I became a fan of Sam Beam and his nearly-one-man-band project Iron and Wine back when he was recording songs in his bedroom with his sister singing harmony. I fell madly in love with the spare sound and elegant songwriting. As the years went by and recognition grew he attracted collaborators (like Calexico) and his studio efforts became more and more sophisticated, more layers, more instruments. But is still sounded like the unlikely musical genius he started out as.

Today I got a mass emailing from Warner Bros. written in PR Hack dialect giving me a link to the slick website with tour dates and clever graphics. Yesterday I got a link to a hip music blog where the new album is streaming, and the first few comments in the feedback section are spam ads for discount shoes. Most of them read like street team hype—completely synthetic.

But the music was still there, inviting me to suspend judgment until I'd heard it.

It's still pretty good music. He's still a hell of a songwriter. The additions don't sound bad, exactly, they're just not helping—they're encrustations rather than integral to the music. And the more-familiar sound will probably introduce more people to his music. This will fit in on the radio where his quieter stuff wouldn't.

I don't want to say he's sold out, that's too pat and neat and tidy for what I'm hearing. And I can't blame him for heading in the direction the rest of the music industry has been most of my life: overproduced, overpackaged, fundamental flaws concealed by more layers of sound and more manipulation and polished to go down smooth. I'm sure Warner Bros. wrote him a hell of a check, and he's got kids to feed. Maybe he always wanted to sound like this. If I had never heard his earlier stuff I'd think it might be worth hearing more of.

But I did. And damn I'm disappointed.