Description

“Lullaby” was more than just a one-off novelty hit that unexpectedly established the career of longtime indie singer/songwriter Shawn Mullins in 1998-1999. It was a song that encapsulated both of Mullins’ strongest traits. On Beneath the Velvet Sun, his first real major-label, Mullins leans more to the latter tendency, but he provides enough of the former to pacify the audience he earned with “Lullaby.” The album’s first single, “Everywhere I Go,” is a good example of Mullins’ pop talent, a catchy but somewhat weightless effort with a bland love lyric. Up All Night, a story song about a lowlife rock & roll couple full of Mullins’ wry observations and the album’s only song to be half-spoken in the style of “Lullaby.” Beneath the Velvet Sun is the work of a talented artist who doesn’t seem to trust the idiosyncratic approach that brought him to national attention enough to really let himself go.