Real
Bloodshot
2016
Rating: 7 Arkansas hair pieces out of 10
I discovered Lydia Loveless by seeing her live at Hopscotch Music Festival a couple of years ago, and I've been totally infatuated ever since. I listened to her last record "Somewhere Else" to the point where if my loved ones actually cared about me, they would have been worried about my health with the level of obsession I was displaying. I listened to it so much that it has had a negative effect on my reaction to her other records, because when I listen to this other material I just want it to be exactly like "Somewhere Else." I listen to "Real" and enjoy it (especially the second song "Longer"), but about halfway through I'll start getting impatient and want to just put on "Somewhere Else." Sometimes when I have this obsession with an artist it will subside and I find I can more easily enjoy their other offerings, sometimes not. It might take another Loveless album or two to figure out exactly where I stand here.
Oh yeah, I should probably talk at least a little about Lydia and this record - she gets lumped into the alt-country world (or even worse, the stupid moniker "country punk"), and her voice does have the occasional twang to it, but these days, and on this new record especially, she's a lot closer to Beth Orton or Aimee Mann than she is Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn. Shit, if you cleaned up the guitar in "Heaven" a little bit you could probably convince someone it was Everything But the Girl...that song is a little weird here, not going to lie. It's a good record overall though, and I would imagine her fans who aren't idiots like me can enjoy "Real" just fine.
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