4 Hits & A Miss: The Essential Richard Swift

The first so-called hits collection for the singer/songwriter and producer, the obliquely titled 4 Hits & a Miss: The Essential Richard Swift (Secretly Canadian) gathers 12 of his best-remembered and -celebrated songs (plus an instrumental) from a discography cut short by his death in 2018 from alcoholism-related complications. Although not without some nuance, it essentially serves as an entry point for the uninitiated, as opposed to a targeted study of the pop historians range or his four-track-illuminated experimentalism -- although in Swifts case these may be distinctions rarely worth making. To sweeten the pot and entice fans and completists, theres also a 14th track, the previously unreleased "Common Law," a song recorded circa 2012 and dropped into the middle of the track list. Further narrowing its focus, the album sticks to Swifts "proper" solo albums -- no off-label Instruments of Science & Technology or anything from the double-length garage clearance Richard Swift as Onasis -- alongside a handful of EP entries. As afficionados will appreciate, the EPs supply some of Swifts most interesting material, and 4 Hits & a Miss highlights "Whitman" from 2011s Walt Wolfman, a Halloween-themed EP that found Swift using Phil Spectors reverb-heavy Wall of Sound as a mere springboard. Also included, among others, is the beloved Tin Pan Alley-injected rumination "The Novelist" from his 2003 EP of the same name. (The Novelist was bundled with previously unreleased record Walking Without Effort for his Secretly Canadian debut in 2005.) If theres a method to the sequencing here, its not apparent, as opening song "The Original Thought" from 2008s Ground Trouble Jaw is followed by trippy honky tonk entry "Dirty Jim" from 2018s posthumously released The Hex, and so on. When the nearly hour-long set closes on the instrumental "Walking Without Effort Theme" (one of his earliest solo recordings), it inevitably will encourage some to dig deeper into his catalog and, at worst, was time well spent with a thoughtful maverick who continues to inspire. (The albums press bio was penned by prior collaborator Kevin Morby.) ~ Marcy Donelson