I went back and read my review of her last album to see what I had to say. I compared her to the likes of Rickie Lee Jones and Janis Ian. Funny thing is I don't remember that album at all and wasn't sure I had ever heard her before I found that review. As I listened to this latest album I was thinking the same sort of comparisons. I had predicted that her next album would be her masterpiece and it may be. This may in fact be the best she can do as an artist. It will not be the kind of album that 20 years from now people are doing documentaries about. It is a dense album and 16 tracks long, so a dense and long album. I have tried and tried to listen to this album and get into it, but I just can't. In some ways this album was best summed up for me by someone else. I was at the University of Idaho bookstore buying something and I realized this album was playing and I had just been listening to it. I made a comment to the girl working the register that I had just been listening to this album. She said, "I hate this Starbucks music, it is so boring." There is a Starbucks in the bookstore and I guess they pick what is played. I'm guessing it's the CDs they sale. Anyhow I thought that was pretty funny. It is in fact a boring album and it feels a bit Starbucks pretentious.
Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 1 out of 5 stars for Just OK.
We don't have a Starbucks in Madisonville, and I miss it, and I enjoyed this song a great deal--well, the first six minutes of it so far, anyway.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I officially love this.
ReplyDeleteThis is Woman's Side A of Quadrophenia.
ReplyDeleteWow. Thanks for introducing me to this.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, as much as I love this and Starbucks, I could see where they wouldn't go together ... too much yelling and other distraction for a fast-food coffee situation to go with this music.
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard anything but the four songs in this movie, but it sounds to me the best application for this record would be in a 1982 Buick Skylark, driving from Chicago to your first semester at WKU in fall 1986, flipping the cassette whenever one side ends and just restarting the other side over and over again. If you are an 18-year-old girl. The 18-year-old doing the same trip has no way of conceiving what a woman is, so he's never going to like this record. The 18-year-old boy needs to just listen to Quadrophenia; it will make him feel better--or at least not alone. The 18-year-old girls, though, should listen to this record.
Also, my guess is that Taylor Swift, if she heard it, had a similar experience to Paul McCartney hearing Pet Sounds when she heard this Laura Marling album. And that would be very good news for Taylor Swift fans.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the album so much.
ReplyDelete