Reviews Written by Cherryll
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October 16, 2002
Reinvention
Faith Hill has said that she wanted to step outide the traditional bounds of country music. To be fair she attempted to do so. She has said that she wanted to do an album of the R&B/Gosepel-ly stuff she grew up on. To be fair she attempted to do so. Unfortunately, time and talent got in the way.
I will admit to being a purist. When I think R&B I think Aretha Franklin and The Temptations. I celebrated the coversion of R&B to simply Rythm or Top 40, because that is what so very much of it is. Like the modern day traslation of the genre, Hill's interpretation removes all but the slightest trace of blues from the equation.
From the moment I first heard her vocals crashing against the electric guitars in the chorus of "Cry" it was painfully obvious that this song was beyond her abilities as a singer. When I got the cd, the rest of it did not fair much better. Her normally honey sweet and well produced voice sounds flat, and at times ravaged by her attempts to drop out of her comfort zone. Unfortunately, there really wasn't any need to, for this is not really an R&B album. It is a pop album that focuses on sad songs. That is the essential difference between Cry and her past two albums. While she has managed to surpass the juvenalia of "This Kiss" and "The Way You Love Me," it would have been very difficult not to. However, the album expects us to believe that sadder is somehow deeper. Her songs like "You Give Me Love" and "There Will Come A Day" were as complex as anything on this album, for all that they are positive. Once you look beyond that, there is little difference to the sound. What was the lust driven power of "Breathe" cranks the electric guitars a bit, frays her voice at the edges, and becomes the lost pain of "Cry." And, somehow, we are supposed to not notice that melodically, it's the same sound.
Faith Hill is a very pretty singer both vocally and facially. However, there are a lot of singers who fit that criteria and cover their selected material better than Hill does on Cry. In fact, the whole country pop singer converted to R&B singer begs comparisons to Shelby Lynne who did likewise in 2000. I Am Shelby Lynne is an album of stand-outs which effectively fuse hard-core R&B with the country roots of Lynne's childhood. Cry, on the other hand, is not a fusion of country and other genres. It is simply pop, and pop that we have heard from Hill before. ... -
August 27, 2002
"Homestead" Strong and Real
0 of 2 Yahoo! Users found this review helpful When you first open the cd "Home" you see the back liner page--a photo of a store front window which reads "We Are Changing the Way We Do Business." This sums up a lot of what this album is about. After a lengthy battle with their record label certianly some of this senitment is literal. However, it also serves as a wake up call that this album is not the same country pop of Fly. It is also, one can hope, a declaration of what The Chicks hope to do to the royal we of country music--change business as usual.
Toward that end they open with "Long Time Gone" which charges of it's mainstreams contemporaries, "They sound tired/But they don't sound Haggard/They got money but they don't have Cash." Looking toward a Fall that promises new releases from Hill and Twain, one would be loathe to disagree with them. However, challenging the state of mainstream country is nothing new in this day and age, it has become downright fashionable. However, response to other such songs has been lukewarm, due in large part to the fact that artists performing them have either been unknowns who were written off as sour grapes, or people taking time out of the pop scene to play at being "real" country. The Chicks however, get away with this assertation because they have a grounded country history and put out the album to back it up.
Make no mistake about it, nothing in the lyrics of "Long Time Gone" writes checks these women can't cash. No other artist in mainstream country could have written a song called "White Trash Wedding" without it being stupid and insulting. However, these girls lived the lives they write about and so can ground it in something real. It is still fun, it's just not cliche. Their heartstopping rendition of Patty Griffin's "Top of The World" is an album highlight and it's placement insures that their voices will linger on the air for hours. Once again, backing up their controversy, they sing in Tim O'Brien's "More Love" "Look at all those people/fightin' their wars/they think they'll be happy/when they've settled their scores/Let's lay down our weapons/that hold us apart/be still for just a minute/Try to open our hearts." "Truth No. 2," again from the pen of Griffin, ranks as one of the years best love songs, and right up there with Lucinda Williams "Sidewalk of the City" as greatest of all time. Then there are the songs they co-wrote themselves (including an instrumental "'Lil Jack Slade") and even one from Radney Foster (Godspeed), not to mention the lovely rendition of Bruce Robison's "Travelin' Soldier." They even manage to breath new life into the oft recorded "Landslide."
It has been said that no artist can hold a young fan base for long. The Chicks are the exception that proves the rule. This is because they have grown with us. They started out when we started out on Wide Open Spaces--suffering the first real heart breaks (Am I the Only One, You Were Mine), and experiencing the first real freedoms(title track). Then we were all you women, on our own to feet, who were ready to party (Sin Wagon), who realized there were downsides sometimes (Hello Mr. Heartache), and still a few heartbreaks (Without You), and reality got a little harder (Heartbreak Town). Now, as they and we enter our thirties we are ready to finally find that love (6 of the songs are about love), have babies (Godspeed). We have realized that life constantly changes (Landslide), faced the prospect of loss (Top of the World) and are still searching for "Truth No. 2." The reason The Dixie Chicks sound like a soundtrack to our generation is because they are. ... -
August 6, 2002
Some swing and one miss
Allison Moorer's Miss Fortune is rather like Lucinda Willams' Sweet Old World. Part of the album wants to be a concept album, most of the rest fit the profile and one or two don't work. This is another one of those places where I wish I could give 4 1/2 stars, but I cannot so I rounded up.
This album contains some of Moorer's guttsiest work to date. There is no other female in country music, with the possible exception of Kasey Chambers, who could pull off "Ruby Jewel Was Here," "Yessirree," or "Dying Breed." These songs form the foundation, with their unapologetic, unsympathetic look at gutter life, could have formed the backbone of a concept album. The journey from the "georgous bastard Ruby Jewel," who's place of birth causes her hanging 12 years later, through the bum's heaven, The Blue Moon Tap Room, and into the cycle of alcohol, drugs and death, these three songs take you through more than a century of life in the underbelly. Whether they want to or not the rest of the songs on this album hang off of these three.
"Going Down" and "Hey Jezebel" fit easily because they two dwell within this world. The rest have to work a little harder. The first three songs are standard Moorer fair and do work, because they are still sad songs, full of pain. "Mark My Word" and "No Place for a Heart" do likewise, although the inclusion of five of these song does seem a bit redundant. "Steal The Sun" and "Up This High" are her two positive love ballads. "Steal the Sun" barely works, because the music is understated and Allison has the vocal chops to make it a better song than anyone else could ("No Place for a Heart" is another song that ONLY works because of her vocals.) Then there is "Up This High," which is just bad. Moorer has not written anything this abysmally ditty-ish since Alabama Song's "The One That Got Away." Simplitic lyrics and metaphors aside, you still have this bright, cute, jangly song SMACK DAB in the middle of an album that is otherwise blanantly anti-pop and dark.
The songs on this album that are good will take your breath, and there are a lot (1,2,4,5,9,11,12&13). The ones that are mediocre are still sung well enough to make up for anything they lack, (3,6&8). The one that's bad, well, it's just bad. However, in keeping with true Allison Moorer artistry, this album has the most complex and large musical accompaniment, and is still recorded WITHOUT tuning or pitch correction and contains her raunchiest lyrics to date and not a single album liner cheesecake photo. ... -
July 31, 2002
A Complex Woman
Tift Merritt's Bramble Rose is the most complex female country music album since Trish Yearwood's Real Live Woman. This is not a teenaged girl falling in and out of crushes like so many so-called strong women of the day. This is a woman who happens across men, considers the possibility of a relationship with them, then feels her way through the rest of life. "You're not my boyfriend/I don't want a boyfriend" she asserts in the first line of "Trouble Over Me," "I don't want you for life/but don't we get along fine." The rest of her album explores life and love in much this same way.
This is a real woman, a complex woman, one with a life and friends as well as a man. She lays it out to a male friend/possible love interest in "Neighborhood," "Honey you don't look good/baby you can run 'round with just anybody in the neighborhood." However, she advises her friend to go after love in Diamond shoes "No one can win a heart like yours/but damned if he ain't tryin'." Perhaps the strongest cut on the album is "Sunday" a tribute to the day of lounging in bed and visiting your mother. "Supposed to Make You Happy" is a heart wrenching look at relationship failure. In the middle of songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" Merritt offers "Bird of Freedom," which explores rather than asserts patriotism. However, it is perhaps in the title track when she gives all of us, to borrow a Susan Werner phrase, last of the good straight girls, a new song about, "a real good woman, nobody knows."
Tift Merritt has earned a number of comparisons to Emmilou Harris. Part of it is she has a similar whispy, etheral country/folk voice. Another part of it is her ability to mix genres and still come out sounding distinctly country. However, comparing her to Emmilou Harris is like comparing Allison Moorer to Tammy Wynette. Both may bring to mind their heriones of old, but each has a sound that will always be their own. ... -
July 31, 2002
Country! Country! Country!
After a long quest through many music stores I have finally found some country music! It has been a long search, but it was worth it. Like all good country, it was filed under Rock.
I bought this album because it was produced by the Twangtrust. Okay, I really bought this album because it was produced by the Twangtrust AND featured Steve Earle on every track. The pairing of Earle and Kennedy works remarkably well. The frequent laugh lines at the beginnings of songs are refreshingly not annoying simply because it is nice to hear people having this much fun recording an album. The hidden track, their duet of "Dirty Old Town" is the perfect finale for these two working class boys.
The songs on this album are a well written collection of country swing with a handful of slower numbers. "I'd rather be dead/Than take what I've given or eat what I'm fed," Kennedy sings in "The Ghosts of Belfast." As if to solidify this statement Kennedy serves us a meal of familiar themes uniquely written. From the lament of a lost love on "The Way I Love Her" to the hilarious "Vampire" there is something fresh and enjoyable on every track. It's all in the details, like the almost off hand delivery of "I'd better get out of this house before I hurt you" in "Domestic Blues." My fiance' swears "I've Fallen In Love" will give you a road map to the way a man in the early stages of love's mind really works (for example he will tell his friends everything about his girl, except the fact that he's in love.) Perhaps the best song on the album, though, is the starcrossed love song "Backroom."
There is an old joke that the only people who sing with a Brittianic accent are The Ramones, who are from Brooklyn. Kennedy comes very close to proving this, but he does have a distinctly Irish edge. It isn't a full on accent, just a soft edge in the delivery here and there that just adds an irrestible touch of indiiduality. All together, Domestic Blues is heartfelt, western twinged country music at it's best from an artist not afraid to soundlike the Hank Williams he idolizes. ... -
July 27, 2002
There You'll Be
There you'll be is not on the Faith album--it is on the Pearl Harbor soundtrack. -
July 27, 2002
Adultry Examined
I think, perhaps the worst thing the American Market did to this film was market it as an "erotic thriller," conjuring images of the likes of Basic Instinct. This film is more the study of several major and minor characters and the way adultry affects and destroys lives. There are affairs and a mystery, to be sure, but these are real people who have lives attatched to the sex they have. (As if to underscore all this there are none of the over-pretty twenty something starletts prading around naked, just middle aged men having affairs with middle aged women who wear either more or less make-up than they should). This is NOT a movie to disenage your brain for, it requires attention to details and gives never tells you outright what to think so much as gives you things to think about. The performances are well delivered, like the boy caught between his fighting parents (one of the films funniest and saddest scenes is when the teenaged son tells Dad that Mom won't come to the phone because she's still pissed at him.) Geoffery Rush steals the film as the emotionally unavailable husband of a psycharist. He wants nothing more than to move beyond the tragedy of their while she almost defines herself by that same incident. This movie can be summed up by two aspects: 1. The director solves the mystery in a way that will make the audience happy, but also in a way that sharply underscores the theme of mistrust, and 2. the most startling revelation has nothing to do with the mystery at all, but is merely incidental. If you want relief from the "popcorn" movie season (which now seems to streatch through the entire year, except toward late November when all the "Oscar" films are released)see this movie. Once you rent it you will want to buy it. ... -
June 28, 2002
The Destination
Car Wheels On a Gravel Road was almost a concept album, a journey across the south leaving bad relationships. This album is about the lost emptiness after the end. From the status qou Lucinda Williams sets in "Lonely Girls" to the bitter forgivness of "Broken Butterflies" there are a lot of finalities in this album. It is probably her sadest album to date, but it is also her most beautiful.
The emotions on Essence are the rawest we have seen from our songstress. Even in her love songs like "Steal Your Love" the title track there is an uncontrolled edge that surpasses even Sweet Old World in their absolute honesty. "Essence" tears songs like "Breathe" and "Still the One" (both by so called Diva's) assunder with sheer lust, with both a voice and lyrics that will leave you trembling in your britches. This album has a journey all its own, but it is more a life journey than a physical one. The first 8 songs take you through finding love and leaving it behind again. Then finally the protagionist finds herself on a quest to put her life on track, first by searching her pentocostal roots, then seeking both the forgiveness and the ability to forgive that this spirituality requires.
Musically this is Williams' most subtle and complex album. The Hammond B Organ has always been one of my favorite instruments, and this album comes very close to making Reese Wynans my favorite person. From the stripped down plunks on "Lonely Girls," to the waves of "Out of Touch" to the almost catholic hymn of "Broken Butterflies," this album is proof of the sheer emotional force of a beautiful instrument in the hands of someone who knows how to really work it. But even outside of the beauty of Wynan's work the complexity of this album is awe inspiring in its mix of genres to create possibly the first ever acid-alt-country-blues album.
The raw beauty of Lucinda Williams voice stands out in stark contrast to the over polished sound of mainstream music today. This album takes that voice to new hights and brings out its best. Like most of Williams' albums this is not a cd that stands out on the first listen. Like Car Wheels, the songs, at first sound the same until the story shines through and then each song reveals itself as the distinctive chapter it is. ... -
June 14, 2002
Rythm...WITH the blues
Ever notice how modern R&B singers seem to have forgotten that the B stands for Blues. I celebrated when people starting just calling it rythm, because that is what it is--pretty voices tossed onto a thumping bass. There is no grit, no pain and no deapth, lyrically, musically or vocally. The metaphors are all the same, the music is either a "slow groove" or "dance remix) and all the vocals are produced to honey sweet perfection. From out of nowhere (via Autralia) comes Nikka Costa, railing and wailing like a Janis-Joplin Banshee.
Nikka Costa is to modern R&B what Kasey Chambers is to modern Country--the voice of the past come back with an ass-kicking vengance. She screatches and rasps with a 1960's fury that leaves the listener breathless. Layered under her are sting and horn arrangements that seem to be as much a duet partner, encouraging her to streach farther and reach higher. There is nothing innocent, childlike, or pretty about this vioce, just pure, raw, unadulterated pain and passion.
If all Nikka Costa's "Everybody's Got Their Something" offered was her voice, that would be enough. However, she is also an intelligent and insightful songwriter. In the second track she states that "we can't ignore what our hearts are beating for," and throughout the album she proves that she hasn't. In the year that saw the cheap and trashy "Hit 'em Up Style" by Blue Cantrell vie with Creed for most overplayed song, Costa spoke up for intelligently, emotionally involved and wronged women with the touching "Nothing," in which the wronged woman reminds her man that with her he's got a woman willing to work on a relationship (remember when songs were about those instead of "hook-ups")and without her he has nothing. Then she returns with the raving "Hope It Felt Good" where she asks "what if I was the one to leave your sorry ass behind." She closes with the deeply moving "Corners of My Mind," a song of universal and interpersonal togetherness--"It only takes a minute to see what's around, but instead we choose to reside in the corners of our minds."
All in all Nikka Costa not only competes with this years crop of talented newcombers (like Alicia Keys and India Arie)she creates and hold her own ground among them. (One note--you will probably like her more if you like Shelby Lynne than if you like Destiny's Child)She has a style that fits her image. Much has been made of her sex appeal, with little or no mention of the way it is packaged. Like her music, her image is neither safe nor cute. ...
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Back To The Bluesy With Lucinda Williams
2 of 2 Yahoo! Users found this review helpful This album is classic Lucinda Williams, as completely different and yet wholly hers as anythingshe has ever put out. Car Wheels felt like a journey across the South; and Essence was a journey
to the center of the soul. This is the story of a woman stalled out , and seeking the answers which
exist where she is.
Williams sets the tone in the opening, Fruits of My Labor, a tune with the same electric country
feel as Reason To Cry, when she reminds us all Baby, sweet baby, if its all the same/take the
glory over the fame. She plays with both the language and rythms of rap on Righteously, which
finds its center in the driving electric guitar licks and ballances the why you wanna dis me/after the
way you been kissin me with the by hammering home the line Just play me John Coltrane.
Ventura is a pretty, road styled tune about traveling the California Coast in search of release. Next
comes an track about what country music, and all music, could use more of right now--Real Live
Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings. It is a song Williams fans could sing to her I climbed
all the way inside/Your tragedy/I got behind/the majesty. Overtime is a haunting, syncopated
song about the advice well meaning friends give someone getting over loss. Those Three Days
is an open, bluesy rant about the after effects of a three night stand. Atonement is a starteling,
driving blues blast about wrenching forgiveness. Sweet Side offers a tender follow up to He
Never Got Enough Love, with a rap based melody that still sounds surprisingly country.
Minneapolis offers goergous instrumentals accompanied by Williams hauting vocals. She goes
into a classic blues swing for People Talking, a lyrical gripe about gossip and waggin tongues.
Next she offers a stark picture of the American Dream with Vietnam Vets hooked on heroine and
working class heros out of a job and out of luck when, Everything is wrong. This she follows up
with the almost hymn like World Without Tears where she askes If we lived in a world without
tears...how would broken find the bones. She closed with the equally stately Words Fell a perfect
closing note for such a gifted song writer.
Lucinda Williams is known for being a perfectionist in the studio, and this album reveals her work
ethic. The songs are poetic and meaningful, the instrumentals are haunting and complex and the
vocals are emotional, pitch perfect and distinctive.
PS: For perfect listening accompaniment try Mary Gauthiers Filth and Fire and Maria McKees self
titled ...