Customer Reviews

Beauty Queen Sister

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's been a long time since I heard the Indigo Girls like this. I remember the first time I experienced "Blood and FIre" and "Strange Fire", and fell in love with IG, and experienced the folk genre. I've stuck with them through thick and thin since then, even with the broken promises of "Shaming of the Sun" and "Come on Now Social", both of which had good moments but have never been my favorites. I've loved them in "All that We Let In" (magnificent, underrated) and "Become You". It all comes down to those voices--Amy Ray and Emily have a pipeline to my heart, they unleash my love and longing when I hear them. I give myself completely to their care in this album, and I am so happy to be enveloped in the beautiful songwriting and deep harmonic wonder of their combined talents. Stylistically, this is another leap forwards for them, a sampling and an homage to all the disparate parts that make up their brand of modern folk, but under their sure guidance, it sounds unified and wonderful. The guitar picking is classic IG, the melodic lines are fresh but so familiar--like a song you have never heard before but which sounds so familiar, like a bit of home. Production is fairly typical for the IG--it would not be accused of being stripped down, but it is warm and well thought out. Amy Ray has left behind some of her angry roughness but kept some of deep raspy-ness that makes her so unique. Emily is as sweet and shy as ever, touching more of the painful emotions that make me love them so much, but as always it is the intersection of their voices, when the two of them sing together, blending beautifully, achingly that makes me love them. Ultimately, few groups have inhabited so much time in my cassette player, my cd player, my ipod, and my heart as these two, and I can only hope that they will continue producing music as honest and beautiful as this.

This disc keeps getting better with every listen. Beautifully recorded, terrific musicianship, thoughtful arrangements and some of the best songs of Indigo Girls career. Share The Moon warmly invites the listener into the album with a catchy chorus and a knowing lyric and every song after builds until the final, riveting triptych of Damo, Able To Sing and Yoke. For Emily, this is a return to form after several albums of hit or miss material; for Amy, this is a triumph. I could go on and on about each of her tracks but for me the kicker is the final song, Yoke. It's a stunner, sparse and haunting, and her burnished alto delivers a weary, heartbroken performance that could only come from age and experience.

This is one of those rare discs that makes it almost impossible to listen to anyone else.

I've enjoyed the Indigo Girls ever since my younger brother introduced me to their music when he gave me their 1989 eponymous release. I've listened to every one of their studio albums at least once through streaming music services such as Rhapsody or Spotify, although I focused mostly on purchasing their early albums for my own collection. Yet, I'll be adding "Beauty Queen Sister" to my collection. These songs are luscious, with great arrangements and instrumentation, quite different from much of the bare bones folk-oriented music the Indigo Girls have written over the years. Each one is in a story-telling style, and the subject matter is diverse. There are also a number of guest artists on the album (Luke Bulla, Lucy Wainwright Roche, Viktor Krauss, and the Shadowboxers).

Favorites include "John," "Birthday Song," and "War Rugs," but there really isn't a weak song on the album.

I heard one review praise this album's "easy listening, jazzy feel." And I need to respond. I understand that artists evolve. Musical directions change. I get it. But for me the strengths of this particular power-duo has always been in their bold arrangements and folk roots. When did this easy listening direction begin? I think the first example of it came with "the Power of Two" This song (off Swamp Ophelia) was a huge radio hit and at the time it was OK. Not their best off that album in my opinion but a cool experiment. The changes could be jazzy but the overall melody was simple yet direct as its message, leaving me still able to smell the trees in Emily's lyrics.

Then something happened.

This jazzy/folk fusion experiment seemed to dominate the sound, leading us into series of albums containing more comfy pop-friendly songs that leave me bored stiff. I understand many will love this new direction. And I'm glad you all do, but personally I get a little turned off when Emily drops a jazz chord into her mid-tempo meandering soft-rock songs (it seems Amy does this less - true punk A song like "We Get To Feel It All" doesn't even come across as remotely raw or emotional, nor does its jazzyness make it any more soulful in any way. Instead it feels to me like I'm at a buffet with all these unhip white people and each one doing the "white man's overbite" (Harry Met Sally reference)

I get shivers from the cheese factor.

Meanwhile, this is especially painful since so much of the album I DO really like. I love their voices, of course, their harmonies, their lyrics, but when I hear "Mariner Moonlighting" I really miss the strange fire of the old albums. Their songs used to be intensely personal driven by a cosmic urgency (Ghost, Galeleo, Kid Fears, Touch Me Fall - even Posidon & the Bitterbug had better energy). Early albums also had their gorgeous ballads (Wood Song, Mystery, Fare Thee Well but little of that raw power can be found on Beauty Queen Sister.

I must give respect to Peter Collins, the producer who did an amazing job with the album and brought back the folk strings which give the songs a bit of that older feel, yet, even with a production this immaculate I still miss the Mystery. Emily doesn't need to flex her music theory, we already know she's a genius. I am more impressed with heart, soul, poetry. I hope for the next album they take more time to wander in the woods, read Emily Dickenson and produce something that is essential to their great catalogue instead of churning out more pretty ditties. This is of course just my opinion. And I will buy anything they produce because I love my girls, but I had to be honest. They used to blow my mind and this album, though pleasing in places, did not.

3 and a half stars.

This seems to be one of those albums fans either love or hate. The ones who dislike it seem to want the Indigo Girls to go backwards in time, to do variations on Galileo or Closer to Fine. I am grateful their Muses continue to evolve, for stagnation is deadly to any artist.

Beauty Queen Sister is a very good album indeed, with many more songs that engage me, and only a couple leaving me tepid. Amy's Mariner Moonlighting goes nowhere, but her Yoke is a masterpiece, the perfect closer to the collection, and Emily continues to compose melodies and lyrics that are more complex, yet still accesible: We Get to Feel It All does have a slight jazz feel to it, as others have mentioned, but I welcome her foray into that realm despite being more in tune with her folk-rock side. The Birthday Song could have been banal - instead it is a joyous, original and beautiful paean to love. There is not one Saliers song on this album I dislike, and I suspect those who dismiss Able to Sing don't "get" the several layers of meaning in the song. But most of all, it is the harmony that stands out; their voices seem more "merged" in this album than in other recent ones, where each almost became a backup singer to the other. The outcome is simply glorious sounding music by two skilled artists who are now exploring ideas that come to those who enter the middle stage of life. Rock on!

I'm a longtime indigo girls fan, and I prefer their earlier stuff, but usually like a few songs on each album. That trend holds true for this one. I wish they would do a studio version and also an acoustic version of all their albums, like they did for, mm, the one with the song about Poseiden. (Obviously I'm not as big a fan as I used to be.) I optimistically gave it four stars because I know I'll like it more once I get more familiar with the songs.

I will always buy the new Indigo Girls albums, no matter what. That said, I've been somewhat disappointed by some of their most recent albums. I like Beauty Queen Sister as an album more so than other post-2000 works, but its still not as good a some of their first albums. Sometimes their evolution as musicians generates wonderful songs, sometimes just okay songs.

I've been an IG fan since 1990. I own every CD, and have seen them live numerous times. They are one of the three or four artists that are never far from me, whether on CD, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, or in the cloud. While there are always at least a couple of jewels on each new album, this one is easily the best since 2002's "Become You." I can listen to this one without skipping songs along the way, which is unusual for me regardless of the artist. And while I tend to be a bigger fan of Emily by a tiny margin, Amy really blew me away with her offerings on this album. I am no longer worried that the Indigo Girls may be in artistic decline, or that they may become irrelevant as the decades pass. They are every bit as good as they were 20 years ago. And we are the fortunate beneficiaries of their monumental talent.

I wasn't sure I was going to love this album after listening to the 30-second clips. But remembering those days when I feared the Indigo Girls would not put out another album, I decided I'd buy this one as a thank you and show of support. Well, I love this album. Yes, it's not like Rites or Nomads. It's quieter, more subtle, peaceful. But beyond those 30-second clips, this album has the emotional richness you'd expect from the Indigo Girls. This is perfect for calm autumn evenings, a nice backdrop for the holidays, and I think it will be perfect for the relaxing days of summer, too. Far from being "not like the old Indigo Girls," this album is letting me take the Indigo Girls into a place I didn't before, those mellow days when you just want something thoughtful, relaxing, and comforting in the background. I've always loved the Indigo Girls harmony, and I feel like that harmonious partnership is back on this album in a way we haven't heard since the Rites and Nomads albums, but with even more smoothness and subtlety. And not to suggest the whole album is calm, there are upbeat songs on the album, among them "Beauty Queen Sister," "Gone," "Making Promises," "Damo," and "Able to Sing." "Gone" is an instant old favorite (similar to Get Out the Map) and "Damo" is like a further-traveled cousin of Ozilline. I surprised myself with this album. I found with hauntingly beautiful ballads like "Yoke," I can let Galileo rest a while.

I love this album. I have all IGs albums and they are all special in their own way. To me this one seems more polished. It has an easy listening and even a jazzy feel. Some of the songs are surprising. For example, "Mariner Moonlighting" sounds like an Emily song but its an Amy song! It sounds like a a jazz number - quite unlike her usual genre. Emily's song "I Get to Feel it All" has an awesome fiddle player which really adds to the beauty of this song - in addition to Emily's excellent lyrics on this one. In addition to their usual guitar sound, this album makes use of piano and violin on several of the songs and it is a nice change from their usual instrumentation; that is (guitar, mandolin, sometime keyboard). If I had to pick just two songs from the album I would pick Amy's song "Yoke" and Emily's song "I Get to Feel It All" as my favorite. I can see their musical tastes are continuing to grow/evolve and thats what I like about this album. A little different than the usual IG album, but well done. The more you hear it, the more you will like it.