The birth of ‘new country’ had a lot of bad repercussions beyond just ‘new country’ existing (as if that wasn’t bad enough…), including forcibly blending country singer/songwriters into the ‘adult contemporary’ end of the radio dial. While this let artists like Jewel jump on the pop-country bandwagon in search for continued financial success, it also threatened to push successful young Americana artists into being labeled as ‘adult contemporary’. Alt-country pioneers Wilco (QRO live review) managed to thread the needle, and now the more traditional songstress Tift Merritt manages to mostly dodge the ‘AC’ nametag, while staying true to herself, on See You On the Moon.
One facet of See You, that is common throughout pretty much every genre, is that the first song is the best song. “Mixtape” has a grooving element to its alt-country catch that makes it oh-so-fine, and oh-so-much better than the iTunes playlists of today (John Cusack wasn’t holding up in the air his iPod in Say Anything…). Merritt’s newest album could have used more of that groove, but perhaps she was afraid of being filed under: ‘Easy Listening’ (not that there aren’t strong artists who tempt that label, such as The Sea & Cake – QRO live review). Instead, the rest of Moon straddles the sweet county-contemporary vein, improving when Merritt does more with it. The brightening “Engine To Turn”, strings-added “Feel of the World”, touching loss to restrained “Never Talk About It”, and twang & carry to “All the Reasons We Don’t Have To Fight” all exceed whatever label gets put on Merritt. But “The Things That Everybody Does” is too sweet, “Live Till You Die” as cheesy as the title, and the title track slow to the point of boring.
Tift Merritt would hardly be called ‘indie’, but labels like that mean less & less these days – especially for Americana, which finds ears all across this great republic. And while her actual label may be part of the same major conglomerate as Jewel’s, that’s about all they have in common. Adult? Certainly (but what, this side of Miley Cyrus & The Jonas Brothers, isn’t?…). Contemporary? Americana seems to be so more & more these days. But ‘adult contemporary’? No, just enjoyable.
MP3 Stream: “Mixtape”
