The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Jonathan Ian

[#] I (2006)

Works better when you're not an angry squirrel.

Reviewed July 23, 2019

Neurotically Yours creator Jonathan Ian is of course no stranger to angry acoustic songs, as anyone who's seen the show will surely know. Of course, there's only so much anger a small, pitch-shifted squirrel can dole out before it seems comical, and that's where the beauty of Jonathan's solo albums lie. True, some of these songs have appeared on the show in reworked forms, notably "The Greatest Actor of All", but the frustration and regret within these songs transfers a lot better when you're not also throwing nuts at people. Though instrumentally it's very simplistic and Jonathan is not exactly a top-shelf singer, that just adds to the charm.

When the album hits high, it does so rather beautifully—see the bitter rage of "Inconsequential" or the plaintive pleas of "Entertain Me Again"—but the album could've done with a lot of trimming. The production is also rather dated; though a solo acoustic album doesn't need high production values, the hollow reverb paired with the rather subtle but distracting MP3 compression doesn't exactly add to the music. Fortunately, "High Quality" and "Sung it All Away" are solid enough book ends to make up for it. This is the kind of album that'd do well in playlist form. Cut out some of the more repetitive, weaker tracks and you'll have a solid ten songs of squirrel songs minus the squirrel. Thankfully.

Essential:	"High Quality", "Entertain Me Again", "Sung it All Away"
Quintessential:	"The Greatest Actor of All"
Non-Essential:	"You Have Your Reasons"
Rating:
Further listening:	Download from Jonathan's Bandcamp

[#] II (2006)

Another whiny bitch with a guitar.

Reviewed July 23, 2019

Jonathan Ian operates at one speed: pissed off. Well, not exactly, he's got two; depressed is another. Of course, this lack of color is nothing new for the creator of the notoriously one-note Foamy the Squirrel, but it does get tiresome. A lot of the songs here are interchangeable, both musically and lyrically, with songs from I. "Could You Let Me" is a prime example, playing like a paler "Exist" and borrowing lyrics from "Inconsequential". "My Body" is tuneless, feeling very much jerky and improvised, and once again, the thing needs trimming. It's a shame, really, given that some of Jonathan's best material is on here.

On the brighter side, "We All Hate You Here" is proper acoustic punk, "Bunch of Nothing" is delightfully disorienting, and "None the Less" is tightly wound jealousy with some great lyrical metaphors. Perhaps this is why Jonathan saw fit to reissue I, II, and III as one album under the name Negative Sock Boy; they're all effectively the same album. While a highlights reel of each would've made for a pretty quality moody acoustic rock record, there's zero reason to listen to them as they are, not with their lack of editing. Worse yet, you get the sense younger Jonathan would've hated modern-day Jonathan; "Novelty" could easily be directed at the man now, most likely in his 40s and still making those damn squirrel cartoons.

Essential:	"We All Hate You Here", "Bunch of Nothing", "None The Less"
Quintessential:	"Misery"
Non-Essential:	"Could You Let Me"
Rating:
Further listening:	Download from Jonathan's Bandcamp