Love Brandy Clark, but didn't buy the bait and switch of the recent half-assed Slate piece "Can Brandy Clark Save Country Music?" First, country music does not need saving (duh). Second, little about the piece is about Brandy Clark specifically, and more about the erstwhile team of Clark, Shane McAnally. Kacey Musgraves and Josh Osbourne. And I guess Trevor Rosen, too. Collectively, sure, country is better for their writing, but the piece did not make a case for Clark specifically/exclusively. Indeed, check out the full header in the link:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/10/brandy_clark_12_stories_shane_mcanally_and_others_saving_country_music.html
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 1 November 2013 13:34 (ten years ago) link
the headline is the biggest problem with the piece, really
― dyl, Friday, 1 November 2013 15:59 (ten years ago) link
Well, it should be something like "Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally and Others Are Behind Some of the Best Country Music Right Now."
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 1 November 2013 16:22 (ten years ago) link
will clickbait headlines get josh in chicago to click? see if you know better than our expert columnist!
― j., Friday, 1 November 2013 16:32 (ten years ago) link
Slate is all click bait, but forgive me for wanting to read a story about an artist I like.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 1 November 2013 17:23 (ten years ago) link
"That's My Kind Of Night" is a good song. wonder if thinking country needs to be saved from that is just another version of "cribbing from Timbaland doesn't make for real country"
― Euler, Friday, 1 November 2013 20:45 (ten years ago) link
Tell it to Bubba Sparxxx.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 1 November 2013 21:55 (ten years ago) link
woulda sounded great on country radio in 2001!
― Euler, Saturday, 2 November 2013 00:35 (ten years ago) link
Oh, that Slate piece is by David Cantwell. I saw him do a good talk about Merle Haggard at an EMP Pop Conference
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 04:27 (ten years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/brandy-clarks-debut-album-is-a-stunner-but-will-anybody-hear-it/2013/11/05/04be0ea8-4656-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html
Washington Post's Chris Richards has moved on from disparaging the sex lives of Arcade Fire to praising Brandy Clark
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 04:28 (ten years ago) link
good piece, as is the tennesseean blog linked in it - http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2013/11/03/peter-cooper-on-music-countrys-misfit/
i'm surprised and disappointed this hasn't got much as much traction as i thought it would
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:35 (ten years ago) link
also, this got edited from my piece, but brandy clark aspired to be a journalist, and studied it at college! which makes all kinds of sense
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:39 (ten years ago) link
Maybe if she wins a songwriter award tonight, it will somehow help her get industry support for her own release
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:45 (ten years ago) link
I listen to it at least once a week and my opinion hasn't moved: I love about half the songs, admire the intelligence and empathy of the rest, love the idea of her, but she doesn't excite me like her clients do.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:46 (ten years ago) link
otm
love "What'll Keep Me Out Of Heaven", "Hold My Hand", "Just Like Him", "Take A Little Pill", "Pray To Jesus", in that order
admire, as Alfred says, "Crazy Women", "The Day She Got Divorced", "Get High", "Hungover", "Stripes", "In Some Corner", in about that order
don't really care much for "Illegitimate Children": the chorus is clumsy. would be a nice b side though.
― Euler, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:50 (ten years ago) link
there isn't a song i don't at least like a lot; if pushed would put "illegitimate children" and "in some corner" at the bottom, but the former is still quite witty and the latter still has a nicely maudlin melody; it's only in the company of the rest that they don't stand out.
feel like there's a really great balance of the wry, detached storytelling and the one-moment-stretched-across-three-minutes ballads that hit the hardest emotionally - euler it seems like you prefer the latter? i really think the narrative detail and characters and just sheer craftsmanship in "crazy women", "the day she got divorced" and "hungover" are among my favourite things on the album.
as a performer she's obviously a lot less...characterful than someone like kacey musgraves, let alone miranda, but that fits with what she's trying to do overall - none of this album is about her, it's quite explicitly about giving voice to other people
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:58 (ten years ago) link
"Hungover" is a good one to think about. the "little drummer boy" beat expresses hope for the woman who's finally feeling big enough to stand on her own; but what's said about the partner (a lover? a parent?) is so minimal that you don't get a feeling for the size of her triumph. & I can't really relate to feeling like her so my experiences can't fill in the narrative's gaps.
part of this is that it comes in right after "Take A Little Pill", continuing the earlier song's drone, but the songs aren't well connected; and I love "Take A Little Pill" so much that I'm let down.
― Euler, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 15:27 (ten years ago) link
I gotta say that this album always gives me a massive sense of empathy. An obvious point and it's not like country doesn't/hasn't had that from the get-go but it puts me in mind of my ex's small town in rural Northern California more than anything else I've heard in the field in recent years. Whether or not its perceived artlessness, for lack of a better term, is the reason why I couldn't say, but it's present.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 15:30 (ten years ago) link
"Hungover" is a good one to think about. the "little drummer boy" beat expresses hope for the woman who's finally feeling big enough to stand on her own; but what's said about the partner (a lover? a parent?) is so minimal that you don't get a feeling for the size of her triumph
i disagree - it's necessary that he's out of sight and increasingly out of mind, because the alienating distance between them is crucial to the story. we don't know anything about him because she increasingly doesn't recognise him. what makes the song great is the way clark builds the scale of each mini-accomplishment gradually - and the way she mixes up the literal with the metaphorical til they're the same thing. and there are so many awakenings and emancipations contained in it, sexual and domestic and financial...
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 16:40 (ten years ago) link
all true! I think I'd be better able to understand the awakenings if I understood more of what was keeping her down
or maybe that's the wrong way to think about it: maybe he's just another stranger partner relative to which her triumphs, no matter how small, look big
― Euler, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 17:37 (ten years ago) link
A good country song is, to me, like a pinewood derby car made in the scouts. With relatively little variation, and with a completely understood purpose, there is still an infinite measure of quality available through steady, measured craftmanship. I enjoy country songs that employ plain, straight languge and are predictable in the second half of their couplets or quatrains without needing a rim shot - unless it's on the 2 and the 4. It's like ordering a pepperoni pizza and getting exactly what the hell you asked for: a pepperoni pizza.
This album, from start to finish, is just that. It has wit, good stories, imagry that paints but doesn't overwhelm or stifle a listeners ability to connect, and is told in deceptively simple terms that belie the otherwise obvious care and effort Ms. Clark puts into her songs.
Without going into specifics about this song or that one - although "Hold My Hand" is the one that grabbed me the most this morning - I think the best thing I can say about this album is that it is full of songs that I know that at some point in the future I will reach for out a need that I know that song will satisfy.
I have to thank Ned for putting this one on his FB profile this morning. I probably would have missed it otherwise.
― Survivalist Compound Row (B.L.A.M.), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 18:08 (ten years ago) link
Yer welcome, sir.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 18:15 (ten years ago) link
first he told her that her hair looked nicepromised he was gonna leave his wifeyeah, two more liesshe didn't care
god she's so good at stories within stories. stories a lesser songwriter would build a career on, brandy clark tosses off in half a verse
― lex pretend, Friday, 29 November 2013 15:22 (ten years ago) link
"I'm definitely someone who likes to get my heart broke," she says. "I can get a little addicted to that. And my life is pretty stable, so I have to find it elsewhere. I like to get into books and movies and, honestly, other people's drama, I kind of feed off of that, because it does give me fodder for songs. And not just because it gives me fodder for songs — it's just something I like, weirdly."
http://www.spin.com/articles/brandy-clark-interview/
<3
― lex pretend, Friday, 6 December 2013 20:06 (ten years ago) link
On Letterman!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmFRXZdtDJY
― pearly-dewdrops' bops (monotony), Friday, 10 January 2014 18:50 (ten years ago) link
Grammy-nominated for Best New Artist!
― jaymc, Friday, 5 December 2014 16:57 (nine years ago) link
:D
― Johnny Fever, Friday, 5 December 2014 17:01 (nine years ago) link
Wait, is that award still a kiss of death?
we've been enthusing on the country thread
idk what a kiss of death would even mean in the context of an artist who only sold 29k of the album in the first place
― lex pretend, Friday, 5 December 2014 17:15 (nine years ago) link
Shane McAnally @shanemcanally 3h3 hours agoDear every major Nashville label that passed on @TheBrandyClark - suck it.
― lex pretend, Friday, 5 December 2014 17:39 (nine years ago) link
Nice
― Johnny Fever, Friday, 5 December 2014 17:41 (nine years ago) link
she also got nominated for best country album :)))
― dyl, Friday, 5 December 2014 19:36 (nine years ago) link
showcasing her way with a metaphor even when responding to her grammy noms
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/12/05/brandy-clark-grammy-best-new-artist-country-album-nomination/19970359/
"I've always thought the biggest gift would be to be able to attend your own funeral," she says. "It's amazing to me how much of an outpouring of love there is at funerals. For me, today's is an example of that. This is like my own funeral."
― lex pretend, Saturday, 6 December 2014 10:08 (nine years ago) link
also an awareness of the category's ill-starred history
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 6 December 2014 12:41 (nine years ago) link
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/brandy-clark-the-grammys-country-dark-horse-speaks-out-20150115
― shmup....smug....shmub....shmug.... (forksclovetofu), Friday, 16 January 2015 16:49 (nine years ago) link
new single!!!!! it's GREAT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9lDtvaGQio
― cher guevara (lex pretend), Friday, 22 January 2016 14:13 (eight years ago) link
I'm into it.
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Friday, 22 January 2016 14:22 (eight years ago) link
It's got a pulse!
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 22 January 2016 14:22 (eight years ago) link
I've never been to jail / but, hell, I wouldn't put it past me
ha ha, excellent
― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Friday, 22 January 2016 14:25 (eight years ago) link
"The things that turn you on/Are what you want to change" is a good lyric that gains poignancy knowing her sexuality.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 22 January 2016 14:26 (eight years ago) link
the instrumentation is great
― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Friday, 22 January 2016 15:16 (eight years ago) link
Instrumentation reminds me of, like, Prins Thomas.
― jaymc, Monday, 2 May 2016 22:13 (eight years ago) link
http://www.npr.org/2016/06/02/479446410/first-listen-brandy-clark-big-day-in-a-small-town
― the hallouminati (lex pretend), Friday, 3 June 2016 08:38 (seven years ago) link
OH MY GOD, "DAUGHTER"
yeah she's taken the leap -- THIS is how I wanted 12 Stories to sound like
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 3 June 2016 10:34 (seven years ago) link
i'm finding the songs about individual characters to be more affecting than those about townsfolk collectively ("soap opera"; "big day in a small town").
imo "since you've gone to heaven" bridges that gap effectively, though. could imagine people finding that one maudlin, but it gave me real feelings. hope she plays it when i see her this weekend.
― dc, Friday, 3 June 2016 13:30 (seven years ago) link
w/out giving away too much from my filed review, I think the album is crisp and confident, if at times still too beholden to a writer's sensibility. Creative writing workshops across the land have so fetishized the detail that they have come to stand for realism—the realism of the inventory, the TSA travel advisory. Good singers don’t need details. Intimations, overheard remarks, aperçues, doggerel even—singers can inflect them. At times the sheer number of details in BDIAST is oppressive. Waffle House? Check. Ill-fitting sequined dress? Check. Jeans needin’ patchin’? Check. She's (still) not enough of a singer to transform. AtT times I'm like, enough already.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 3 June 2016 13:37 (seven years ago) link
the unnecessary detail that jumped out to me as distracting was the chevy truck in "broke." obvs chevy shows up often in country music as product placement or to establish cred or w/e, but i sorta doubted that was the case here. my mind started running through other adjectives they might have considered using there (pick-up, beat-up); took me outta the song a little bit.
― dc, Friday, 3 June 2016 13:45 (seven years ago) link
but overall i like most of the songs on here. and "girl next door" still sounds great.
― dc, Friday, 3 June 2016 13:46 (seven years ago) link
"Daughter" is my jam too – that organ!
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 3 June 2016 13:58 (seven years ago) link
so is "The Past is the Past." Fabulous use of strings generally.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 15 March 2020 00:01 (four years ago) link
this is a great record, killer AM radio energy
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, 15 March 2020 00:02 (four years ago) link
Closet thing I can think of is Lee Ann Womack’s last one
― Heez, Sunday, 15 March 2020 01:34 (four years ago) link
This is brilliant. No weak points at all. I even like "Bigger Boat".
― Jeff W, Thursday, 19 March 2020 18:51 (four years ago) link
i draw the line at Bigger Boat. Love everything else though!
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Thursday, 19 March 2020 18:54 (four years ago) link
"The Past is the Past" would make such a killer Springsteen song
― Heez, Sunday, 26 April 2020 02:51 (four years ago) link
"I wanna be at least almost close to worth your love" is such a devastating line
― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), Wednesday, 10 June 2020 01:59 (three years ago) link
Real damn good. She gets better with each album, seems like. I raved about it at some length over on Rolling Country.
― dow, Wednesday, 10 June 2020 02:30 (three years ago) link
revisited the new one and goddamn is it great
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 17:05 (three years ago) link
it is! The new singles are not tho.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 17:17 (three years ago) link
by which i mean "like mine" and "same devil" which strike me as fishing attempts to see what the country market wants
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Tuesday, 20 October 2020 17:19 (three years ago) link
In celebration of the one-year anniversary of her critically acclaimed album, Your Life is a Record, eight-time GRAMMY nominee Brandy Clark will release a special new deluxe edition, Your Life is a Record (Deluxe), on March 5 on Warner Records. In addition to all eleven songs from Your Life is a Record, the deluxe album will feature six bonus tracks including “Remember Me Beautiful,” a new song Clark wrote earlier this year as part of NPR’s Morning Edition Song Project. The album will also feature special collaborations with Brandi Carlile (“Like Mine” and “Same Devil”) and Lindsey Buckingham (“The Past is the Past”) as well as live renditions of two album tracks: “Pawn Shop” and “Who You Thought I Was."Moreover, in honor of the album’s anniversary, Clark will perform her first ticketed Livestream concert Saturday, March 6 at 8/7 CT via Mandolin. Tickets for the show are available now with a selection of purchase options, including a limited number of VIP packages with signed merchandise and a virtual meet & greet. Fans will also have the option to add a digital download of the deluxe album to their Livestream ticket, to be delivered on release day. Full details can be found at https://boxoffice.mandolin.com/collections/brandy-clark.
Moreover, in honor of the album’s anniversary, Clark will perform her first ticketed Livestream concert Saturday, March 6 at 8/7 CT via Mandolin. Tickets for the show are available now with a selection of purchase options, including a limited number of VIP packages with signed merchandise and a virtual meet & greet. Fans will also have the option to add a digital download of the deluxe album to their Livestream ticket, to be delivered on release day. Full details can be found at https://boxoffice.mandolin.com/collections/brandy-clark.
― That's not really my scene (I'm 41) (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 18 February 2021 04:23 (three years ago) link
lindsey!
― just sayin, Thursday, 18 February 2021 07:50 (three years ago) link
Austin City Limits livestream starting real soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lTHkXdC6sc
― bon ivermectin (Murgatroid), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 00:59 (two years ago) link
Saw her at a small venue, blown away, what a songwriter!
Fantastic set: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/brandy-clark/2022/lille-vega-copenhagen-denmark-bb0c18e.html
― corrs unplugged, Sunday, 11 September 2022 10:38 (one year ago) link