Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Album Review: Love Stuff by Elle King




I pay for a Spotify membership so I can hear the latest music as early as I can.  Ironically, I've found very little new music there this summer that I like.  It was my tradition until a few months ago to religiously check the Spotify new releases every Tuesday night to find my new musical fixes.  Most Tuesdays now, I forget to even check Spotify.  Yeah, it's been that bad, my fellow music geeks.




The few new (to me) discoveries I've found these last few months have been made while driving in my SUV via my SiriusXM subscription.  A couple weeks ago, I was sick and tired of my Spotify playlists so I turned on Alt Nation and heard this unexpected treat.




 That was live, folks, and it sounds almost exactly like the studio version I heard on Alt Nation.

I was intrigued.  Who was this Elle King, who so instantly caught my attention when I like very few female artists and spare very little time for them?  I went straight back to my Spotify account, downloaded her album "Love Stuff", which dropped in February, and listened to her for pretty much the rest of that day.

I was smitten.  I made my husband listen to her while I was driving him to the airport for a business trip a few days later.  He liked her and asked who she was.  I told him what I just relayed to you above - that I had heard her on Alt Nation, I liked her, but knew nothing else about her.  I promised him I'd find out more about Elle King.

That night, I Googled her.  I can't make this shit up.  She's Rob Schneider's daughter.  Yes, THAT Rob Schneider.




I haven't Googled any of Elle's album reviews because I wanted my first impressions to be mine and not influenced by anything I read.  I was trying to place her voice, so familiar yet different at the same time.  What I came up with was a gritty Adele, maybe a more elegant Amy Winehouse.  The defining quality between Elle and Adele/Amy is that I can see myself listening to her for a long time, even with her limited current catalog.

Elle is what I like most in an artist whether they be male or female.  She wrote or co-wrote all the songs on "Love Stuff" and also plays violin, guitar and banjo.  She's not a dimwitted female singer in front of a microphone, singing songs she didn't write and not knowing the first thing about playing a musical instrument.  She's truly talented.

The banjo makes some of her tunes lean way country but I like it.  The beginning of "America's Sweetheart" had me scrambling for my phone to make sure Spotify hadn't went crazy and switched artists on me.




Another favorite of mine from the album is "Ex's And Oh's", all about those dreaded exes we all have.




But I'm pretty sure my favorite song off the album is "Ain't Gonna Drown".  If I ever have a gunfight in front of the saloon at high noon in my lifetime, I want this song to be playing.




I give this album an A+ and I can't wait to hear more from this very talented chick.  Go check her out.

'Till next time, y'all.

Steph



No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts