Emily wrote:
>1) juliana hatfield, "beautiful creature" --
>this one has slowly and steadily grown on me. the first
>listen i was sort of, ehhh, nothing special here. but
>i was wrong: i was duped by the simplicity of the lyrics,
>i think. and i was turned off by "cool rock boy," which
>i still sort of think is a rather unoriginal song,
>lyric-wise that is. BUT i love, love, love "daniel" and
>especially the line "this is the sound of NO MONEY" which
>this broke grad student likes to sing at the top of
>her lungs. and the music, the guitar -- wonderful,
>eerie, moving song. a perfect first song for the album.
>i also really like "choose drugs" which my boyfriend thinks
>is really lame, very obvious with its chorus "i say it's
>me or drugs you choose drugs" and i know what he means
>but when she lilts her voice high, high and soaring high
>to sing "druuuuugs" at the end, i just love it. it's
>so silly that it is also perfect. and i like the one
>about sitting on a plane on a runway, cheap red-eye it's
>one-way -- the metaphor works (oh man, does it work --
>speaking as someone who met her significant other ON
>A PLANE). and i like the "screw you, ex, somebody is
>waiting for me" one (can you tell i'm doing this without the
>CD in front of me?).
>anyway, THANK you whoever recommended this to me -- it's
>truly a find.
I think I might have been the one who had recommended Juliana, when I sent
that sprawling post about Liz Phair and Jen Trynin.
I'm really glad to hear you're enjoying the album -- I had much the same
reaction when I first heard it, but warmed up to it quickly. I had already
been burned once before, having bought Juliana's _Become What You Are_ out
of curiosity and the recommendations of a few friends, which I traded back
in less than a week. I thought the lyrics were almost embarrassingly simple
at times and the few times I played it, I could recall neither any of her
melodies or hooks afterwards.
There's a lot of Hatfield fans on the Liz Phair list, however, and I
respect their opinions and share many of their favorites, so after a lot of
prodding earlier this year, I finally broke down and bought _Beautiful
Creature_. I was still a little skeptical initially, but in the end, the
album really won me over and has become one of my favorites of the year. I
love her voice -- it's so expressive and even manages to save her
occasional lyrical stumbles. I really do agree with many of your
assessments -- "Daniel" is a moving opener, "Choose Drugs" should have been
silly, but ended up sublime, and "Somebody is Waiting for Me" is a great
kiss-off (not to mention probably the most compulsively sing-along-able
song on the album).
I'm just now starting to explore the rest of her catalog -- _Total System
Failure_ is more of a full-on, rock album that doesn't really play on most
of Juliana's strengths, but _Only Everything_ is almost as winning and
charming as _Beautiful Creature_ ended up being for me, with only
occasional missteps.
Bob wrote:
><< Aimee Mann - Bachelor #2.>>
>Funny how people have mentioned this one in lieu of the Magnolia soundtrack,
>which I liked a lot more. Both were 2000 releases. Not that B#2 isn't good,
>just that it's not as memorable as Magnolia imo...(except for those
>Supertramp songs...I guess they fit in the film but they seem out of place
>here).
Actually, _Magnolia_ was technically a 1999 release, although so late in
the year that the quibble is only a minor one.
You can include me in the camp who prefer _Bachelor No. 2_ to the
_Magnolia_ soundtrack. For me, _Bachelor_ feels much more like an album and
has the flow of a really great one. _Magnolia_ feels too disjointed to me,
but perhaps that's because a few of the songs ("Wise Up," "One," and
"Momentum") had already appeared on other releases, so I was already
familiar with them and they seemed less revelatory as a result. Plus, by
the time you strip away the other artists' contributions (all of which I'm
not fond of), you're left with little more than an EP, although a really
great one, of Aimee's songs.
_Bachelor_, meanwhile, contains all of the greats from _Magnolia_ that I
hadn't already been familiar with, with the exception of "Save Me," but
it's also a lot more varied in tone and tempo, while still sounding like a
cohesive record. Part of what I missed with _Magnolia_, although they would
have been inappropriate in that context, were her killer uptempo, extremely
catchy songs like "That's Just What You Are" and "Long Shot" from _I'm With
Stupid_. With _Bachelor_, I got those in the form of songs like "Ghost
World" and "Susan." Plus, "Red Vines" has to be my pick for the perfect pop
single of the year and "How Am I Different" is an astoundingly cathartic
album opener (I love the way it just builds and builds and builds).
Of course, the ideal would be to just pick up the version of the album
that's being released in the UK early next year, which is going to also
include "Save Me" and a new song that's either entitled "Backflip" or
"Backfire" (I can't remember which). ;)
Cheers,
Jase
