Nominated by: Greg Knowles
Music club: Wander to Wozza's
Playlist addition: On Your Way
Alabama Shakes is a rock band from (ha ha, yes) Alabama but if you're thinking Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd, think again! These musicians are more blues rock oriented and the female lead singer, Brittany Howard, is also a point of difference to those southern rock bands. BTW I love blues rock and I love southern rock bands.
It is a WTW Music Club unstated 'rule' to listen to a weekly album at least three times. That way we give each choice a fair shake of the sauce.
My first listen is usually the one that sets my opinions and rarely do I change them over the next two run downs. What does tend to happen is that I notice separate songs on that first go and then they get better and better.
Be Mine and On Your Way are in this category. I suspect because they sound quite different to what precedes them. Be Mine benefits from dialing back the over-emoting a tad - until that last bit anyway, plus On Your Way sounds like Kings Of Leon - a band I enjoy a lot.
Generally the stuff I love and the stuff I don't love gets more and more pronounced with each listen.
Enjoyment of this album and band begins and ends with the lead singer - Brittany Howard. If you like her, you'll like the album.
Personal taste is a funny old thing. I enjoy quirky, idiosyncratic singers like Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Peter Perrett, Geddy Lee, and Yoko Ono, but I balk at Bjork, Beth Gibbons, Leonard Cohen, or (sorry GK) Corinne Bailey Rae.
There is nothing rational in being partial to some but not others. If I had to choose between John or Paul, it's a clear cut John. For me it's an easy decision. I know they are plenty of sad misguided music lovers out there who prefer Paul. All good!
So, Brittany Howard? She just doesn't move me.
I'm sure there are plenty of people (see above) who love her style, but she sounds like she's mostly trying too hard, to me. Over emoting. Now if it was Amy Winehouse singing these songs I'd be digging it, but the vocal tics happening on songs like Goin' To The Party are jarring for me.
She's better on Boys And Girls where she sings without the histrionics and, as I mentioned above, Be Mine. That's a pretty straight-forward Sheryl Crow style rock song with some great organ floating around in the background.
Then it's back to the standard fare before they crank it up for the best song on the album - last track On Your Way.
All up - an acquired taste, that I haven't yet acquired.
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