I Can't Be New

Susan Werner | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 9, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sleeve Dog Records
• ASIN: B0001BFDJG
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,475 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Always an impressive songwriter, Werner continues to compose sharp, funny, compassionate lyrics, a gift rare enough to set her apart... --The Washington Post

(Susan Werner is) a triply blessed artist who sings adroitly, plays the piano smartly and, best of all, writes songs of genuine distinction and high craft. (She's) one of the most innovative songwriters working today. --The Chicago Tribune

I Can't Be New is what happens when one of the most intelligent, sophisticated folk-pop singer-songwriters turns 90 degrees. She succeeds marvelously. --SingOut!

Product Description

George Gershwin. Cole Porter. Richard Rodgers. They say no one can write like that anymore, but Susan Werner has added a new chapter to the Great American Songbook. Susan Werner's fourth nationally released recording charters somewhat new territory in style, while it offers the same high quality writing that her fans have come to expect. She performs 12 original compositions in the songbook style. And in this nod to the composers of standards, she's breathed new and brilliant life into the popular song tradition, one that many thought was a closed book.

''I'd describe the aim of this project as Carole King's Tapestry meets Ella Fitzgerald's Cole Porter Songbook,'' Werner suggests, ''These are all new songs done in an old way.''

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cabaret for the 21st century, June 6, 2004

By 

lb136 "lb136" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: I Can't Be New (Audio CD)

No, the lady can't be new.

Maybe when you listen to "I Can't Be New" for the first time, you'll think that Ms. Werner has decided to record some unpublished or obscure songs by Cole Porter or Rodgers and Hart. And why wouldn't you? The sound is caberet; the lyrics bittersweet.

But then you look at the lyric sheet and you realize that she wrote all the songs on the CD herself, and so what at first seems like interpretive singing is actually a brilliant re-creation of the style and conventions of the Tin Pan Alley of a half century ago. Like her contemporaries Nellie McKay and Erin McKeown, Ms. Warner won't throw the past away. Unlike them, however, she apparently has no interest in blending the present with the past. There are no samples here, no rap, no contemporary references.

All the tunes are good, but my personal favorites are the title cut, "Late for the Dance," "Let's Regret This in Advance," and especially "Stay on Your Side of Town." She finishes with a "coda" called "Maybe If I Sang Cole Porter." Maybe she should.

Ms. Werner sings the tunes in a voice like stainless steel.

Splendid all around.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There's Something About Susan Werner and this Album, March 27, 2004

By 

Jackson Zhou "The Craftsman" (San Francisco, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Can't Be New (Audio CD)

I can't think of a way to describe how good this album is with a one-liner, all I know is, the night when I poped it into my CD player for the first time, I listend to it again for two more times after that. The next night, the same thing. Werner has a way of writing and singing her songs in this album that makes it seemed like they are songs that had been written ages ago, sung a thousand times but have been given new energy by a vibrant artist. That said, of course we know these are brand new songs that she had just composed for this album. I'm not familiar with her older, more folksy stuff, but the heart-felt and clever lyrics, woven into the jazzy composition with nice piano chops, is soothing and refreshing at the same time. My favorites on this album are "I can't be new" and "Stay on your side of town", both find creative ways to talk about relationship problems with some very classic-sounding jazz music composition. Just listen, and you'll agree too that this is an album that you'll want to listen to over and over again.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GrownUpMusic.com Recommended!, December 9, 2004

By 

Larry Harris "GrownUpMusic.com" (Los Angeles, Nirvana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Can't Be New (Audio CD)

"Coffee, ham and eggs. I can be your diner. Tired, aching legs? I'll be your recliner." The American songbook gets a new chapter, as singer/songwriter Susan Werner unpacks her adjectives and irony, giving George Gershwin and Cole Porter a run for their money in lyrical wit and jazz/pop melody-making. Werner is a fence-sitter of the highest degree. Give her a guitar, and she out-belts and out-plays both Indigo Girls at once. Park her at the piano, and she cozies up to the microphone with the flair of Diana Krall. Her previous releases have been upbeat, guitar-driven, folky discs with just a tease of her piano-flavored retrospection. But with "I Can't Be New," Werner hops off the fence and plants herself firmly at the keyboard, churning out a song cycle of new millenium standards about love, serving up humor and heartbreak with a gentle piano flourish. On the title song, Warner waxes Porter-esquely. "And when they're buying you steak, I can be the gravy. When they throw you in the lake, I can be the navy." But in all her lyrical silliness, there's a sobering message that rings true to anyone who's ever been in love. "I can be the sky, the very wild blue yonder. Still I can't catch your eye, when it starts to wander. As I've seen it do. At least a time or two. I'll be anything to you, but I can't be new." Bet you didn't see that coming. Werner's classically trained voice can fill a room with ease. For fans of female cabaret and jazz, "I Can't Be New" may be a tribute to the legendary songwriting of the past, but Werner definitely has something to say that isn't same-old/same-old.