Nineties alt-songstress Juliana Hatfield has gone some other directions in recent times, such as last year’s covers of Olivia Newton-John, 2017’s Trump kiss-off Pussycat (QRO review), 2016’s team-up with alt-icon Paul Westerberg as The I Don’t Cares in Wild Stab (QRO review), and reuniting with her nineties band The Juliana Hatfield Three for 2015’s Whatever, My Love (QRO review). But now she returns to her indie-pop roots in Weird.
After all of those detours, Weird does decidedly play it straight, despite the title, in songs like “Staying In” and “It’s So Weird”. Even the best pieces are straightforward: the so sweet “Sugar” seems to actually be about the substance we love so much, despite what it does to us, and closer “Do It to Music” is a celebration about doing anything (and not just “it”) to music.
Admittedly, Hatfield has been able to do so many other things because she can pull them off, and Weird feels a little safe, ‘nice enough’ indie-pop. But very nice.
