Defending Her Honor!

So here's a particularly nasty, inartful review of Allison Moorer's Getting Somewhere published in this week's Metro Pulse (some Knoxville weekly rag). I don't take much stock in reviews that just dance around what they specifically dislike about the music, but I thought this piece o' shit deserved a hearty fanboy rebuttal. Here's the original "review" by Leslie Wylie:

"The comparison is painful, but here we go: Consider the career trajectory of pop-tartlet Jewel, who you’ll recall, with some strain of memory, was at one time a quiet Alaskan singer-songwriter with a crystalline voice and a penchant for break-my-heart-already lyrics. Then she married a famous cowboy, lost a few pounds, and reinvented herself as your run-of-the-mill MTV slut, devoid of substance and clothing in equal measure.

Now consider Allison Moorer, whose charcoal-infused voice was once a reflection of her dark, Southern Alabama upbringing, during which her father shot her mother before turning the gun on himself, leaving Moorer and her sister, country songstress Shelby Lynn, to fend for themselves. But something happened between Moorer’s 2004 release of The Duel and her newest, Getting Somewhere, and it wasn’t that she found Jesus. Rather, she found and married Steve Earle, dolled up her rough ’n’ tumble girl-next-door looks, and dumbed down her music.

Moorer’s voice, once hard as nails, becomes so airy it’s almost inaudible. She takes the nail file of I’m-so-happy idealism to her once gritty, unkempt songwriting. Maybe it’s denial, and maybe it’s survival, but it sure isn’t honest. Ah, well. At what cost getting where one wants to go."

I usually let bullshit like this slide - after all, I'm prone to nasty inartfulness myself. Let's set aside the ridiculous comparison to Jewel. Whatever "makeover" - sound, image or otherwise - Allison has undergone, it does not compare to Jewel or Liz Phair or whatever commercial sellout move you might choose to ponder. As far as "dolling up" her looks, I don't particularly detect anything pop-tarty about the album's art or publicity (though the comment somewhat indicates that Wylie spent some time poring over the publicity photos). And I'm pretty sure Allison does not eat charcoal - that's just plain mean!

No, the offense here is just the kind of lazy stupidity that passes for music criticism these days. First, we've got the tired reference to Allison's family tragedy, a topic that she has drawn on before but never made the focus of her work. Never mind the fact that the two centerpiece tracks on Getting Somewhere ("New Year's Day" and "How She Does It") deal with the topic somewhat indirectly (and quite beautifully). But apparently there aren't enough songs about dead parents to please this particular critic. I would call Allison's songwriting many, many things, but "gritty" or "unkempt" would not exactly spring to mind. Has this reviewer ever heard The Hardest Part (an elegant countrypolitan record) or Miss Fortune (a Beatle-esque pop record)? Granted, Getting Somewhere is a substantial departure from the darkness of The Duel - one of my favorite records of all time, by the way. Is it a pop record? Sure. Is it some manufactured piece of garbage designed to lure soccer moms at Starbucks? Uh, no.

The implication that Allison has raised her hem lines or lowered her necklines to sell records is pretty shitty (please show me the evidence of this). It's also a fairly sexist implication that marriage to Steve Earle has dumbed down here music (last time I checked the liner notes, Allison used to write all of her music with her former husband). Oh, of course, a woman cannot initiate her own change in musical direction! No, only a man - evil Steve Earle - could have led her down that wanton path. He produced the album so naturally it's his vision, not Allison's.

Geez, even if you think Getting Somewhere is a pile of crap, give her the credit/blame for it. Of course, unless I miss the full meaning of that first paragraph, Wylie used to be a fan of Jewel. And don't get me started on how many things are wrong with that...

So send a message to the terrorists and Leslie Wylie - buy Getting Somewhere on Tuesday, June 13. You can read a real review of the record here.

(P. S. I'm just picking on Leslie Wylie, who writes a lot of good pieces for Metro Pulse. But like my good buddy the Prez sez, I have to fight tyranny over here so you don't have to fight it over there (or something). As Stephen Colbert would say, that's just math.)