Mo Troper

Before “Svengali” came to describe any vaguely megalomaniacal personality in the entertainment industry–from the genuinely evil Phil Spector and Colonel Tom Parker all the way to their Diet Rite equivalent Jack Antonoff–he was a literary character who was probably the prototypical megalomaniacal personality in the entertainment industry. The antagonist in the famously mid and otherwise unmemorable 19th century novel Trilby, Svengali is depicted as a machiavellian manipulator who transforms the guileless titular character into a famous singer. Mo Troper's Svengali is a deeply psychological record with the throbbing heart of a fragile giant. It is a meditation on evil-ness. At certain points across Svengali’s 13 tracks, Troper relishes his own innate evil-ness; just as often he’s repulsed by it.

Like any Mo Troper album, Svengali is a collection of razor-sharp pop songs that sound like they were written yesterday, or in 1990 by Paddy McAloon, or in 1966 by Brian Wilson, or in 1936 by some unheralded Tin Pan Alley great. Troper has always belonged in the Pop Hook Hall of Fame but his latest and sixth LP of original material is, lyrically, a “look, there are levels to this” moment. Svengali is sort of like an episode of Unsolved Mysteries–or perhaps The Twilight Zone–with Troper front and center doing his best Robert Stack or Rod Serling:

“For your consideration... A village idiot whose idea of love, both romantic and fraternal, looks a lot more like ownership than appreciation. Tonight... A toxic relationship where you can't quite tell if you're the manipulated or the manipulator. Imagine if you will... A crush so potent it chews you up and swallows you whole.”

Svengali is full of answers to perennial questions about true love, but Troper begins this set epistemologically: "What does it feel like now?" he taunts, over a wall of warbling jazzmasters that sound like My Bloody Valentine with a cold. He zigzags from incisive reality checks to whimsical fantasy, landing next on the ice cream truck jangle of "The Billy Joel Fan Club"–a touching portrait of the sort of relationship worth writing a stunning pop ballad about, one built on exquisite layers of inside jokes and mutual appreciation; it plucks your heartstrings with that classic Troper self-aware sentimentality. With a vocal melody for the ages, “For You to Sing” crackles, pops, and ping pongs across the abyss, in all of its pining glory. ("They'll tell you I'm a control freak," I croon to myself as I pop three propranolol and check the timestamp of the last text I got from her.) "Good Hair" is a perfect example of how the cornerstone moments in any significant relationship spring from moments of mutual vulnerability.

The record’s two centerpieces–”You Always Loved Me” and “Recipe For Loving”–are epics by Troper’s typically bite-sized standards. With a chord progression from hell and harmonies from heaven, the former is a veritable H-bomb of lust and vindication, a long-lost Queen hit beamed to Neptune via an FM radio signal and back again. The latter confronts the inevitability of romantic ruin through dazzling turns of phrase and exhausted-sounding simile, cementing Troper’s status as the greatest lyricist in the entire “power-pop” milieu.

These songs feel neither “retro” nor entirely contemporary, which I suppose is just a long-winded way of saying they’re timeless. This aspect of Svengali is epitomized in “A Piece of You Broken Through My Heart,” half Beatles For Sale and half Pinkerton-esque paranoia. "Shudder at the thought of the CD's in your car”–such a perfect encapsulation of the minor traumas accompanying the belongings of an ex lover, the sort which probably make you shudder fairly often. Sometimes love becomes just another stick we can jam into the humming wheels of the mind. Something, anything to make the turning stop. But as Svengali knows all too well, that relief can be temporary. My heart aches when you're away, indeed.