Steve Earle - Washington Square Serenade (DIG)
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Free Music Notes for Washington Square Serenade (DIG)
Free Music Review: About three really good tunes!
Hit: 3 Stars
Sorry, but Steve without the Dukes is a pretty lame attempt to ....I don't know. This latest album is fair and that's a gift, because of Earle's history. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.Free Music Review: Not bad; not Transcendental Blues
Hit: 3 Stars
Or El Corazon. Steve is on the right track, but still a good distance from his peak.Free Music Review: Go WEST, young man. WEST. Not East. Before it's too late.
Hit: 2 Stars
The more I listen to this, the more it irritates me. I'm sorry. I tried.
Okay, so Steve is giving Nashville the finger. I get it. I'm not sure New York, which I suspect might be one of the most overrated cities in the world, is doing good things for him, though, musically.
The highs: "Jericho Road," "Sparkle and Shine," and "Oxycontin Blues" (which reminds me a little of "Copperhead Road"), which have nothing specifically to do with New York and are most like Earle's earlier material.
The lows: (I'm still trying to get a grasp on how many kinds of sad irony are going on here.)
The simplest part of my disappointment is that the songwriting is just not up to par. While I don't always agree with him, I've always had a lot of respect for Earle as a lyricist, and he just didn't hack it this time. "City of Immigrants" and "Steve's Hammer" are the worst offenders--simplistic feel-good drivel in the vein of "We Are the World" and "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream."
There's a lot of name-dropping about New York sites and characters (Pale Male, Joseph Mitchell), which makes Earle sound like a star-struck tourist.
The whole project feels like a lame, self-absorbed, sell-out.
Free Music Review: Pretty disappointing
Hit: 2 Stars
I wish I'd just bought the MP3 versions of three songs on this album that are good: Sparkle and Shine, Come Home to Me, and Days Aren't Long enough, and avoided the rest; alas, I bought the whole album before I heard it. I was hoping that with this album, Steve Earle would focus less on preaching his political beliefs (see the The Revolution Starts Now album) and more on creating good music like the whole Transcendal Blues album. While this album isn't as overtly political as past recent efforts, I nevertheless didn't like it much. While three songs mentioned above were aesthetically pleasing, many were grating on the ear (e.g., Satellite Radio, Red Is The Color). City of Immigrants -- with its banal multicultural platitudes made me want to barf; and it wasn't just the lyrics -- it's just a lousy song. I don't have high hopes that Steve Earle's move to New York is going get him back to making great albums like T.B., El Corazon, or I Feel Alright; those albums were phenomenol.Free Music Review: snore......
Hit: 2 Stars
Try as i might, i just can't get into this cd...the usual great lyrical content, but missing the mark musically, for me anyway. Than again, i always favored Steves electric stuff over the acoustic. I just can't appreciate the lyrics without interesting musical ideas to accompany them...and this cd puts me to sleep.