Van Lear Rose - thoughts?

This sentence makes my head hurt.

Loretta Lynn is one hot 70-year-old, by the way.

No alterna-covers on this, it's all originals with the exception of one tune by White (or is he "Stripes"?)

I drew the same comparison at a record store today! She does write the songs on this one.

That's the impression I get listening and reading up, but maybe this is nothing new for her. Anybody around who can speak to her output after "The Pill" but before Van Lear Rose?

Anyway, Jack White's thumbprint on this thing sometimes overshadows Loretta, and that's kind of lame. Like the drums and guitar are mixed way too loud in parts.

I think the album is very good because the songs are good and the sound is original in a good way. My daughter thinks "Family Tree" is a kick-ass song and she's right. From what I've read, LL picked Jack White to produce because he has worshipped her in the past. Either way, it's not a fake-Johnny-Cash thing at all, I don't think...it's all about the songs.

I'd compare it more to If Only I Could Fly by Merle Haggard a couple of years ago or some of the good Willie Nelson records of the last few years (Spirit or Rainbow Connection). I like it much more than any of the recent bluegrass-y Dolly Parton records.

And I don't think White's personality overshadows Lynn's AT ALL.

I asked farther up the thread whether anybody could speak to Lynn's output from the mid-'70s on. I haven't heard much here or elsewhere, and what I read suggests that there wasn't much to get excited about about; she got abandoned by the mainstream and cruised on reputation, etc. is the main vibe I get. Maybe true, maybe not, and I don't live near Amoeba Music anymore so I can't spend time in the $1 LP bins solving the problem personally. But I doubt knowing those records would markedly change what I like about Van Lear Rose -- enthusiasm, humor, and care for songcraft.

just a thought.

As for critics forming a bandwagon independently or not, when scores like this pop up on Metacritic--admittedly, far from scientific, but if nothing else can make relevant observations--I start to wonder if I'm hearing the same album as everyone else.

That's the highest score of all time on Metacritic.

It's a perfect thing to be asking, at least to the extent that it expresses the proper skepticism towards publicists telling you what's great, what's important, what you ought to be liking, and what you ought to be buying now now now. I think a lot of critics are in the position that agw posits, where Lynn was off everybody's radar for years and nobody outside of the country press was following her career closely; suddenly there's a new album with a current brand name attached, and what are you gonna do, rip a 70-year-old woman to shreds? If Van Lear Rose was a steaming pile of shit, yes they would. But in this case, anything that was good-to-pretty-good is gonna get some grade inflation. And I think we're dealing with a pretty good album that's getting an added assist from its left-fieldish backstory. Of such things are Pazz & Jop Top-10 albums made.

I think that Van Lear Rose -- like "Love & Theft" and If Only I Could Fly and, to a lesser extent, Buddy Guy's Sweet Tea -- is worthy of the praise, and a big reason why ,as I think Begs2Differ said, is the SONGS, which are all Lynn originals and are mostly great. And I think Jack White does a pretty ace production job -- his fingerprints are all over it but he never overshadows Lynn. It has some of that "Hotel Yorba" intimacy to it. From his perspective, you might call it the better sequal to White Blood Cells because Lynn is a better songwriter than Jack and Lynn is a whole lot better singer than Meg or Holly Golightly.

Actually, the "comeback" record it's starting to remind me of the most is Mermaid Avenue -- if Guthrie had been around to sing the songs himself.

you know portland oregon is still a pretty wicked song

the beginning of "Portland, Oregon" sounds as much like Can as a Loretta Lynn song can.

What I heard sounded pleasant enough

i have this disc, somewhere.