Review Party Recommends: The Music of Jimmy Buffett

This is Review Party Recommends. Does the name really need explanation? Here’s some good stuff you ought to get into.

Jimmy Buffett.

I know what you’re thinking. Old people music. Your parents. Your uncle who wears crocs. The sweaty, sunburned masses you try to avoid at every summer social.

But put some respect on the name. The world is a little less salty these days.

And I’m not asking you to become a Parrothead. I’m not asking you to wear a tropical shirt unbuttoned a little too much at a restaurant that’s a little too nice for it. I’m not even asking you to drink a margarita or eat a cheeseburger, with or without paradise.

I make this humble, simple request: listen to Banana Wind, the instrumental title track of the 1996 album.

First off, how bold is it to make the title track instrumental? And here’s the thing- if you’re thinking “I don’t want those silly lyrics, that almost-country twang.” Well there’s none of that here! No, it’s just four minutes of Freddy Fish vibes. It’s four minutes of “hang on, am I in Florida? Grenada? Just on vacation?”

I’m trying to take you places. And I know I can’t do that alone, so I’m letting Jimmy take you there.

AND HE HAS THAT POWER!

Margaritaville. St. Somewhere. It’s Five o’clock, do you know where your kids are?

I know where they are, they’re listening to Taylor Swift, and that’s fine, me too! There’s no doubt she’s talented and prolific. But Mr. Buffett released THIRTY-ONE studio albums from 1970 to the time of this writing. If you can’t find a song or two in there that take you to a happy place, you must not have a happy place at all.