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pixie punk
> Teenager of the Year <
2923 Posts |
 Posted - 05/04/2006 : 11:40:37
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What's a Summer Without "Crushing Love" From Some Girls?
New Album From Juliana Hatfield's Girl Group Set for Release on July 11th, 2006
NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/03/2006 -- Some Girls featuring Juliana Hatfield return this summer with their new album "Crushing Love" to be released July 11th, 2006 on KOCH Records.
"Crushing Love" is the second album by Some Girls, the iconoclastic trio consisting of singer, guitarist and esteemed solo artist Juliana Hatfield plus drummer Freda Love, previously Hatfield's bandmate in seminal indie combo the Blake Babies and now a member of the Mysteries of Life, and bassist/multi-instrumentalist Heidi Gluck, formerly of the Pieces and currently of the Only Children.
The 14-track collection expands the provocative, hook-laden songcraft of its 2003 predecessor "Feel It" into compelling new directions, while maintaining the same balance of electric energy, melodic craft and emotional nuance that made the prior disc so resonant. With Hatfield, Love and Gluck sharing vocal and songwriting duties, the songs boast subtly irresistible hooks and pointedly punchy performances, as well as deceptively plainspoken lyrics that navigate thorny personal territory with unflinching truthfulness and barbed humor.
"Some Girls is a really open, creative atmosphere, and it feels totally different from what I do in my solo thing," Hatfield asserts. "In my head, Some Girls is an outlet for certain songs that I feel like I can't do justice to without Freda. Her drumming is so effervescent and groovy that some songs seem to call out for it. And Heidi is such a great musician and singer that she kind of makes it all jell."
Tracklisting:
1. Is This What I've Been Waiting For? (written by
Freda Love and Jake Smith)
2. Poor Man's You (Juliana Hatfield)
3. Partner in Crime (Love/Smith/Childers)
4. Hooray For L.A. (Hatfield)
5. Social Control (Hatfield)
6. On My Own Again (Heidi Gluck)
7. Stars in My Dreams (Hatfield)
8. Rock Or Pop? (Hatfield/Smith)
9. Live Alone (Gluck)
10. Just Like That (Joe Keefe)
11. He's On Drugs Again (LonPaul Ellrich)
12. Never Really Mine (Love)
13. Kill the Bottle (Hatfield/Love/Smith)
14. Magnetic Fields (Smith)
PUERTO RICO PIXIE |
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pixie punk
> Teenager of the Year <
2923 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2006 : 05:50:13
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Reprinted from Independent-Mail Music, by Russell Hall
Crushing Love review
Solidifying the pop smarts unleashed on their 2003 debut, the trio of Juliana Hatfield, her former Blake Babies partner Freda Love, and their friend Heidi Gluck turn their sights toward a more aggressive sound on Crushing Love. Songs such as “Hooray for L.A.” and “Stars in My Dreams” set Hatfield’s girlish soprano in a bed of crunchy riffs and smoldering backbeats, while the sinister groove of “Rock or Pop?” brings to mind the Alice Cooper Group circa 1971. On the anthemic “He’s on Drugs Again” Hatfield even takes a stab at some Hendrix-like pyrotechnics. The album has its breezy moments as well, best exemplified by Gluck’s strummy “Live Alone” and Hatfield’s bubble-gum-y “Social Control.” An abundance of‘50s-style girl-group harmonies adds to the pop flavor.
Reprinted from Venus, by Elizabeth Barker
Crushing Love review
There used to be a joke that Juliana Hatfield looked completely different in every picture: Her Spin cover shot bore little resemblance to any photo run in Rolling Stone, and neither looked much like the unlikely model posing her way through a Sassy fashion spread. But that chameleon thing had nothing to do with the typical rock-star penchant for reinvention. In fact, if there were a “Least Likely to Reinvent Herself” superlative in the early-90’s rock yearbook, Hatfield would’ve been a shoe-in.
Like all of her eight solo records, Crushing Love — the sophomore album from Some Girls, Hatfield’s collaboration with bassist Heidi Gluck and drummer/fellow ex-Blake Baby Freda Love — is full of super catchy, guitar-driven odes to the aloof men, dangerously perfect girls, and rock gods who can only break your heart.
But Some Girls reveal more of a pop sensibility than the solo Hatfield, pairing her alternately jangly and snarly guitar work with '60s girl-group touches like shuffling drumbeats and candy-coated vocal harmonies. The trio even verges into “Leader of the Pack” territory with “He’s On Drugs Again,” a Sardina cover that Some Girls rework as epic elegy — equal parts tender piano ballad and high-drama headbanger.
As always with Hatfield, it’s the lyrics that really slay. She’s got a way of spinning even the most awkward, potentially clunky lines into something to get stuck in your head for hours on end (see the deceptively breezy “Social Control,” with its improbably sing-song chorus: “He needed to be controlled / And I wanted to discipline him / Free people need social control / La la la la”). And the more pop-perfect lines are more abundant than ever, as on “Poor Man’s You” (“This song is a poor man’s ‘Love Me Do’ / And I am a poor man’s you”) and Gluck’s [sic] “Never Really Mine” (“She wrote a song about the good life / And he wrote one back explaining his side”). It’s those stab-in-the-heart moments that make us hope Hatfield never changes her act. She needs to keep on writing songs that turn heartache into something shiny and lovely, just so we can feel good about feeling bad for at least three-and-a-half minutes.
Reprinted from Cincinnati CityBeat, by Mike Breen
Crushing Love review
July 5, 2006 -- Side projects from solo artists can be problematic affairs, but Juliana Hatfield has rarely had any difficulty compartmentalizing her various creative identities, from the Blake Babies to her solo excursions to her latest diversionary project, Some Girls. Hatfield, Blake Babies drummer Freda Love and Only Children bassist/multi-instrumentalist Heidi Gluck turn out groovy Indie Pop with a sharp edge and self-deprecating humor on their sophomore album, the follow-up to 2003's Feel It. "This song is a poor man's 'Love Me Do'/And I am a poor man's you," sings Hatfield on "Poor Man's You," a gentle tribute to the young, unsung songwriters who wait in the wings. Later she makes like a more precocious Sheryl Crow on the shambling Stones Blues of "Hooray for L.A." and Gluck follows suit on the laconic "On My Own Again." And Hatfield weighs in on the subject of whether or not any of the agonizing we all do over music amounts to a hill of shit on the brilliantly simple "Rock or Pop?" ("Does God read the liner notes?/Does God watch the award shows?/Or is everybody just wasting their breath/On energy that is better spent?"). That's the one trait that runs through all of Hatfield's creative outlets -- her uncanny ability to write serious Indie Pop music that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Reprinted from the Boston Phoenix, by Matt Ashare
On the racks
Some Girls are sort of a virtual band who manage to sound like the real thing whenever they hook up in the studio together. That’s not easy: singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield lives in Boston; drummer Freda Love, who started Blake Babies with Juliana way back when, has spent the past decade in Indiana; and bassist Heidi Gluck is a Canadian girl. It’s been over a year since the trio hooked up in Indianapolis to record their second disc Crushing Love (Koch). So they made it count: the album features 14 tracks and comes with a bonus DVD of live footage from their first and only tour to date, and other behind-the-scenes goodies.
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Reprinted from All Music Guide, by Marisa Brown
Crushing Love review
Though Some Girls' second album may be full of warm riffs reminiscent of Liz Phair, John Mellencamp, or Sheryl Crow, Crushing Love shouldn't be considered a cheerful record. The major chords played by fuzzy guitars and clean four/four rhythms from the drums really just act as a cover-up for the uncertainty and sadness that sits indiscreetly in the lyrics sung by Juliana Hatfield. It's a record of questions that doesn't try to come to conclusions. Rather, it chooses to explore basic human emotions and avoid definitive statements, leaving room for interpretation and pondering. But don't think that all this means that instead it's a slow, pensive album, either. The catchy pop hooks of the Blake Babies (and also of Some Girls) are still here, the electric guitar grins its way through riffs and progressions, and Hatfield's friendly, intimate voice acts as the guide through the album's 14 tracks. Crushing Love is that welcome combination of reflection and fun, made for people who know things might get bad, but aren't quite ready to give up just yet. It's inquisitive, not resigned ("Does God read the liner notes?/Does God watch the award shows?" Hatfield asks in the '70s-inspired "Rock or Pop"), and though there may be moments of sadness, there are just as many of strength. "Just Like That," which was written by an ex-boyfriend of the frontwoman, about her, is compelling in its simplicity and honesty, "Partner in Crime," with its "Sunny Came Home" intro, is sweetly plaintive, while "Kill the Bottle" speaks of an untraditional kind of support and acceptance. But perhaps it's the title song — which, incidentally, was written by drummer Freda Love's husband, Jake Smith, and closes the album — that truly conveys what Some Girls are trying to touch upon. "When bodies move in tandem/Life doesn't seem so random/...Magnetic fields, crushing love." It's about the dual nature — the pain and the pleasure — of love and companionship, and it's also about the heartbreak that can accompany it. And if that's not something that everyone's thought about, it's hard to say what is.
PUERTO RICO PIXIE |
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pixie punk
> Teenager of the Year <
2923 Posts |
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pixie punk
> Teenager of the Year <
2923 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2006 : 13:38:34
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Reprinted from PopMatters, by Will Layman
Crushing Love review
July 14, 2006—Some Girls is a trio of female pop-rockers that is, inevitably, dominated by Juliana Hatfield. Crushing Love is their unpretentious and terrific second album. This is the kind of pop music—quirky and witty but also melodic and accessible—that deserves some of the record sales that are routinely earned by Jessica Simpson or Christina Aguilera. That’s not going to happen, but can you blame me for rooting for great songs played and sung with plainspoken ease?
Juliana Hatfield can be a divisive and divided figure. Some people find her little-girl-voice and la-la-ooooh choruses to be cloying; others hear a bad girl attitude in it all and love the sweet ‘n’ sour combination. And her career—which started with The Blake Babies (along with Some Girls drummer Freda Love) and reached a commercial peak when one of her songs “hit” and was featured in the movie Reality Bites—seems to move between sugary pop gems (In Exile Deo from 2004) and rebellious squeals of feedback (Made in China from 2005). Some Girls is a project dominated by the sunny version of Ms. Hatfield, though it is not without its shadows.
Some of the pleasure and leveling of Juliana’s temper is surely due to the punchy-pop drumming of Ms. Love and the light touch coloration of Heidi Gluck’s voice and glistening guitars and keyboards. While Ms. Hatfield’s solo-career bands have recently emphasized her punkier side, Some Girls is a tight group but one shot-through with jangle-y sunshine. With all the songs—whether written by Hatfield, Love, Gluck or someone else—dominated by the Juliana Formula of whispery pop singing and guitar-hook melodies, this feels like the best kind of collaboration. The strengths of Ms. Hatfield’s collaborators give her just what she’s missing on her own: middle ground.
This album is keenly aware of tradeoffs. The Hatfield-penned “Rock or Pop?” puts it clearly enough. It starts with a Stones-y guitar riff, then asks: “Are you writing for an audience or are you writing for yourself? Very willing to go straight to hell? Ooooh, rock or pop? Choooooose pop or rock.” Here, the sound is usually pure pop pleasure, but the lyrics rarely let you (or the musicians) off the hook. “I don’t want you to clean it up. I like it if it’s kind of fucked up. You’re so uptight, you can’t relax—you’ve got to get to the chorus fast.”
Thankfully, Some Girls writes tasty verses as well as choruses. On Ms. Gluck’s “Live Alone”, the melody and chords move with Beatle-esque surprise well before the tambourine-and-steel-guitar-driven chorus. Heidi’s voice is soft and breathy like Juliana’s but also different enough to provide George Harrison-style relief. And this is hardly the only place on the album where you might be thinking Fab Four. Juliana’s “Poor Man’s You” addresses a lover thusly: “I wish I could tell you with a better song how much I love you / ... This song is a poor man’s ‘Love Me Do’, and I am a poor man’s you.” Which sums up the Some Girls / Juliana Hatfield ethic perfectly—Hey, I’m not much, but then again have you noticed how brilliantly I just put myself down? And so the songs are often tales of heartbreak that make you desperately want to beg all three of the Some Girls for a date.
Part of what makes Crushing Love work so well is how the careful arrangements are kept from seeming fussy by the nearly lo-fi recording sound. On the devilishly catchy “Hooray for L.A.”, for example, the tune is given a meticulous arrangement including a prominent synth bass line, a simple and repetitive piano figure, harmonies on the out-chorus, and some added percussion elements. But the guitar and drum mixes sound essentially live and dirty, undercutting any sense that the tune may be fussy. “Social Control” finds use for a ringing little keyboard figure on the chorus, which turns into a Rickenbacker-ish guitar line the next time around, and then a combination on the last chorus. It’s a great touch, but nothing else about the tune is glossy or slick. So when Juliana sings about being in a bar against her will and how a guy “spilled his beer in my cleavage / So I slapped him in the face,” well, the whole thing sounds like it probably really happened to her in a crappy bar.
Crushing Love comes with a “bonus” DVD containing a sloppy and fun home movie of the Girls in the studio and on tour. It’s a throwaway thing and something you may only watch once, but it underlines the appeal and genuine quality of the band. Even when their harmony singing is sweet and delicately lovely, Some Girls remains a modest garage rock band with just three musicians traveling through the low-end clubs of Columbus, Philly, Boston and the like. Audience are small, the rooms are dingy, their hair is mussed, and their stage clothes look no different than what they wear when they are asking directions from the band van. Ms. Hatfield—thin and shy and still little girl beautiful at nearly 40—looms over the microphone with her whispery voice and then turns to her amp and wrings a hell of feedback from her Gibson SG. This is the same Lilith Fair star who did a cameo part on the TV show My So-Called Life and famously proclaimed herself still a virgin in her mid-to-late twenties?
But that is the fun and fascination of Juliana Hatfield and of Some Girls. Tough-sweet women making tough-sweet music. It seems simple and complex at the same time. It’s the music, I suppose, that real people would make if they didn’t have to sell the music to a billion people just to pay the rent. If Some Girls make it all look too easy, I think that’s part of the complexity too. This modest little album is actually an amazing achievement.
Now, do your best not to spill your beer in Juliana’s cleavage and, if asked “Pop or Rock?” answer: both. Just like Some Girls.
Rating: 8
Reprinted from the Boston Herald, by Christopher John Treacy
Some Boston Girls
If Juliana Hatfield’s brilliant “Made in China” wasn’t toe-tapping tuneful enough for you, try “Crushing Love.” More than a Blake Babies rehash, this girlie garage trio’s second voyage contains wonderfully melodic indie-pop. Memorable choruses get doused with Hatfield’s all crunch and no polish guitar power chords, while bassist Heidi Gluck and drummer Freda Love diligently hammer out crackerjack rhythms. Framed by a collective sense of romantic disappointment, sarcastic humor prevails in the deadpan “Social Control” and “Rock Or Pop.” And the CD’s melancholy latter half just reveals another winning aspect of what’s becoming one of the most fruitful side projects in recent memory. The package includes a low-budget DVD with concert footage and amusing studio antics. Download: “Poor Man’s You.”
Critic: A-
Reprinted from the Boston Globe, by Jonathan Perry
Crushing Love review
July 14—Call this either the best Liz Phair album in years or what Sheryl Crow might have sounded like had she been an indie-rocker writing big hooks on a small budget. Some Girls, a semi-supergroup comprised of singer-guitarist Juliana Hatfield, drummer Freda Love (Hatfield's Blake Babies bandmate), and ex-Pieces bassist Heidi Gluck, avoids any hint of sophomore slump with a second disc of terrific little tunes about breakups, crack - ups, and screw ups. The beautiful bummers bloom all over: ``On My Own Again," ``Live Alone," and ``Never Really Mine" are near-perfect pop snapshots of life in transit. Other highlights are about the pure pleasure of sound. ``Poor Man's You" sports the kind of self-doubt and coolly clipped guitar growl that made Phair's ``6'1 " " such an addictive buzz back in the day. ``Just Like That" (written about Hatfield by her ex-boyfriend) carries along a breezy, SoCal vibe, speaking of which, the hookalicious ``Hooray For L.A." is an outsider's slice of La-La Land sarcasm. Hatfield may be its frontwoman, but Some Girls sounds very much like the collaborative democracy it was meant to be: three musical friends bashing out pop with panache and trading hooks, harmonies, and heartbreak along the way.
ESSENTIAL TRACK: ``Poor Man's You."
Reprinted from RetroLowFi
Crushing Love review
"Is This What I've Been Waiting For?"
Yep. It's the second album by Juliana Hatfield's don't-call-it-a-supergroup. She's flanked by Freda Love of Blake Babies fame and Heidi Gluck of... a band I don't know much about. Don't expect the restrained sound of 2003's "Feel It". This time around the gals are sounding more confident and unified.
Let's just get this out of the way: if Juliana Hatfield sings on it, it sounds like a Juliana Hatfield song. I totally respect that this album was written/crafted by three able-bodied musicians and Freda's husband, but the bulk of this 49 minute piece of plastic sounds just like a very polished Juliana record. That ain't a bad thing either, mang.
Let's see, songs... you're gonna go ga-ga over "Poor Man's You". "Social Control" wouldn't be a bad start to a mixtape. Heidi's "On My Own Again" is pretty strong contender for Adult Alternative radio play. A few tunes, ("Hooray For L.A.", "Rock Or Pop"), get a bit monotonous with the title being sung over and over. Usually this'll get a song stuck right in your head, but at times it can be a bit grating.
Certain copies of the album come with a bonus DVD that promises a lot more than it delivers. There are no complete songs and the live snippets are barely listenable. Not really sure what the intent of the short film is, but hey... it's a bonus feature. A bit more bang for your buck doesn't hurt, right?
"Crushing Love" shows that Some Girls have found their feet but leaves you with the impression that their ultimate statement could be just around the corner. Or not. After all... it's just three people that like to make pop songs together. Take that fact into consideration and Some Girls already have a good portion of your favorite fly-by-night indie bands beat at their own game.
PUERTO RICO PIXIE |
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 07/16/2006 : 16:17:51
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Thanks for these, puerto punk. You got me thinking there's something going on here. Anybody who's made "the best Liz Phair album in years" deserves a listen.
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Juliana Hatfield's Some Girls (Album #2)
