With the success of sparse albums by the likes of Neil Diamond, Loretta Lynn, Merle, and Johnny Cash it was probably only a matter of time before Glen Campbell came out with his own collection. Following Cash's "American" series produced by Rick Rubin as a template, Glen Campbell chose Julian Raymond and Howard Welling to help him pick 10 tracks from the rock arena and transform them into country/folk tunes. And if one takes "Meet Glen Campbell" at face value for that, it's a mission accomplished but if you know the original versions of some of these tunes you'll realize that some versions aren't stripped down at all.
Take the album opening "Sing" for example. The original artist Travis is a Scottish alt-pop band known for using Coldplay-like atmospheric melodies with non-traditional pop music instruments like banjo thrown into the mix. If you listen to these songs back to back you'll notice that Welling and Raymond didn’t really do anything different to the arrangement other than add some steel guitar and Glen's own playing into the mix. Still, it is probably one of only two tracks that don't really work here (the other being the cover of Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)").
The songs that work best on "Meet Glen Campbell" (an odd album title for an artist with over 40 years of experience) are the melancholic ballads that harkens back to the great Jimmy Webb tracks like "Wichita Lineman" and "By The Time I Get To Phoenix." The cover of the Foo Fighters' "Times Like These" is a particularly interesting in that it recalls Campbell's great hits of the past. Jackson Browne's "These Days" is such a lovely song that we have to wonder why Glen didn't record it decades ago. It is well-suited to Campbell's voice, which is surprisingly still pretty good given his age (72) at the recording of this record. It is placed right in the middle of the album's tracks and is without a doubt the best track on the record.
Another pair of stand-out tracks are The Velvet Underground's "Jesus" and U2's "All I Want Is You." The former is the song that's actually similar to the original but this context, the arrangement suits Campbell's voice while the atmospheric U2 track certainly highlights the fact that Bono's own voice was, at times, similar to Campbell's own voice. And it is the strong song choices that ultimately make "Meet Glen Campbell" a surprisingly strong 10 song cycle. Sure, it's not as timeless as those Cash records are but then again, hardly anything released has been. What we've got here instead is a record that is fits right within Campbell's own timeless records from throughout the years.
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