Seth MacFarlane - In Full Swing

Seth MacFarlane
In Full Swing
2017
Spotify

Seth MacFarlane likes two things: Standards and dick jokes. From his animated show "Family Guy" featuring a real orchestra doing the instrumentation to his tour singing a la Frank Sinatra the man loves Jazz, and showing the world He loves Jazz. Standards have never been my thing, so expectations were extremely low going into In Full Swing an album of songs MacFarlane hand selected for his Baritone. Most of the songs are pretty obscure but you will find a few of the classics like "Almost Like Being In Love" that you will recognize. MacFarlane's fascination with the sounds of this era seem to be never ending as He tries to portray himself as the more woke member of the Rat Pack. Here's the thing, He is too young to be doing this shit, and that is plain and simple. You can't seperate Peter Griffin from Seth MacFarlane; how can we laugh at Peter bumping his knee and seething over it for minutes and still like the twinkly sound of the orchestra as Seth croons? I'm sure there are many people who can make that leap, but not many "Family Guy" fans I'm sure. There is always this push to bring back the days of standards, suits and swaggy cocktails but it always falls more on the side of kitsch than real reinvention. Every song has the same sentiment either let's be in love or we are in love and how great is it. It take you almost to the point of going mad because it feels so contrived and so fucking forced.

In Seth MacFarlane was not who He is (Movie producer, Television Producer, Hollywood Guy) there is simply no chance this album ever gets made which is honestly what adds to the bad taste it leaves in your mouth. He did this album because He finds it fun, not because He had art swelling inside of him that needed to get out. That's why this record feels easy, light and wholly disposable. The orchestra sounds great, but we have heard orchestras sound great playing these exact songs for 60 years, what is Seth bringing to the game? The Nora Jones feature feels just as contrived and just as opulent as the rest of the record. I knew going into this record I was not going to like it, but I didn't know that it would feel so icky. Seth MacFarlane it seems is always going to find a way to shoehorn in some big band shit into whatever He does, so his new Star Trek-esque show "The Orville" is sure to have at least one scene with him singing one of these things. It just seems like as time goes on less and less people are going to actually give a shit. However his previous albums have garnered him a grammy-nomination (Music is Better Than Words) and a number one on the iTunes charts (Holiday for Swing) so maybe I'm the one that's wrong. As it is however In Full Swing is not for me, and i can guess it won't be for you either.

2.0 out of 10