Jon Brion

Musician and producer Jon Brion on stage at "The House that Brion Built" panel discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, New York on April 26, 2005. (Bryan Bedder/Entertainment/Getty Images)

(Bryan Bedder/Entertainment/Getty)

If you haven't heard of Jon Brion, don't worry: you've heard him. He's scored over a dozen films, from "Punch-Drunk Love" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" to "This is 40" and last year's "Trainwreck." He's collaborated with everyone from Elliott Smith and Fiona Apple to Kanye West, who chose him to co-produce "Late Registration." And his monthly residency at Los Angeles' Largo is the stuff of concert legend.

Less celebrated is Brion's own career as a record-maker: he only has one proper solo album, the self-released cult classic "Meaningless." And I do mean cult: for years, the only place to pick it up was at L.A.'s Amoeba Music or buried somewhere deep on CDBaby.com. Ordering the seemingly out-of-print CD on Amazon now will set you back around $30. But that's changing: the album has popped up, for the first time we're aware, for sale on iTunes, and this morning, I got an email from Spotify: "Meaningless" is available for streaming. You can hear it on Apple Music as well.

You're going to want to do that. Brion sings like Alex Chilton and Elvis Costello's Guinness-loving baby. The lyrics are clever and sardonic, the melodies bold and Beatles-worthy, and the production, naturally, pure rock 'n' roll wonder, stuffed with studio trickery and Brion's beloved keyboard collection. There are heartbroken ballads and giddy love songs, moments of poetic regret and a heavenly cover of Cheap Trick's "Voices." It's every bit as essential as fellow Largo-orbit albums of the era, such as Smith's "XO" or Aimee Mann's "Magnolia" soundtrack--a scene Brion once dubbed "unpopular pop".

Brionphiles will naturally wonder if this quiet reissue means he's finally readying that solo follow-up he's promised on and off for years. We can hope! Anyway, meet "Meaningless": you won't want to leave it any time soon.

-- David Greenwald

dgreenwald@oregonian.com

503-294-7625; @davidegreenwald

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