Kennedy

Sporting an appearance and demeanor that evokes an indie-rock-leaning take on Napoleon Dynamite, the Los Angeles singer/songwriter Kennedy cultivates an ironic stance so pronounced it renders Beck’s approach almost earnest by comparison. Yet the sardonic mix of present-day dance music, ’70s AM soft rock, and indie pop he favors contains sufficient melodic appeal and verbal sharpness to avoid seeming like mere affectation. Raised in the L.A. suburbs, where his official biography asserts that his given name is Jack Kennedy and his father’s is John Wayne Kennedy—a detail as plausible as it is unverifiable—he launched his music pursuits in a high-school cover group devoted to Smiths and Cure material. He later took a daytime position as a tape operator at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood. He also contributed guitar to an early configuration of the L.A. indie act Silversun Pickups, only to be reportedly dismissed after igniting frontman Brian Aubert’s attire. Before and alongside that stint, Kennedy sustained an independent path that opened with the drug-tinged, ’60s-flavored power pop of 1999’s Unicorn and continued through the harder-edged garage-rock throwback of 2002’s Kennedy. He subsequently journeyed to England to cut the dance-leaning track “Mom Made Me a Pimp” alongside the French production team Count De Money. That collaboration prompted a decisive stylistic pivot, resulting in the 2004 dance-rock EP Pink Afros. The follow-up release, 2006’s Special K, drew wider notice through the single and accompanying clip for the tongue-in-cheek slow jam “Your Mama.” After inking a deal with Cordless Records, an imprint distributed by Warner Bros., he issued his debut full-length, Kennedy for President, in the summer of 2007.