California
Artist: American Music Club
Community Score: 10.00

With the erratic California, Mark Eitzel's songwriting skills blossom into full maturity. From the pedal-steel inflected opener "Firefly" to the luminous "Western Sky," the best of his compositions reveal uncommon depth and emotional heft: "Somewhere" cuts with the savage humor of a master storyteller, while "Blue and Grey Shirt," a memoir of a... Read More

Good News
Artist: Michelle Shocked

A wonderful, somewhat eclectic set from Michelle Shocked. Released as an independent, numbered, and strictly limited edition (2500 copies), this CD was mainly sold at her concerts during her 1998 tour of colleges and universities. It's a shame that it wasn't more widely available, because it really is a great CD. It shows many different sides of... Read More

Mercury Poise: 1988-1995
Artist: Michelle Shocked

With a title that plays on Graham Parker's corporate-venomous song and EP Mercury Poisoning, the disc skims a dozen layers of feminist-folk-punk cream from three eclectic albums (folk-rock, swing-jazz, and Southern roots music) recorded for the label between 1988 and 1991, plus tracks previously only available on soundtracks, compilations, and... Read More

Ani DiFranco
Artist: Ani DiFranco
Community Score: 9.66

"I am a work in progress," appropriately announces Ani DiFranco on her debut album. Though her lyrics have the rambling style of free-form poetry and she sounds like she learned her spare, percussive style of guitar playing by listening to Suzanne Vega albums, she defines a distinct persona, that of a self-possessed, assertive woman in a tough,... Read More

1984-1989
Artist: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

The lush, facile simplicity of Lloyd Cole's music is brimmed with cushioned harmonies and soft-spoken choruses, and more often than not deals with the complexity of love. Accompanied by the bright jangle of guitar that's hitched to palatable pop tempos, his work with backup band the Commotions produced a number of melody-ridden songs that are... Read More

Fisherman's Blues
Artist: The Waterboys

Mike Scott had been pursuing his grandiose "big music" since he founded the Waterboys, so it came as a shock when he scaled back the group's sound for the Irish and English folk of Fisherman's Blues. Although the arena-rock influences have been toned down, Scott's vision is no less sweeping or romantic, making even the simplest songs on... Read More

The Walking
Artist: Jane Siberry

Although Jane Siberry's big hit singles were a bit too pop-oriented to truly represent her work as a whole, even those who loved her more off-kilter side would have been hard-pressed to have foreseen the direction of The Walking. For most of the tracks, Siberry dispenses with standard pop construction, instead opting more for a sometimes-surreal... Read More

Short Sharp Shocked
Artist: Michelle Shocked

Michelle Shocked is asked in the song "Anchorage," "What's it like to be a [New York City] skateboard punk rocker?" Perhaps it takes a flashback like Short Sharp Shocked to fully answer the more interesting question, "How did you get there?" The album finds Shocked taking a semi-fond trip back to an East Texas childhood, and all of the defined... Read More

Reaching to the Converted
Artist: Billy Bragg
Community Score: 4.00

This is no ragtag rummage sale of leftovers, castoffs, and third-rate rejects. Having previously purchased the ten singles Reaching is culled from, spanning 1985-1997, one nevertheless revels in the poignant, luxurious breadth of Bragg's heart and brain. Like Bragg's real LPs, this is a roadmap to the spectrum of feeling, from bliss to misery... Read More