Kevin Gilbert: “Suit Fugue (Dance of the A&R Men)” (2000)
Talented songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Gilbert fronted such household name bands as Giraffe and Toy Matinee. He was a member of the songwriting collective known as the Tuesday Night Music Club–the very same referred to in the title of Sheryl Crow’s breakout debut album. Gilbert co-wrote much of that record, including the 1995 Grammy Record of the Year “All I Wanna Do”.
Gilbert died at age 29 and his second solo LP, The Shaming of the True, released posthumously, yielded this mind-blowing arrangement–a perhaps semi-autobiographical skewering of record execs and their treatment of up-and-coming acts.
The dizzying vocal collage can be hard to follow. If you wish to discern all the layers of lyric, here’s a mix that isolates the individual parts
p.s. Gilbert was briefly under consideration by Genesis when they were in search of a front man to replace Phil Collins.