Spun: Brian Blain

By Ken Clarke

A more realistic title for Brian Blain’s Overqualified For The Blues would be Underqualified To Make A Decent Blues Recording. As we already know, no one is overqualified for the blues, but Blain takes great delight in his sarcastic title and milks it for all it’s worth.

Coming from more of a business background than a musical one, the resulting recording is a shamelessly contrived and tiresome affair. On the title track he laments, “I’ve got friends and family/money and style/a good disposition and a winning smile/overprotected, never abused/I’m overqualified for the blues.” Cute. More ridiculous is “Hi-Tech Blues,” including such memorable lines as “My girl’s got a giga of nine hundred megahertz RAM, she’s a dream come true for this multimedia man.”

The music is mediocre and his vocals are even worse. The one highlight is a lap slide solo on “Peace,” by guest guitarist Harry Manx. Other than this, the saving grace is the next time you get a scratch on your widescreen TV while unloading it from your Hummer, Overqualified For The Blues can ease the pain.