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| June 2004. |
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6.5.2004 - Juliana: "I'm a goddess in your eyes/and I will never die/I was
born of people's needs/and what they don't want to believe/but I'm a liar,
that's the truth/go home and think it through ..."
I almost included it on May's home-recording
project (Pop Tarts Not: Ear Candy, Vol. 1),
but decided against it at the last minute. Why? Why do ya think? Here's June's home-burning project:
a 78 minute, 40 second opus I've dubbed ...
Got No Idols: The Best of Juliana Hatfield.
Of late, I've been alternating it with
"Everybody gets down sometime/you get happy with a sugar buzz/white chocolate is your favorite drug ..." It's a delectable and intoxicating outing, the kind of upbeat tune that couples soul-cleansing confessions with unfettered optimism - and a melody that can't be beat. "I've been sleeping through my life/now I'm waking up/and I want to stand in the sunshine ..." Give it a go if you haven't, already. |
| 6.1.2004 - If it's the 1st,
it can only mean one thing: it's time to name a new Album of the Month.
And, as the above photo of indicates, the honors go to
, her latest CD, which was released May 15th. It is, in short, a tour
de force that's packed with tasty, guitar-driven melodies and lush,
to-die-for vocals - and may well be her best recorded effort yet. From her days with the in the late '80s to her alterna-pop solo work in the early '90s, it seemed as if the indie star was on the verge of achieving mainstream success. With the Blake Babies, she capped the 1980s with one of that decade's best albums in ; and then released a trio of good-to-great albums (, , ) before fading from earshot. She returned in 1998 with the burning , a glorious, gut-first exercise of electric rock and pop that, again, failed to push her over the top. 2000 saw her release a : the red-hot metal of and the more subdued, introspective . "Introspective." That may well be the keyword for Juliana's recorded oeuvre as a whole, and the reason why she's failed to catch on to a wider audience. With her wistful, vulnerable vocals and oft-wounded lyrics set aside sarcastic, spiteful rejoinders accented by jangling guitars, listening to a Juliana album can, at times, feel like you're listening to an audio diary. maintains that feel. Many songs ache; others mix sly asides with brash confessions, and diatribes about fighting and feeding addictions, be they to love, to drugs, to cigarettes ("Forever"). "Tourist" is one such high, Juliana's voice filled with empathy and more. The acoustic "Tomorrow Never Comes" quivers with hurt and regret. "With a little lovin' and time/you might forgive me," she intones, her voice threatening to break. It's fragile beauty in a song. Fragile beauty buttressed by strength, I hasten to add.
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Those lines come from what is, without doubt,
one of my all-time fave songs by Juliana or anyone - "Got No Idols," which
can be had in a scintillating electric version on her early '90s album
. She also released a sparse, piano-only version as a
bonus track on the "For the Birds" CD single that's positively
spine-tingling. I've probably put them on
more tape and CD mixes through the years than any other song,
often leading off with one and closing with the other. Why? The song
deconstructs the "rock god" syndrome many fans fall into and flips it on
its head ... 
,
which is hands-down the best new CD of 2004 thus far ... one (of many)
songs that's stolen my
affection is the blast of pure pop "Sunshine":