I have been on a huge Juliana Hatfield kick lately! I read her book, "When I Grow Up" and thought it was one of the best "rock (auto)biography" books ever! It is so sad that she isn't more well known and respected. She went from a huge "Buzz" artist to playing to 5 people in the early 00's at crappy sports bars. Never came to Tulsa though .... I so relate to her. She's shy and tortured, but with a work ethic- she's not a flake! Her name album is "There's Always Another Girl". I've been listening to it a lot. The production is kind of ...off. It's defintely not a loudness war victim. The sound is kind of anemic. It reminds me of early 90's CD's, from before "the wars". It's a sprawling collection- 14 songs. It covers a lot of ground. The two best songs are the first and last! "Change The World" is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard about just sheer resignation to the fact that you can't "live your dream" all the time. Most people don't even get the chance. It's an idea that's expressed in the book a lot. The last song is also very poignant. There's gotta be some love for her here on the forum. I advise everyone to give her new album a listen! It's better than 50 Gaga CD's! Annette
I'm also a fan. Can this new one be bought anywhere other than on her website? It looks like amazon is only offering mp3s at the moment...
I really liked the album with the buffalo cover and "Universal Heartbeat" on it BITD. Wonder if she has a day job these days...
I've dug her ever since "Hey Babe" and "Become What You Are" is the one that hooked me. Listening to her cover of Every Breathe You Take right now, and looking forward to this new one.
The book actually goes into her thoughts about getting "a real job". But the whole point is, this is all she knows how to do! She's the female Van Morrison- "I hate the business but it's the only business I know", y'know. Yeah, one Amazon seller had it available new a week or 2 ago, and I got the last one they had. I couldn't wait for the 30th! It took a while to get to me, but I got it mid-week last week. Appearently, this one was financed by fans (I DIDN'T KNOW- I'm sorry I didn't help!), but it would be a shame if physical copies are that limited (her financiers/fans got copies last month). Annette
I love Become What You Are. Every song is memorable. Funny, I got interested in that album because of "My Sister" which got a lot of airplay, but it ended up being my least favorite song on the album. Only Everything is great too. Haven't kept up since then, sorry to say.
I just remembered she did a nice cover of Marianne Faithfull's "Witches' Song". Heard it in a record store many years ago, haven't heard it since.
I was a huge fan early on. Unfortunately there was there the whole Gods Foot Fiasco that delayed her releasing a follow up to Universal Heartbeat, and since then her albums have been pretty hit and miss.
Finished the book a month ago. Fan in the 90's, got a kick about 5 years ago and another kick this year. Thought about seeing her in Seattle in 2008. She played Vancouver 3-4 times in the 90's and hasn't been up since.
I have been constantly impressed by whatever songs of hers that I have heard through the years on my local college radio stations' free-form shows. She gets a lot of play on one of my pal's shows. This Lonely Love and The Fact Remains from her How To Walk Away album are superb. Fantastic melodies, composition and recording. I think that a well curated, career-spanning "best of", limited vanity vinyl-only compilation of her work would be a real nifty thing to have.
How would comparing the amount needed to fan-fund the release of God's Foot compare to the fan funding needed for this new album?
If I'm not mistaken - and I very well may be here - she'd need to raise well into the five figure range to buy the masters and rights back from Atlantic. And that's if the recordings were completed to her satisfaction. And of course, Juliana herself would have to have the desire to take on such a monumental return to her past and some rather unpleasant events. All of those things seem like a much different animal then her interest level in raising the money to record and release a new collection of songs that she's really jazzed about.
Long-term fan here, have bought every album since Become... The new album is kinda uneven, but there are at least 3 tracks of truly classic Juliana.
I have sadly not kept up with her recent work. I did get to see her near the end of the Blake Babies' life, they opened for fIREHOSE, what an awesome show that was! My favorite of hers is Beautiful Creature, and is probably in my top 20 albums of all time. I don't have any Blake Babies or Some Girls stuff either, and have not yet read her book.
Hard to see why she would pay hard-earned money for GF tracks now. The commercial momentum for that album passed 14 years ago. It's not likely to be a success now.
I agree completely. I mean, I'd love to see the album officially released in my lifetime, but not if Juliana isn't 100% into it. And especially not if it's going to break her personal bank, of course.
Exactly. It's still better than pretty much everything coming out these days, but it could have used a better sequencing. "Change The World", "Thousands Of Guitars" and "Batteries" RULE! Let's have a Forum Fundraiser to buy "God's Foot" and have Steve remaster it and put it out on AF!!!! It is really sad to read that book and know that a brilliant album never got released because of stupid record company meddling. And with all the CRAP Atlantic put out around that time and since.... They didn't tell Jewel that "Spirit" is one big downer (released around the same time), and that several songs have bits of the same lyrics and it sounds like it was all written in a day. I mean WTF???
Her last album fan funding went better than expected and her fans could probably raise the money. At this point I'd imagine that Atlantic would bite in the low/mid 5 figures, in a way free money to that label since it was likely a tax write off 15 years ago. The asking price would be much lower than the price that got shopped to other labels back then. I think she could be convinced, she's done the songs live, wrote about it in the book and put a couple tracks on the "best of" comp.
Hey, if someone wants to come up with a good way to present the idea to Juliana, I'm sure I could help wrangle up some fans to support the "Fan-fund a God's Foot release" drive.
I'll chime in here with a robust thumbs up for Juliana, on whom I sustained a deep and inveterate crush for several years. I have everything up to "Made In China." I spent many hours in my late twenties learning her songs on the guitar, a process that only deepened my appreciation of her craft. Drop D timings, jazz chords, innovative melody lines: she's the real deal, and sorely overlooked. She shoulda been as big as Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morrisette, though i always appreciated the degree to which Veruca Salt acknowledged the depth of their debt.
Easy Street and Silver Platters stores in Seattle had multiple copies for $10.99 when I was down there from Vancouver a couple days ago.