Grant Lee Phillips - Soft Asylum
Grant Lee Phillips is a man who seems destined to always be one of the nearly men of rock music. As vocalist with nineties group Grant Lee Buffalo, Phillips was lauded for his vocal poise and lyrical narratives and gained accolades from both critics (Phillips was named male vocalist of the year by Rolling Stone magazine in 1995) and contemporaries such as Michael Stipe of REM who heralded the bands 1993 debut ‘Fuzzy’ as “the best album of the year hands down”. Despite such plaudits, the band was never able to gain the commercial success they desired. In 1999, Phillips frustrated by a lack of label support and the failure of the group to develop beyond cult status went solo.
Five albums into his solo career and despite being heralded as “the kind of songwriter Ryan Adams would lobotomise himself to be”, Phillips remains a man on the periphery. Despite this there no little doubting the man’s ability at penning beautiful, heart wrenching tunes. ‘Soft Asylum (No Way Out)’ is another example of how singer-songwriters should actually function; it stands as a lesson to many lesser lights who are currently commanding more attention than Phillips himself. A luxuriant, delicate, yearning ballad taken from his latest album ‘Strangelet’; this is another classy piece of work from one of the most underrated, yet accomplished songwriters of our generation.