Jill Sobule - California Years reviews
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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y
| Rollingstone |
 Frustrated that each of the indie labels behind her last two albums folded, Jill Sobule created a website to solicit donations so she could release this one herself. She ended up raising $85,000 from friends, fans and random celebrities like Fred Savage (who donated $100). It was enough money to hire star producer Don Was, and the process seems to have reinvigorated her muse: California Years is flirtatiously retro pop rock, full of mordant punch lines delivered cold with Sobule's childlike voice. Seemingly autobiographical lyrics reveal tragicomic truths: For "Wendell Lee," Sobule tracks down ex-lovers online and worries, "I wonder if I look that bad too." She's older, but so much wiser....full text |
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| Radioexile |
Jill Sobule’s [MySpace] latest, California Years is medicore at best, and gimmicky at worst. It’s an album that’s as forumalic as this week’s Danielle Steele publication. Her voice fluctuations are similar in every song and her voice sounds like some saccharine character from a Disney movie. Mix in some southern country twang and “wahhhs” from the guitar, and you’ve got yourself fifty-seven minutes of “meh”. The best song on the album is “Sweetheart,” until that riding off into the sunset guitar ruins it. And then there’s the token “band behind the vocalist” that puts out stereotypical drumbeats and super safe guitar solos. Yawn . Honestly, this album would have been ten times better if it were backed only by acoustic guitar - much more conducive to her girly girl voice.
And now I want to talk about her song, “Nothing to Prove.” It’s the song that turned me against the album.
Every so often an album will house a song that can change the way you listen to the rest of the album. It’s not necessarily the gel that keeps it all together, it’s more like a filter that you hear the album through. “Nothing to Prove’s” lyrics drive me absolutely mad. I have to post them....full text |
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| Leisureblogs |
| Those entranced by the feel-good story of how this album was made (Sobule’s fans came through with more than $89,000 in donations to finance it) shouldn’t overlook the music itself. "California Years" (Pinko Records) is among the singer-songwriter’s finest releases in a two-decade career. Sobule documents her recent relocation to the West Coast with a series of songs that blend the hallmarks of her career: storytelling marbled with telling details, sarcastic wit and easy-to-hum (or shout) choruses. Her takes on drug tourism (“Mexican Pharmacy”), jaded record-company executives (“Nothing to Prove”) and mysterious icons (“Where is Bobbie Gentry?”) are masterful in the way they strike just the right tone with a series of discrete, discriminating images. Don Was’ production and an excellent backing cast frame Sobule’s songs in arrangements worthy of any of her bigger-budget projects for major labels. That system gave her a brief glimpse of fame, with the 1995 hit "I Kissed a Girl,” then discarded her. Her reinvention as a one-woman record company with a crackling debut release is the best sort of vindication....full text |
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