"Justified" is a decent song. To me had a bit of an R&B flavor to it. I'm not sure how the rest is connecting. This whole concept seems a little too self-important to me.
Near the end of her interview with Zane Lowe, she says: "People know me to be a songwriter that writes about what I'm going through. And I think it would extremely awkward if I just acted like this last chapter didn't happen for me." It would be awkward? Really? Isn't the purpose of art a medium for an artist to express themselves? Since when does every new pop release need the literal backstory to accompany it?
Well, I mean, some of the generally acknowledged greatest albums ever - Blood on the Tracks and Rumours - certainly owe at least some of their appeal to fans’ speculation about the artist’s backstory and personal life that led to their creation. Not saying Kacey’s divorce album will rise to those heights - time will tell - but it’s not like she’s the first artist who’s ever gone down this road.
No, but I think there is a distinction between those records and this one in that Rumours and Tracks happened organically, this seems to be much more contrived on the surface but I'll reserve judgement until I've heard it all.
In addition to Dylan and Fleetwood Mac, let's not forget Joni Mitchell or Carly Simon, to name just two others whose personal lives were always front and center in their music.
There's a difference. With Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, etc., the backstories were probably not as dramatized at the time of the release. Or at least, neither Dylan nor the members of Fleetwood Mac said "this is literally what our record is about", which is essentially what Kacey is doing.
It's truly a different time now, where EVERYBODY knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE, so you almost have to address it and embrace it... for better or worse, there's just no mystery these days!
Of course. But I guess I disagree with the premise of embracing it. Not to belabor the point, but it would just be nice for once for an artist to release an album with no backstory, and for fans to determine their own meaning and connect to the art in their own way.
Wrong. The True Life Confessions of Fleetwood Mac Rolling Stone’s 1977 cover story on Rumours: Work on the album began in February ’76, immediately after the group had introduced their new lineup on a marathon six-month cross-country tour. Traveling to the Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco, Fleetwood Mac had walked straight into an emotional holocaust. Christine and John McVie, married for almost eight years, had recently split up and weren’t speaking to each other. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were about to do likewise. And Mick Fleetwood certainly wasn’t talking to anybody. The father of two children, he and his wife Jenny were in the midst of divorce proceedings. … “Everybody was pretty weirded out,” Christine McVie explained. “Somehow Mick was there, the figurehead: ‘We must carry on . . . let’s be mature about this, sort it out.’ Somehow we waded through it.” Last year, during the ill-fated stretch in Sausalito, [Nicks] separated from Buckingham after over six years. “The best explanation is: try working with your secretary . . . in a raucous office . . . and then come home with her at night. See how long you could stand her. I could be no comfort to Lindsey when he needed comfort.” She cites an example from Sausalito. Lindsey was feeling depressed because he couldn’t quite get some guitar parts down right. “So we’d go back to where we were staying and he would really needcomfort from me, for me to say, ‘It’s all right. Who cares about them?’ You know, be an old lady.” One problem. “I was also pissed off because he hadn’t gotten the guitar part on. So I’m trying to defend their point of view and at the same time trying to make him feel better. It doesn’t work. I couldn’t be all those things.” … Stevie doesn’t mind airing her personal life like this at all. “I don’t care that everybody knows me and Chris and John and Lindsey and Mick all broke up,” she declares. “Because we did. So that’s fact. I just don’t want people to pick up a magazine and go, ‘Oh, another interview from Fleetwood Mac.’ If it’s interesting, I’m not opposed to giving out information. “On this album, all the songs that I wrote except maybe ‘Gold Dust Woman’ – and even that comes into it – are definitely about the people in the band . . . . Chris’ relationships, John’s relationship, Mick’s relationship, Lindsey’s and mine. They’re all there and they’re very honest and people will know exactly what I’m talking about . . . people will really enjoy listening to what happened since the last album.”
if this is truly a "concept" record, Im just gonna wait until the album is released rather than piece it together one single at a time.
In the end none of this will really matter. Either the album will be good and connect with fans or it won't. To make this a focal point is rather futile, IMO. I mean, to present this as like some sort of Shakespearean tragedy does, for me, dilute some of the meaning behind the songs. Rumours and Blood on the Tracks didn't try so hard.
While you're not wrong, doing that when the subject matter really is about a bad breakup/divorce means then the artist has to deal with the tabloid bull$h|t that Taylor Swift (Carly Simon, etc) when she puts out a record and suddenly everybody's curious what man she's talking about. Saying "yeah of course this is about that" kinda gets out in front of that garbage. Besides, doing press for a new album is just something artists have to do these days. If everything is "well I worked with these great musicians and this great producer and great great great can't wait for you to hear it"... snore.
What are you talking about? Loads of artists release albums without a backstory. Most musicians aren't successful enough that they need to have a story to tell media outlets for a PR campaign. You posted a direct quote where she says: "People know me to be a songwriter that writes about what I'm going through. And I think it would extremely awkward if I just acted like this last chapter didn't happen for me." Do you honestly believe that you have a better handle on her fanbase and how she should manage her career than she does?
I'm not claiming to know how to manage KM's career. I'm simply agreeing with other posts that have expressed that the overall concept being presented in the rollout of the album - the Shakespearean tragedy, the cosmic fate of star-crossed lovers - seems a bit too self-serious and clumsily direct. She knows what she went through, and has the outlet of expressing her emotions through her music. A good portion of her fanbase is probably aware of her divorce. The art should just speak for itself, and hopefully it's as good as Golden Hour
Justified is really pop. I love The Golden Hour. It’s one of my favorite albums in years, but she is just going way too pop for my tastes. Also, her credits are mostly co-writes, sometimes with more than one co-writer. If someone is writing pretty straightforward country pop songs and needs 3 people to tell her stories, then she probably isn’t going to have her own sound. She clearly wants to be a pop star with the fan base of Cher and Dolly Parton. It’s odd to me because she seemed like she was a singer-songwriter that truly cared about great songs and making an legacy in music about being a songwriter, but all she’s done for the past few years is play to teen crowds and ramp up her social media to look like a fashion magazine full of ads starring her. She made her made loving and respecting John Prine for gosh sakes! Now she makes videos that look like perfume ads and instead of turning he divorce into a Blood On the Tracks she seems to be giving us something much less than she was capable of based on Golden Hour.
I wish she were aiming for Blood On the Tracks. This is more “I’ll exploit my divorce to make me a bigger pop star” This is where you see who the real artists are and whose ego is just writing checks that their talent can’t cover. These videos, 3 act play/tragedy…give me a break. If it truly wrecked you, you wouldn’t be making bad off Broadway pop videos to sell records and the words would have a lot more bite than what I’ve heard.
Every artist in the last few generations is aiming for Blood on the Tracks - one of the most critically acclaimed and widely loved records in our lifetime - though, aren’t they? Lots of opinions without any idea what this album sounds like…
I came on with Golden Hour, as I saw she’d worked with Daniel Tashian, who co-wrote and produced one of my favorite albums, Josh Rouse, Nashville. Love both albums, if you don’t know Nashville, it’s wonderful and very similar in feel and sound to Golden Hour, particularly songs like Lonely Weekend.
