God's Favorite Customer
| Father John Misty
God's Favorite Customer
God’s Favorite Customer (or Mr Tillman’s Wild Ride) is the fourth studio album by American musician Josh Tillman under the stage name Father John Misty. It was released by Sub Pop and Bella Union on June 1, 2018. The album was primarily produced by Tillman himself and Jonathan Rado, alongside a variety of collaborators including previous engineers Trevor Spencer and Dave Cerminara, with further production contributions by Tillman’s long-time producer Jonathan Wilson. It also features a variety of musical collaborators, including The Haxan Cloak, Mark Ronson, Weyes Blood, and members of Tillman’s touring band
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Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Josh Tillman is still self-absorbed. But his fourth full-length as Father John Misty exhibits a new sense of empathy and vulnerability while losing none of his wit.
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NME
‘Pure Comedy’ dazzled in its complexity, whereas ‘God’s Favourite Customer’ shocks in its simplicity, a concerted back-to-basics effort drawn up over two months in a New York hotel room that operates within a far smaller, more concise, and at times more claustrophobic palette than before. That soft-rock sound is still in place – from the dogged harmonica of ‘Please Don’t Die’ to the tumbling piano of the title track – but it feels inverted, reflecting a much darker, more solemn mood.
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SPIN
If that’s the case, it’s no wonder the album shines when the humor returns. A line like “Last night I wrote a poem/Man, I must have been in the poem zone” is more revealing than any line on the actual melodramatic thought exercise “The Songwriter.” Meanwhile, Emma remains the one thing that prevents Father John Misty from being a complete mess, as their relationship goes right to the edge of toxicity. On “Please Don’t Die,” she’s telling him not to die, but the reverse is just as apparent.
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The Guardian
“Would you undress me repeatedly in public / To show how very noble and naked you can be?” It’s a reminder that “confessional” writing is a morally compromised act, since it exploits those who have no desire to confess. As ever, the music is lush and 1970s-styled, albeit not as lush as before: it’s only rabbit fur in texture, rather than mink. But Tillman’s voice – which rarely gets mentioned in considerations of his success – is as wonderful as ever, clear and true, and warm and approachable, even if close examination reveals the deep damage beneath the veneer.
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Rolling Stone
In its piano-ballad gait, baroque-pop raptures and confessional sting, Josh Tillman’s fourth album as the darkly antic Father John Misty often sounds like it was made more than 40 years earlier under yet another name: John Lennon. It’s as if Tillman wrote and arranged these songs under the sumptuous, despairing spell of Lennon’s early-Seventies solo records, with time off for the late-Sixties Zombies and the Beach Boys’ Sunflower.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
Misty is the loathsome, and at times strangely enviable, creation of the more humble folk singer Josh Tillman. His oft-repeated origin story explains that the character Father John Misty was born of an epiphanic psilocybin trip following a depressive period of creative exhaustion. Although ridiculously named and comparatively unhinged, the Misty character was never a device meant to obscure or overtake Tillman as a songwriter. Rather, he’s an extension of Tillman, not in an Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton prankster way, but in a way that’s aware there’s always an element of performative exaggeration and self-aggrandizement in “confessional” songwriting, no matter how personal or ostensibly autobiographical the lyrics.
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Paste Magazine
After converting sharply honed cynicism and rampant misanthropy into a collection of witty, often scabrous and somehow deeply soulful songs on Father John Misty’s 2017 release Pure Comedy, Josh Tillman more fully targets himself on the follow-up.
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Variety
With less philosophizing and more pining, the rapid-fire follow-up to "Pure Comedy" lives up to its advance "heartbreak album" billing.
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Consequence of Sound
Father John Misty Trades Humor for Heartbreak on God’s Favorite Customer
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EW.com
here’s a certain sourness in the disdain that sometimes spills over for the very audience that feeds him (those Warby Parkers, can they really help themselves?). And a silliness, too, when he tips toward heavy metaphor (“Like a pervert on a crowded bus the glare of love bears down on us/Like a carcass left out in the heat this love is bursting out of me” would probably only sound like true romance to George Romero.)
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UPROXX
In late April, I saw Father John Misty and his exemplary backing band play a stunning hour-long set at the Homecoming Festival in Cincinnati. It was also a little strange, because the artist otherwise known as Josh Tillman hardly spoke between songs.
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USA Today
But much like the similarly egocentric Kanye West, Josh Tillman’s output under stage name Father John Misty consistently outshines his headline-making antics, and four albums in, he’s never been better than on God’s Favorite Customer
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The Ringer
The singer sounds his most vulnerable and humble on his fourth album, ‘God’s Favorite Customer,’ minus the usual fanfare
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The Irish Times
His words are pointedly nihilistic, hilariously sardonic. Tillman has the power to encapsulate the absurdity of this thing called life while simultaneously treating every speck of emotion that passes through his chest as though it deserves its own Iliad.
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Minnesota Daily
Not the cliché, head-over-heels love that refreshes your outlook on life, et cetera. This is about the utter adoration you can feel for another person, and the pain that inevitably follows.
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STEREOGUM
How does he do it? How the hell does he keep pulling this off? Every time you think Josh Tillman is about to drop the ball, he makes the exact right move. The very things that shouldn’t quite work, that would backfire in lesser hands, are precisely the things that work about Father John Misty — his clever, careful balance of sincerity, performativity, acerbic remove; his savvy approach to media; his ability to direct and/or willfully implode his own narrative.
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Drowned in Sound
According to writer and broadcaster Malcolm Gladwell, it’s specificity which separates those songs which you want to wallow in, and those that are simply backing tracks to our lives. Songs that are lyrically precise - hooking us in with relatable anchors of detail - are the ones we cling to (and occasionally cry to) above all others.
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Slant Magazine
The verve, eccentric humor, and stylistic panache one can usually expect from Father John Misty is confined to one song on God's Favorite Customer, “Date Night,” a psych-pop banger bursting with catchy falsetto hooks, retro ear candy, and absurdist, quintessentially Tillman lines like “I got your number from that sign in the lawn/I also want to vanquish evil but my mojo is gone.”
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CLASH
Tillman himself is often the target in his songs and here, the self deprecation is also combined with brutal self examination. It’s an album littered with moments that are genuinely alarming in their frankness.
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All Music
As Tillman's voice is pushed to the front of the mix -- there's no hiding from the many words of this singer/songwriter -- it's difficult to avoid his lyrics, which will either play as devilishly clever or solipsistic slop depending on your perspective.
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Pop Matters
One of the things that make Josh Tillman, a.k.a. Father John Misty, such a unique and compelling musical figure in the 21st century is his uncanny ability to cherry-pick the best traits of artists that came before him. He possesses the satirical snark of Frank Zappa, the larger-than-life arranging skills of Randy Newman, the eloquent chord structures of Brian Wilson and the hyper-literate existential ennui of Warren Zevon.
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The Young Folks
This new direction showcases Father John Misty as a living, breathing human being, distancing himself from the public image he’s so carefully crafted as the trolling provocateur.
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The Music
"If 'Pure Comedy' was Tillman's sardonic yet ultimately pointless attack on society, 'God's Favourite Customer' is the slow realization that improving your world first begins by looking within."
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The Times
However, Tillman was clever enough to recognise his egotistical flaws, which he lampooned on the classic album Pure Comedy.
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The 405
God’s Favorite Customer isn’t a bad album, yet it still feels like the weak link in the grand scheme of things. Fans of his previous work will still get a lot out of it, but despite its subject matter, this album feels a little safe and inconsequential.
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npr
Critic Ken Tucker says Father John Misty's new album offers a "roundabout, melancholy" acknowledgement of the artistic selfishness that often accompanies confessional songwriting.
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The Current
God's Favorite Customer' by God's favorite hedonist Father John Misty is The Current's Album of the Week. Upon a handful of listens the maybe all too obvious theme of loss seems to blow back into your face like someone reverently emptying an urn on a windy day.
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Sputnik Music
For the first time, after listening to his music, I feel like I actually got a look into who this whackjob really is.
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Music Connection
Father John Misty's God's Favorite Customer, released on June 1, is a gentle bummer. It's a quality album, but riddled with melancholy. The weirdness in J. Tillman's songwriting of "Date Night" and "Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All" keep the soul and tone of Father John Misty consistent with his previous music.
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Atwood Magazine
I think I have a love / hate relationship with his music. When friends first showed me his music in college, I was immediately drawn in by the ‘60s-esque sound and his voice. Over the years I’ve developed a dislike for the persona he projects (or maybe that’s just him) but I can never deny how good the music is, even when I want to.
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The Daily Californian
Josh Tillman has released his fourth album under his dark musical alter ego, Father John Misty, and the cover art alone serves as a listener’s guide. It tells you to listen for Tillman’s self-reflection throughout with the thoughtful introspective look on his face, head down in solemn distress. It tells you to keep an eye out for contradictory statements just as the vibrant red and teal lighting contrasts itself.
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Albumism
All those songs he wrote when he found and fell in love with his wife, his sophomore LP I Love You, Honeybear (2015) is a wonderful collection of falling. But it’s a satire of love: holding hands, making love, sharing drugs, buying a house and settling down because—GASP—love can be real!
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INDEPENDENT
Father John Misty wastes no time: He dropped Pure Comedy just one year ago, but planted the seed about another record around the time of release. But God’s Favorite Customer is nothing like his other works.
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Under The Radar
Once settled in, it becomes clear that musically this is craftsmanship over experimentation.
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The Washington Free Beacon
Josh Tillman has been praying in public under his haha-just-goofing-doesn't-mean-anything-promise Father John Misty moniker for six years now, but never more openly than in his latest album, God's Favorite Customer.
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The Advocate
At this stage, Tillman has been open about everything. From his debut, "Fear Fun," the former Fleet Foxes band member positioned himself as a wisecracking songwriter who took the folk genre and made it bearable. His self-aware sense of humor only made it better.
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WPTS
His vocal performance on this record is urgent, his voice coming off as simultaneously confident and timid.
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DIY
‘God’s Favorite Customer”s answer is to turn the lens inwards. But, because this is Father John Misty, of course it isn’t just another set of ‘woe is me’ shoe-gazing.
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relix
Fear not—Father John Misty hasn’t become James Blunt. There’s still plenty of dark wit and disappointment with humanity to parse through here.
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music OMH
Having “some capital to burn”, and being thoroughly disenchanted by everything around him including the US Presidential race and the rise of Trump, Tillman took himself away from Laurel Canyon to New Orleans and recorded Pure Comedy, an album about as far from the sexual bombast of Honeybear as you could get.
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Cryptic Rock
For those unfamiliar, the talented musician conceives Folk Rock music which can only be described as having an undisguised, enigmatic, and reserved silent power with an imploring tone. A listener will feel the candor Misty conveys through his music, yet, at the same time, there is something about his music which is indescribable; and that mystery is what makes the music great.
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The Boston Globe
Quick backstory for the uninitiated: Father John Misty is the swaggering, hallucinogen-taking, loudmouthed alter ego of Josh Tillman, a persona that sprang to life from Tillman’s psyche after tripping on ayahuasca with a Canadian shaman. Sounds like a modern-day rock legend, but it’s true — or, maybe it’s not.
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Thank Folk For That
Father John Misty introduces his hypnotizing and energetic falsetto power during the chorus of Date Night. Vocal range is definitely one of Josh’s strengths as a singer/songwriter and although at times you may want to laugh at his ridiculousness, his vocal prowess must not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
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chorus.fm
The follow-up to Comedy, however, is the polar opposite – God’s Favorite Customer is a concise ten track effort that clocks in under 40 minutes and peels back the Misty avatar to reveal a wounded, introspective Tillman.
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Immortal Reviews
It's undeniable that Josh Tillman has an ego to him, and that's still present in God's Favorite Customer, despite its more empathetic writing. On this record, though, that's not such a bad thing.
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Spectrum Culture
Even though much of the album offers glimpses into his drug-addled hotel stay, Tillman transforms what could’ve initially been seen as another portrayal of Misty as a self-engrossed wild man into a heart-rending breakdown narrative, one that assumes multiple perspectives in order to take stock of the extent of his damage.
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The Needle Drop
Even though it's a little disappointing to hear Josh playing it so safe stylistically on the heels of Pure Comedy, God's Favorite Customer more often than not delivers the sharp songwriting that Father John Misty is known for and admirably tackles some pretty dark and personal topics.
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The Skinny
Allegedly recorded off the back of an unelaborated personal crisis, God's Favorite Customer is simpler and more to the point. The instrumentation is familiarly traditional, filled with golden horns and more than a touch of his showmanship.
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God Is In The TV
The alter-ego of Josh Tillman, the indomitable Father John Misty is holed up in a New York hotel, losing his shit. Has he been a naughty boy? Has “Honeybear” strayed or booted him out? Is it all just a big joke? Part of Tillman’s pure comedy, tinged with tragedy; a twenty first century Shakespeare.
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The Line of Best Fit
Reportedly, Tillman wrote God’s Favorite Customer when his “life blew up” and he went to stay in a hotel for two months. “In short, it’s a heartbreak album,” he told Uncut last year.
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Loud And Quiet
Mostly written over the course of a two-month stay in a hotel, the result of some undisclosed personal strife, this record is Father John Misty rewrote. The songs sound the same but the lyrics reveal a side to him that’s rarely made an appearance until now.
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Ouch That Hertz
The lyricism is poignant and tear jerking as he refers to his wife as his “little songbird,” and the exchange ends with Tillman earnestly asking, “Goodbye, little songbird, now you’re free. Don’t forget I’m the only fan of yours. Who has the sense to ever leave you be. How could you do this to me? What would it sound like if you were the songwriter. And loving me was your unsung masterpiece?”
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Soundblab
In preparation for God’s Favorite Customer (because I’m the kind of pretentious music blogging asshole who needs to “prepare” for a new album as opposed to simply listen to it), I went back and listened to some of Josh Tillman’s early work.
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The Fire Note
Dammit, two paragraphs into the review and still not a word about the actual music. Of the album’s ten tracks, seven are slow-burning piano ballads, one is a mid-tempo number, and two are rockers in the spirit of “The Ideal Husband.” Both are catchy as hell; “Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All” wins the race by a nose.
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Financial Times
In creating his semi-autobiographical, semi-satirical stage self Father John Misty, Joshua Tillman has unlocked a deep reserve of productivity within himself.
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Crossfader
At what point does our cultural spectacle collapse? Each passing day is more absurd than the last as we sink deeper and deeper into the toxic pop culture we’ve built. How are we meant to cope with a seemingly fracturing reality? One option is the shroud of irony. A safety blanket to shield oneself with a detached humorous spin on the world. But that option, as Joshua Tillman has found, has its breaking point too.
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ITDJENTS
While maybe not completely surprising, the June 1 release of Father John Misty’s new record, God’s Favorite Customer is welcome. It also makes this act one of the more prolific in the mainstream space.
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The Edge
The rumblings that indie messiah Father John Misty – known as Josh Tillman by day – was releasing a new album this year at first left me slightly concerned. Just a year after the monumental Pure Comedy,
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Treble
Father John Misty aka Josh Tillman, has always been a character of excess. From the stoned-out-of-his-mind romps on Fear Fun to the existential overreach of Pure Comedy, he’s always taken on a little bit more than he can handle. That usually plays to his advantage—his best songs are from the perspective of a man overwhelmed, out of control, and more than a little terrified.
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The Student Playlist
I’ll take it easy with the morbid stuff”, promises Josh Tillman on ‘Please Don’t Die’. However, don’t be fooled – his latest Father John Misty album God’s Favorite Customer is full of broken promises, broken hearts, and a broken narrator.
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The Soundboard
Tillman’s adoption of a simpler, more straightforward style doesn’t fare as successfully instrumentally. It’s honestly the sort of thing you’d expect, favouring warm, mid-tempo indie-folk and folk-rock that’s equable and listenable, but not much more than that.
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The Inhailer
You can compare Tillman’s music to artists who’ve come before him, their songs and compositions, but really, he’s not like any of his predecessors. This album is the product of a maturing musician.
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The Thin Air
Nine years later, Josh Tillman’s ego abides. He’s transformed from the fabled “horny, man-child, Mamma’s boy” he sang about two albums ago into “a pervert on a crowded bus” as described on ‘Disappointing Diamonds Are The Rarest of Them All.’
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Savage Thrills
Father John Misty listeners have come to know his dramatic and witty lyricism, God’s Favorite Customer is a petite and direct package of songs that will not disappoint new listeners. It’s a heartbreak album with a continuous theme that hits hard if you’re paying attention but can just as easily provide a soundtrack for casual drinks with friends.
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wers.org
The album’s strongest points are in its lyrics.
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Music & Riots Magazine
The intelligence of Tillman is coming through too often to be overlooked or dismissed at this point – especially in moments where he recognizes his dumbness, flaws, and ‘misadventures’. It’s that witty mind that carries the artistic expression of Father John Misty… that, and how he chooses to deal with his life on record, time and time again.
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Flood Magazine
When the gentleman dramatist and serial ironist Father John Misty sings the line, “I’ll take it easy with the morbid stuff” on the swooshing “Please Don’t Die” from his newest album, you can’t help but laugh at the self-referential poke. And maybe even believe him.
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The Aquarian Weekly
Father John Misty concludes, “We’re Only People”, and leaves it at that. Blunt and truthful, the conclusion of God’s Favorite Customer did “look a lot like the beginning” — a cocktail of hotel rooms, drugs, and yes, still heartbreak
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setlist.fm
Father John Misty has ditched his bitter comedic tendencies to dive into the ugliest sides of love in his new album God’s Favorite Customer. This is Josh Tillman's forth full-album as Father John Misty and it's his most revealing yet.
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No More Workhorse
The album opens with a piano track ‘ Hangout at the Gallows’. It’s a slow baked tune that rambles along nicely adding instruments as it moves.
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Nu Sound
Father John Misty is a name that seems to come with a big caveat. Anytime the name is printed, the writer ensures the reader that this is just a persona, a character. The man who makes the music is Josh Tillman, and yes he is Father John Misty, but at the same time it’s all an act. This is what gets stressed to you nearly every single time you read anything about him
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saukvalley.com
My quandary? Do I write my regular monthly recap of the best music I heard in the past month? Or, seeing that the year is now half over, do I join the roster of music writers weighing in with their “best of the year so far” lists?
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etc.
Only a year after taking a long hard look at human nature in his ‘Pure Comedy’, the mirror is turned back inwards, and while Father John Misty watches love fall apart, he still manages to make something utterly beautiful out of it.
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ELEVEN PDX
Coming just fourteen months after the sprawling and modern society-disparaging Pure Comedy, God’s Favorite Customer feels a bit like drinking from a firehose from Tillman’s brain–especially on cuts like the entire-song-is-a-chorus “Mr. Tillman,” or on opener “Hang Out at the Gallows,” where the listener is thrown in medias res into his latest existential crisis.
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Pedestrian
Written over a six week period when his life apparently blew up and he was living in a hotel “for a couple of months” we can hear Tillman realising his deep need for his partner as God’s Favourite Customer develops – it’s probably the most introspective release we’ve been given from the mind of Father John Misty.
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The Musical Hype
Father John Misty kicks off God’s Favorite Customer in splendid fashion with “Hangout at the Gallows.” Vocally, Tillman sings expressively, incorporating a tasteful dose of falsetto on the inquiring chorus? “What’s your politics? / What’s your religion?” Filled with ear candy galore, “Hangout at the Gallows” is comprised of prominent use of piano, acoustic guitars, drums, strings, and backing vocals. What a way to open an album.
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pressplayok
Josh Tillman’s last album as Father John Misty was Pure Comedy, a much-discussed album that appeared in lots of Best of 2017 lists. On it, the comic creation, or the aspect of his psyche he wishes to use for art, moaned about being ‘bored in the USA’ in the first few months of the Trump era. A year on and having gone around the world playing songs like Total Entertainment Forever and Leaving LA, Tillman has ten new tunes for our delectation on God’s Favourite Customer.
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The Torch
As a huge fan of Tillman’s work, I was very excited for the album release and my expectations for it were very high. Luckily, I was not left disappointed by the record.
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STACK
Ultimately, the album is Tillman at his most sincere, proof that behind what might be considered a contrived act to some is a human being with the capacity to express real emotions.
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News Tribune
The album was accidentally leaked back in April, but whether people wait to pick it up until after its June release or check it out ahead of time, they’ll find Tillman in excellent form and fully rebounded from the downtrodden funk that permeated last year’s monolithic “Pure Comedy.” “God’s Favorite Customer” is more focused, faster-paced and flat out more fun.
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Phawker
This record is no stranger to grim self-harm.
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Daily Emerald
But Tillman’s new album, ‘God’s Favorite Customer,” finds the songwriter addressing a lingering depression, and it’s not necessarily one caused by the fate of the world. This time around he addresses mental illness, marriage issues and the concept of his own celebrity through a more rollicking sound. There’s clashing cymbals and expansive piano, and Tillman’s soaring voice, still. He’s just addressing himself, not the world.
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mxdwn.com
The surprisingly short album compared to Pure Comedy becomes even more surprising when not an ounce of sarcastic comedic relief is heard in any lyric. His trademark sense of humor is lost in his desperation to feel a sense of happiness again.
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TIME
Tillman’s style has always been both introspective and ironic; his songs wrestle with his ability to be self-aware in an era defined by oversharing. But God’s Favorite Customer finds Tillman at his most earnest. At times he’s still playful, like on the upbeat, folk-rock number “Mr. Tillman,” in which he details checking into a hotel, running into singer-songwriter Jason Isbell and getting chastised for habitually sleeping on the balcony.
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