Customer Reviews

Indigo Girls

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Indigo Girls pull you in with their incredible lyrics, heartfelt vocals, and voices that can range from soft and sensual to tormented and wild. They play to every possible human emotion, and their music seems to dive right into the depths of your soul, where you thought you'd never let anyone in, and touch you in a way no other band ever could. Their first album has been a favorite of mine ever since I was a little girl, and as I grew I also began to appreciate it in different ways. "Closer To Fine" will always make me smile and hum along. "Blood and Fire" makes me remember the love of my life, and how I would felt when he left - it tears at me every time I hear it because it simply rings so true. If you are thinking about buying this album, I cannot tell you enough that this will be the best money ever spent on a CD - well worth it!

I already had a number of IG CDs when I found this Gold Disc in the music store. I bought it on the spot and ran home to play it on my CD player. I played it over and over and swapped the original silver CD with the Gold CD to see if I could tell a difference, and I couldn't.

The CD comes in a cool cardboard/paper sleeve that the jewel box fits in, but other than that, and the gold color (and 24kt gold content) of the disc, there is absolutely no difference... especially in the sound.

When you turn the volume up all the way on both the original, you hear the pops and squeaks as the guitarists hands and fingers move along the strings. The gold edition of this disc still includes these pops and squeaks. They weren't removed, and if this gold version is supposedly "re-mastered" from the original, it must have been re-mastered for the hearing range of bats, because I can not tell the difference.

If you're into collecting everything they've ever done, or you don't already own the original version of this CD, this is a good buy... the gold version will supposedly last longer, but it's not like you're going to be saving the silver version for your great-great grandchildren. Unless you leave your CDs on the dashboard of your car in the hot sun, the silver version should last past your life time anyway.

Their voices are powerful and the harmonizing artistic. Hard to believe voices and acoutistic guitar is all that they needed to make such a fun and fantastic CD.

I had been working as a counselor at a summer camp in 1989... it was a resident (sleep over) camp and I only had one night a week that I could go home (Dallas at the time). I was driving on my way home when "Closer to Fine" played on KDGE (94.5 FM, Dallas). I had never heard anything quite like it. I nearly had a wreck getting to a payphone so I could call the station and ask who it was that I just heard.

I've bought a lot of CDs from one-hit-wonder bands before, so I looked for a single first... since there wasn't one, I bit the bullet and bought the CD. It was hardly a one-hit wonder! Wow, what a great debut CD! One penetrating song after another, all featuring the awesome harmony of the great voices of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers... in tandem with dueling guitars, 6-string & 12-string, and a few banjos to boot.

They have a sound truly unique to them alone. If you've heard such hits as "Closer to Fine" on the radio and really liked the sound, you can get more of that same awesome harmony on this CD.

Way back when, I was struggling to survive my first winter in Boston wondering what the hell I was doing in grad school.

While dialing for a reasonable radio station, the first line to "Closer to Fine" sounded like a clarion call. Shivers went up my spine, I caught my breath, and my knees went shakey. The clarity and intensity of the emotion was extraordinary. Who were these people??

I was mesmerized, as was the DJ that played tracks from the album again and again (and again) for the next week. Took almost as long for me to track down a local record store that had this album.

A truely inspirational album that I still play when I need a reminder that heart-felt emotion and commitment can change the world. Everything music should be...

With their first major label release, the Indigo Girls come on strong with an outstanding batch of tunes, watertight harmonies, impeccable musicianship, and flawless production. And entering the folk-rock music scene on the successful heels of R.E.M., Tracy Chapman, and 10,000 Maniacs pushed their sales over the million mark and earned the duo a Grammy for Best Folk Recording. The eponymous release kicks off with the upbeat jangle bounce of "Closer to Fine," a modest hit, all-time fan favorite written by Emily Saliers, and a tune the Girls still play at every concert. A particularly fascinating point is that the Indigo Girls never write songs together, but they compliment each other perfectly. The difference in styles becomes immediately apparent when the more dark and brooding Amy Ray steps up. Her remarkable contributions include "Secure Yourself," "Kid Fears," and "Blood and Fire," spiritual ruminations of life, love, pain, and faith which bury themselves deep inside your core whether invited or not. Weighting the opposite scales, Saliers offers a tender balance to Ray with two beautiful ballads, "Love's Recovery" and "History of Us." (Ray's "Land of Canaan" was once a ballad, but then she heard The Replacements and it became a bit of a rocker.) Chiming in with musical support are Hothouse Flowers, Luka Bloom, and fellow Georgians R.E.M. This self-titled release captures the passion of their youth with voices that are a little cloudy, untamed, and raw, but the power that surges through them suggests a maturity far beyond their years. The same can be said of the songwriting - sheer poetry. To attempt examinations of these songs would not do them justice, for the layers of meaning and emotion unfold best upon repeated listening.

I have listened to this CD since it first came out, it is a friend, and comfort as I have walked in the world. So many songs that hit you as just simply wonderful. I have bought copies just to give to friends when their lives have been troubled. Weep deeply and these songs will be there to pull u back from your misery. Buy it! And pass it on.

After Suzanne Vega hit it big with "Luka" in 1987, and Tracy Chapman stunned the world with "Fast Car" a year later, the music world was abuzz with an impending revival of the singer/songwriter, especially for women in the genre. This was perhaps the album that confirmed that Joni Mitchell was alive and well in the influence of the generation that the boomer controlled media labeled "X."

Beginning with the almost anthemish "Closer To Fine" (will never forget the cheers of hundreds of college students at a concert when Emily sang the line "I spent 4 years prostrate to the higher mind/got my paper and I was free") the album speaks for a generation struggling with both the introspective and their social consciences. "Kid Fears" (with Michael Stipe of R.E.M.) still sends chills down the spines they way it did in 1989, "Tried To Be True" (with the rest of R.E.M.) still makes one want to ride around with the top down, and "Love's Recovery" still amazes with its gentle vocal harmony.

In other words, if you are reading the page on Amazon for this CD you are thinking about buying it, and if you are thinking about buying it think no more and DO!

A few years back, I bought this CD from only a recommendation by one of the KS95-FM Minneapolis radio morning DJ's that I liked a lot (male, pre the Van Patrick & Cheryl Kaye days, possibly ... unless it WAS Van?). He said that this CD still today remains his very favorite album of all time.I took a chance, knowing NOTHING about the IG, and I was so pleased. This is an outstanding CD that spins in my CD player often.Hey, if somebody knows who that male DJ was because you heard him say it too ... or Mr. DJ, if you read this ... please identify who you were; and THANKS! I'd really be curious to know who else is on their favorites list!Just bought Rites of Passage. Not nearly as impressed with it so far, as I was with the first release by IG, but I have to give it time to grow on me.Buy the first IG CD. You will not be disappointed. It gets my highest rating of being a PT ("play through") CD!

I wrote yesturday 5th May 1999, & realized that I've printed my comment twice. cherry_ie@yahoo.com --- if possible could you remove one, thanks.