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Bobby Gaylor - Fuzzatonic Scream

Three and a half stars

Spoken-word has never been one of the more commercially viable genres in music. While often amusing upon first listen, few discs stand up to repeated plays, and even fewer warrant purchase.

Former stand-up comedian and writer for "Roseanne," Bobby Gaylor has considerable experience writing for an audience. On his new release Fuzzatonic Scream, he tries adding musical backgrounds to his low-key and heartfelt musings on youth and the absurdity of life.

One track, the album opener "Suicide," is absolutely fascinating. Structured in three parts, the song at first deals with the uniquely human situation of self-awareness leading to suicide. The song's second part is a catalog of the reasons to commit suicide, including "there'll be more air for me/there'll be one less polluting human."

The song's final segment is a litany of reasons not to commit suicide, including " · Sex. You'll miss the taste of Captain Crunch. Skinnydipping," and other diverse and often unexpected small pleasures of life. The track ends with Gaylor imploring the listener: "You were born. Finish what you started." The track is an amazing sentiment and is reason enough to hear the album.

Gaylor's spoken-word routines are consistently engaging, his twisted humor nicely balancing the more emotional elements in his stories about growing up in a suburban Boston family, working and the strangeness of the human condition.

Unfortunately, the insipid and cliched musical backing to most of the tracks here work to their detriment. Soullessly folky acoustic guitar and drums accompany far too many of the tracks here and make the album musically resemble an ad for "Dawson's Creek."

Hopefully, with subsequent albums, Gaylor will abandon the music, and release an album of only his charming spoken-word routines.