Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs) | ||||
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Studio album by Patterson Hood | ||||
Released | June 23, 2009 | |||
Recorded | Chase Park Transduction Studios in Athens, Georgia in 2005 | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 52:39 | |||
Label | Ruth St., ATO | |||
Producer | Patterson Hood, David Barbe | |||
Patterson Hood chronology | ||||
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Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs) is the second solo album by Patterson Hood. The album's songs were written from 1994 to 2004, and recording began in early 2005 in Athens, Georgia. Murdering Oscar was released on June 23, 2009 on Hood's own label, Ruth St. Records, and on ATO Records. The music consists of guitar chords and reverb on some tracks, while others also feature piano. The lyrics address topics that affected Hood around the time Murdering Oscar's songs were written, such as the birth of his child and his success with the Drive-By Truckers.
The album received mainly favorable reviews from critics, who praised it for being optimistic and mature in its handling of both positive and negative themes. Some also commended it for addressing these themes in a compassionate manner, and for being exceptionally personal compared to his previous work with the Drive-By Truckers. However, others criticized it as inferior to Hood's work with the Drive-By Truckers. Murdering Oscar peaked at No. 153 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Half of the songs on Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs) were written when Hood moved to Athens, Georgia in 1994, before the Drive-By Truckers were established, and soon after his previous band, Adam's House Cat, disbanded. The other half were written in 2004, shortly after Hood's child was born. However, the songs were not recorded until 2005, with recording starting in early January of that year at David Barbe's Athens studio Chase Park Transduction. In addition to Hood, most of the instruments on Murdering Oscar were played by former Truckers sidemen Barbe, Will Johnson, and Scott Danbom, as well as Hood's father David Hood.
Jewly Hight compared Murdering Oscar to Chinese Democracy, writing that while Axl Rose "obsessively retooled Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy in 14 studios over 13 years, all the while stringing along the public with empty promises of a finished album," Hood handled his long-in-the-making album rather differently—namely, by leaving the album essentially unchanged from its recording in 2005 to its release four years later. Hood has attributed this delay between the songs' recording in 2005 and Murdering's release four years later to "record industry bullshit." The album was released on June 23, 2009, on Hood's own Ruth St. Records label.