meaning that two songs were released on the same single. The third and final single was "Bottle Living" / "Hold On", a double A-side. The second single, " I Need You", was a ballad based around a synth and drum arrangement, which reached number 27 in the UK and number five on the US dance chart. Its remixes were also promoted in US dance clubs, and peaked within the top five of the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. " Dirty Sticky Floors", the lead single from the album, became Gahan's most successful solo release, reaching number 18 on the UK Singles Chart and the top 10 in Germany and Italy. It was not until he began writing music with friend and musician Knox Chandler that he gained the self-confidence he needed to begin to consider working on an album of his own material. Gahan first played with the idea of releasing a solo album after the release of Depeche Mode's Exciter in 2001, but approached the project slowly.
In March 2004, Gahan released the live video album Live Monsters, containing footage from his concert on 5 July 2003 at the Olympia in Paris. In North America, the album was released on 3 June 2003. Paper Monsters debuted at number 36 on the UK Albums Chart, while reaching the top 10 in Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.
Upon its debut, critical reception was generally mixed while many complimented the album's personal subject matter, others described it as lacking depth. I started this book at lunch one day, and found that Jacob had won me over before I’d finished my sandwich.The album was produced by Ken Thomas, known for his work with Icelandic band Sigur Rós. (Why work so hard to shut others out? Why not make oneself useful for a change?) But Jacob is just the kind of junior criminal-smart, devilishly perceptive, secretly sentimental-with whom I really can identify. I confess that I am something of a goody-two-shoes myself, and in the past I’ve had little patience for all that sullen self-pity, pent-up anger, and nascent sexual pining. “The Patterns of Paper Monsters” presents an interesting challenge to grown-up, strait-laced readers who tend to avoid books about troubled youths. “He was staring at me with epic nostalgia, like my face was a paved-over rain forest,” Jacob says of Jim, an adult volunteer assigned to mentor him. But equally fun to read are the moments when Jacob finds himself feeling vulnerable-usually when someone else meets his coolness with a display of raw emotion. Rathbone writes Jacob some great bits of irreverent commentary: “Family day is when the disparate elements of our broken families collect here at the JDC in a veritable Who’s Who of the Braddock County welfare set,” he quips when his mother comes to visit.
He finds Andrea “really pretty, like babysitter pretty.” A date with a previous girlfriend was like “rolling down the side of a hot grassy hill on a pretty good day.” And happiness? “It’s like trying to pee when you’re really high-sometimes it seems impossible but it’s not like I don’t know how.” It’s an appealingly understated teen-age love story, and Jacob’s offbeat descriptions are charming. The budding romance between Jacob and Andrea is believably stilted and messy it moves in fits and starts, with Jacob’s motives alternating between a deep need for companionship and the simple desire for sex. “I’m usually pretty good at sculpting conversations for personal effect kind of veering them toward some self-deprecating exchange that conveys how great and wounded or smart I am,” Jacob reflects, after an exchange with Andrea-a fellow inmate-renders him momentarily speechless. The best thing about Jacob is that he is remarkably self-aware: even as he’s feeling sorry for himself or slyly manipulating some well-meaning adult tasked with helping him, he is frank about what he is up to. He may be cut from the same cloth as Holden Caulfield, but he’s a good bit funnier and a lot less mopey than the angsty adolescent male narrators from many coming-of-age books that have followed “Catcher in the Rye.” Rathbone’s novel is divided into bite-sized episodes-some darkly humorous scenes from inside the detention center, others poignant memories-all unflinchingly described and analyzed by Jacob himself.
PATTERNS OF PAPER MONSTERS SERIES
Everything is sad and pointless? It’s a dire conclusion for such a young person to reach, but it’s not hard to see how he got to that point: after a childhood filled with poverty, drugs, and a series of abusive father figures, Jacob has landed in a juvenile detention center following a robbery attempt gone awry.
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