Album Review: "Bare" -- Annie Lennox
****
A brilliant album. It's at once spare and full. Wonderful production and aching songwriting. She sounds wonderful.
7:23 PM
Album Review: "Essence" -- Lucinda Williams
UPDATE
***1/2
I take it all back. The album is fine.
** 1/2
I like Lucinda Williams. She is a brilliant songwriter. Her 1992 album "Sweet Old World" is wonderful. Emmylou Harris has covered Williams' songs beautifully and brilliantly.
Yes, Lucinda Williams is a great talent, but I'm not so fond of "Essence," Williams' 2001 album. The songs are nice, but not when presented together. They're all roughly the same tempo and all produced very similarly.
Envision a sloppily dressed woman slumping over an electric guitar, her head hanging down so the hair forms a wall around her face. That's what the album sounds like.
The rest of the songs are not bad, either. I especially liked "Lonely Girls" and "Bus to Baton Rouge." As I said, they're fine songs (a bit languid, but fine) -- but listening to 11 in a row is a little tedious.
7:14 PM
Weak theology?
License plate seen on a new, silver Mercedes on the Durham Freeway this afternoon: IMBLE$$D
3:27 AM
Rotting fruit
12:55 PM
Seen in a downtown Apex storefront
A fake butterfly is perched on a stuffed cat's eye. 1:22 AM