The late eighties was a period in music where the female singer-songwriter came into the forefront. To be sure, women had been doing just this throughout history, but this now became the commercial cause celebre<\/i> to the industry. Artists like Tracy Chapman, Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls all found themselves with recording contracts and, at least initially, marketing muscle behind their albums.<\/p>\n
In this mix we find Melissa Etheridge\u2019s self-titled debut album. Released in 1988, it doesn\u2019t neatly fit into any musical category, though it did spawn a hit with the song \u201cBring Me Some Water.\u201d As a first effort, it\u2019s not bad\u2014but it\u2019s far from perfect.<\/p>\n
Production-wise, it almost has too sterile of a feel to it. Tracks such as \u201cLike The Way I Do\u201d and \u201cChrome Plated Heart\u201d \u2014two songs which became staples of Etheridge\u2019s live performances\u2014sound overly polished, which in effect stripped away any emotion in the tracks. Compared to a track such as \u201cThe Late September Dogs,\u201d which is rife with soul and emotion, it makes these \u201ccleaner\u201d efforts seem far weaker.<\/p>\n
As a songwriter, Etheridge was still developing her skills\u2014and while there are some powerful efforts to be found in these 10 songs, not everything hits the target. As overplayed as it became for its time, \u201cBring Me Some Water\u201d is a high-water mark for this disc, as are \u201cDon\u2019t You Need\u201d and \u201cThe Late September Dogs.\u201d But for every strong effort, there are those that fall short. \u201cOccasionally\u201d dares to feature Etheridge a capella, backed only by her thumping away on the back of her Ovation 12-string guitar\u2014a brave effort, to be sure, but one that feels lyrically underdeveloped, and the overall track seeming to beg for an instrumental richness that isn\u2019t present. Similarly, tracks like \u201cI Want You\u201d and \u201cPrecious Pain\u201d just don\u2019t hold the same emotional punch that the more powerful tracks have in terms of their lyrical delivery.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t to say that Melissa Etheridge<\/i> is a bad effort overall. Rather, it\u2019s uneven\u2014which can almost be expected for a first effort. Indeed, Etheridge would grow into her role as a songwriter on future releases, and there are signs of that greatness to be found on this one. Also, the bass guitar work of Kevin McCormick proves to be the anchor that held Etheridge\u2019s first four albums together instrumentally. The musical pairing of Etheridge and McCormick is as natural as putting jelly on peanut butter, and remains a pleasure to listen to even nearly 35 years later.<\/p>\n
Etheridge\u2019s career would go onto bigger and better things, and though there is quite a bit to celebrate on Melissa Etheridge<\/i>, it would also be incorrect to say the album, as a whole, is a success (though the successes narrowly outweigh the miscues).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5645],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-46651","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-melissa-etheridge","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46651"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}