This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Everybody knows there’s not much new under the sun in rock ’n’ roll. But few are brave enough to own up to it — or smart enough to use it to their advantage.
American Hi-Fi singer-guitarist Stacy Jones is ahead of the pack either way you slice it. On The Art of Losing, the superlative sophomore album from his smartypants power-pop outfit, Jones (the ex-drummer for Veruca Salt) proudly sports his influences on his musical and lyrical sleeves, gleefully mixing and matching Cheap Trick riffs, Adam Ant beats, Green Day vocals, Ramones lines and references to My Bloody Valentine, Pixies, AC/DC, Kids in America and Crimson and Clover. Even more audaciously, he manages to make it all hang together — thanks to their supercharged bubble-crunch hooks, humourously snotty lyrics and drivingly heavy beats, the 11 songs jammed on to this 36-minute CD seem more like knowing, winking tributes to ’70s power-pop than the derivative mish-mash it sometimes is. In 2001, Jones showed he had the goods with the hit Flavour of the Weak. With The Art of Losing, he shows he has enough brains to avoid ending up as one.
