Photo by Dave Kemper
There’s not much competition when you drop an album on the first day of the new year,. When I connect with
Ben Kweller on a Zoom call a week later, I jokingly tell him that
Circuit Boredom is my favorite album of the year but follow it up by saying that by next week, I’ll have found my next favorite album. He laughs and says, “I was going to say, ‘Wow! It’s only been out a week!’” But, undoubtedly, Kweller’s seventh studio album is one that has already burned it’s way into my head – there are memorable pop hooks galore from the glittery, ’80s-influenced “Starz” to the Weezer-sounding “Wanna Go Home.” It won’t be hard to remember this when putting together my “Favorites of 2021” list eleven months from now.