Inside Problems by Andrew Bird

My love for the artist at #17 this year comes in waves. Andrew Bird, the venerable singer/songwriter with the melodic voice and vibrato-laden whistle, has been releasing music under his own name for 27 years. According to wikipedia, Inside Problems is his 18th release, with and without his backing band “Bowl of Fire” (disbanded in 2003).

Bird has been on my radar since his sixth album, The Mysterious Production of Eggs. The handful of albums immediately following that were a bit all over the place while he worked on defining where he wanted to land. (Noble Beast his eighth album, was #22 in 2009) Thankfully, over the last decade he’s been settling into the “consistently great” phase of his career. Inside Problems is Bird’s fifth appearance on the Top 31 (#5 in 2016, #17 in 2019, and #21 last year).

Bird works an easy-going humor into his lyrics, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes blatant. Equally adept at playing the violin with a bow and plucking it like a ukulele, Bird is a virtuoso sonically but also physically. He’s gotten so comfortable in front of the camera, he’s started acting. He had a recurring role as a troubled father in season 4 of Fargo back in 2020. I could watch him eat a peanut butter & jelly sandwich with rapt attention.

His music videos reflect that same ease in control. In the video for “Make a Picture,” he’s singing directly into the camera, animatedly bouncing through the lyrics while he attempts to photograph cats of all sizes in a bare studio. There’s another video for the same song, a take on a lyric video, and rather than Bird being the animated one, the lyrics from the song, broken across many different languages, move a flow around the stoic, slightly confused Bird, still walking around that bare studio. Be sure to also check out the video for “Atomized” shown above, also from the studio. Bird must have spent the full day, maybe more, in that studio. In addition to the three videos mentioned above, he also released a 20-minute meditation that illuminates the deeper meaning behind the album’s title.

In addition to releasing the excellent Inside Problems in June, Bird put out a non-album single called “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.” He and Phoebe Bridgers (#3 in 2020) trade off throughout the song, creating a gorgeously haunting duet, singing the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name. “I came across this Emily Dickinson poem and found it to be the most vivid description of an inner world I’ve ever encountered. It became an inspiration for the songs on Inside Problems. Who better to sing it with than Phoebe Bridgers? I sent her a demo, and so here we are. Thanks to Ms. Dickinson’s publisher at Harvard University Press for allowing us to use this poem. As I understand, her poems weren’t published as she intended them until the 1950s — that is, without the heavy hand of her male editors.” If it were on the album, this song would be my favorite on it. I’m so glad he didn’t wait until the next album to release it.

If you’ve not been able to get into Andrew Bird up to now, there’s no time like the present. Inside Problems isn’t his best (see 2016’s Are You Serious for that), but it’s likely his most approachable, without a bad track on it. Enjoy.

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18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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