with a few other key albums which will probably get some airing on PtP soon, served as a delightful soundtrack for my travels.

And I, like Anthony, take an obscure gem to be an album most people probably haven't heard of. I know Pitchfork named this one of the best albums of 2005, but fucking deal with it.

So check out Boy Least Likely To, it's the best party ever!

-Dabs



*Insert something demeaning towards Anthony here*