I Love You, Honeybear is Father John Misty's biggest and best album — but "Real Love Baby" is his biggest single, and the newly released 10th-anniversary collection I Love You, Honeybear Demos, etc. melds those two styles.
Released a decade ago on cassette and newly shared on DSPs, the 11-song collection brings new-old life to the unforgettably romantic, grimly funny songs from the album, including highlights like the morbid wedding anthem "Chateau Lobby $4 (in C for Two Versions)" (here titled "Chateau First Time") and the modernized "We Didn't Start the Fire" that is "Holy Shit" (here titled "'Past Is a Nightmare I'm Trying to Wake Up From'").
Rather than the grand baroque folk of the finished album, these demos are caked in lo-fi crackle and cavernous reverb, as if they're drifting in through a busted AM radio. Mr. Misty has always been a fantastic singer, and these stripped-back acoustic arrangements harness the full power of his vintage pop harmonies.
It's not going to replace the usual of I Love You, Honeybear as the definitive version of the album, but it turns that beloved 2015 LP into a half-remembered daydream.