shimatani87's Full Review: The Way It Really Is by Lisa Loeb
When bespectacled beauty Lisa Loeb broke into the business with her 1994 smash mid-tempo ballad Stay (I Missed You), I found myself not really caring all that much. In fact, I don't believe I can remember ever hearing it, even though it was apparently all over the radio, due to its being, y'know, #1. I blame this on the fact that I was seven when the song came out and, to my recollection, was more interested in belting out whatever Shania Twain track was hot that month instead of Loeb's more-wordy material.
However, eleven years later, I rediscovered the track and found myself gravitating toward its relatively-simple (in terms of some singer/songwriters -- Tori Amos, I am looking at you), straightforward lyrics and unique blending of coffeehouse acoustic with Top 40 sensibilities, the same qualities that make the majority of her 2004 effort The Way It Really Is such an enjoyable disc.
However, while I do enjoy a great amount of the material here, the release isn't quite perfect. Lyrically, while Loeb is a competent songwriter capable of turning a phrase with the rest of 'em, she has a tendency, sometimes, to fall into a denser sentence style sprinkled with bits of nonsensical figurative language that makes some of her material (for me, several tracks on her earlier albums) a bit difficult to get through.
Both of these elements appear on The Way, although relatively sparingly, which is nice. Slow, acoustic ballad Hand-Me-Downs turns a song about a confident woman leaving her boyfriend into a heavy-handed exercise in metaphor, taking the figurative language hammer and beating the listener over the head with it, so that by the end of the song, if you don't know what's going on, you must really be dense. Likewise, Diamonds, a gritty rock-edged number with a surprisingly tough-sounding performance from Loeb, suffers from the opposite -- there's a metaphor here for something, but I can't figure it out for the life of me; whether that's just my inability to interpret Loeb's lyrics or a reflection on the lyrics themselves, I don't know, but it's a tad annoying.
Accident brings in the curse of the incomprehensible, Tori Amos-esque lyric: while the song's message is nice (we, as a society, have a tendency to stand around and gawk whenever something tragic happens), the story Loeb is trying to tell is so convoluted and disjointed (featuring characters who get into a variety of accidents, from slipping on champagne to being elbowed by a woman with apparently-deadly elbows) that the song loses a bit of its impact because of it. Musically, while the song is a slow burner (with, again, a solo acoustic guitar accompaniment), I find it quite mesmerizing, especially during the bridge, where the tempo picks up and Loeb's vocal becomes more emotive. It's a shame the lyrics kind of ruin the track.
However, while there are definitely tracks here that are a bit weaker, the rest of the album is a delightful blending of acoustic ballads and radio-friendly pop tracks, demonstrating both of Loeb's artistic facets. Album opener Window Shopping is a gleefully-fun track; a slightly heavy metaphorical analysis of dating and romance, it's made all the better by the off-kilter nature of the song, featuring deliberately off-key singing and guitars that sound like they were smashed against a wall before recording. I Control the Sun and Fools Like Me tackle romance as well, the former a hard-edged, rock-twinged kiss-off to a man who won't return the singer's affections, while the latter is a playful acoustic-rock track that shows the singer able to poke fun at herself even when a relationship goes wrong.
On the slower side of things, Try -- while a bit slow-moving at times -- is a beauty of a track, a piano ballad encouraging a friend to work harder and push through the tough times because life's really not all that bad; although it's a slightly worn message in terms of lyrical content, Loeb's performance (encouraging and pensive) and the sheer beauty of the song make it rise above the clichés. Would You Wander is Loeb at her acoustic best, a challenge to a lover to follow her through everything if he really wants to prove his love; the acoustic-guitar based backing really allows Loeb's performance and lyrical mastery to shine through here, and although the backing vocal gets annoying at times, it's not enough to ruin the song.
While she's definitely fallen out of the limelight she once had, Lisa Loeb continues to make music that is thoughtful, playful, and fun, and to me, that matters a lot more than whether or not she's topping the charts. The Way It Really Is has some bumps along the way, but it's a solid album from one of America's most underrated.
Lisa Loeb: "The Way It Really Is"
[ CDA | Zoë/Rounder | $17.98 | 2004.08.10 ]
01. Window Shopping [ 3:17 ]
02. I Control the Sun [ 3:01 ]
03. Hand-Me-Downs [ 3:42 ]
04. Fools Like Me [ 3:38 ]
05. Try [ 4:13 ]
06. Diamonds [ 3:04 ]
07. Would You Wander [ 3:33 ]
08. Probably [ 3:04 ]
09. Accident [ 4:04 ]
10. Lucky Me [ 2:29 ]
11. Now I Understand [ 3:07 ]
[ http://www.lisaloeb.com ]
Other Lisa Loeb Reviews:
The Very Best of Lisa Loeb (2006)
http://www99.epinions.com/content_241137192580
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