Pete Yorn
Day I Forgot (2003)

Review by: Stephan Finch
Date: 1/15/04

This is the follow up to Yorn's breakthrough Musicforthemorningafter. And how do you follow up a hit debut album, once the delerium of fame and fortune and wild screaming female fans fades? How about more of the same! See Yorn's interesting musical style, a kind of repeating-melody thing that borrows heavily from 1980's drone rockers like the Jesus and Mary Chain, hasn't caught on with other young acts, so it still sounds really fresh.

One of the most touching tracks is "Man in Uniform," which may be (Yorn's lyrics are more emotive than poetic) about a soldier dying. The biggest risk on the album comes when Yorn kicks up the volume on the keyboards for "Come Back Home," which was the first single released from this album. The real power of the song, though, is Yorn's singing, which at full volume is quite effective. When he sings out about "know[ing] you're strong enough," you really get the feeling he's ready to take on the challenges of the fickle music business.

Possibly the two best tracks aren't actually on the album. They are two versions of Elvis' "Suspicious Minds" (available for free at trellis.net) on a two-song EP that some record stores gave away with The Day I Forgot. Yorn's versions have almost every bit of sorrow and longing that Elvis' did, and there's no irritating string section.

review by: Michael Walls
Date: 2/19/04

I dropped a note to my fellow 2Walls reviewer, Stephan Finch, to thank him for turning me onto Pete Yorn. I picked up this CD after I saw it make our "Best of 2003" list.

But I also told him that his description of Day I Forgot wasn’t thorough enough to paint an accurate picture of what Pete Yorn is all about. He’s correct in that Yorn has dug up some older sounds, where melodic guitars meets clinking keyboards and enhanced vocals – but what he forgets to tell us is that this music soaks into your subconscious like a warm spring mist.

This isn’t the type of music that jumps out of your speakers or headphones and strangles you with unbelievable melodies or remarkable vocals. It’s an easily overlooked CD that, if you’re a "one spin" type of listener, you will dismiss as nothing special. But take that third and fourth spin and suddenly you’re humming those non-descript melodies and singing those off-beat, often non-rhyming, lyrics.

Yorn’s songwriting is the framework for this album – the reason it is a solid start-to-finish CD. A perfect blend of obvious guitar chords and simple choruses, mixed with curious bridges and not-so-obvious lyrics. And while the songwriting makes the album stand up, Yorn’s vocals are what makes it sparkle. Again, not the knock-your-socks-off type vocals, but a more subtle, hit-the-right-notes-at-the-slightly-off-moment, that makes his style interesting and catchy.

Do you know that feeling you get when you discover something new, something completely fresh, something that you can’t hear anywhere else except in your own CD player? Pete Yorn’s Day I Forgot gives you that feeling. If you’re wearing headphones or driving around town, you’ll look at people and think, "You don’t know what you’re missing. I bet you don’t even know who Pete Yorn is – and that’s too bad…"