Diners Leisure World

Leisure World is the latest album from singer-songwriter Tyler Blue Broderick, who performs with the project Diners. Not only is it the most eclectic and ambitious album in the songwriter’s (already muscular) catalog to date—it’s one of the catchiest, most realized indie pop records released in years. Like all of their work, Leisure World—which Broderick scrapped and rerecorded several times before landing on an aesthetic they found satisfactory— draws on the most enduring aspects of pop’s past. Its 13 tracks bring to mind the technicolored melodies of ‘60s pop icons like the Beatles and Zombies, the chilled-out pop proficiency of Laurel Canyon legends like Carole King, and the wry, observational story-telling of Jonathan Richman, and, to cite a more recent artist, Jens Lekman. Despite that, Leisure World is a not a cynical or even Tired-sounding record. This is maybe best exemplified by the album’s penultimate track, “Thanks For Listening,” which is gobsmacking in its warmth and earnestness. Performed by anyone other than Diners, “Thanks For Listening”—which the band closed every show with when I toured with them this past spring—would scan sardonic. But I can say with almost complete certainty that Tyler is being serious, which is a beautiful thing. They love the attention, but they also realize they’d be nothing without the people who love them and their music.