Customer Reviews

See You On The Moon

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

How is it that, after four brilliant studio albums and one live one recorded in England in late 2008 (BUCKINGHAM SOLO), Tift Merritt is still not a star of the first magnitude?

While pop radio is still obsessed with overproduced divas, and country radio is over-infatuated with the bland, inoffensive hits of Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, Tift has quietly made a name for herself during the last eight years as a singer/songwriter of intelligence and heart that was a mandatory thing back in the 1970s. That trend continues with SEE YOU ON THE MOON, a gorgeous bit of rootsy, often folk-influenced, country and rock recorded with producer Tucker Martine in Tift's home state of North Carolina with longtime backing musician friends Zeke Hutchins and Jay Brown, along with pedal steel master Greg Leisz (now one of the most wanted session guys of the last twenty years). Save for "Live Till You Die" (written by Emmit Rhodes of the 1960s pop group Merry-Go-Round) and "Danny's Song" (an acoustic folk/country take on the Kenny Loggins composition that was a Top 10 country/pop hit for Anne Murray in the spring of 1973), the songs on this album are all from Tift's pen, all of them rendered in her own quiet, breezy, but highly incisive fashion. And as usual, Tift's musical eclecticism covers social commentary ("After Today"), R&B ("Mixtape"; "Papercut"), modern folk ("The Things That Everybody Does"; the title cut) and Linda Ronstadt/Emmylou Harris-influenced country-rock ("Six More Days Of Rain"; "All The Reasons We Don't Have To Fight").

With all this, on top of this album's predecessors, Tift should be up there on that exalted plain occupied by her spiritual mentors Linda and Emmylou, or at least alongside Sheryl Crow (to whom she has also been compared in the past). And in a perfect world, or if this were still the 1970s, that is exactly where Tift would be. It's a pity that the powers-that-be that determine who gets radio airplay don't see her music as a legitimate asset, or that a lot more people don't know about her; because over these first ten years-plus of the 21st century, Tift has, for me, been the best female singer to come down the road. SEE YOU ON THE MOON validates this for me for the fifth time in a row--an intelligent combination of modern songwriting and old school, rootsy musical values. If you are tired of the same overblown divas and bland Music Row assembly line mentality that so dominate corporate radio, please don't hesitate to check out SEE YOU ON THE MOON--or for that matter, everything else that Tift has done. You definitely will not be sorry.

You wouldn't know it by looking at her, but Tift Merritt has been doing this music thing for some time now. She already had been honing her skills for several years by the time her first recordings with the Two-Dollar Pistols surfaced in 1999.

It was the first album under her own name, 2002's Bramble Rose, that generated "The Buzz," and she's had some version of that acclaim ever since. This background is necessary only to underscore the fact that Tift never has settled for a formulaic approach to her music. She could have chosen to stick to an "alt-country" groove, or made her name as a soulful rocker, or channeled the '70s singer-songwriter vibe into a series of well-received albums.

Instead she has decided to follow her muse wherever it leads. And on See You On The Moon, her fourth album of original material, that muse leads in different directions, with pleasing results. Others will focus on the inspiration for particular tracks -- and the stories behind the songs are good, to be sure -- but most people exposed to these songs won't bother to read about the lost friends and relatives, roller-skating hijinks, and '70s rock-and-roll recluses who helped spark the flame in the recording studio.

You don't need to know the stories to feel the power of the music. Whether hard groovin' ("Mixtape"), rockin' out ("Engine To Turn"), turning introspective ("Never Talk About It"), or getting snthemic ("Feel Of The World"), Tift shows that the woman who inhabits that pint-sized frame knows more about what she's doing than the girl who started on the musical journey more than a decade ago.

I had only vaguely heard of Tift Merritt in the past, and I picked this album up on a whim. I knew that it was a good choice from the first song. I skipped ahead to the title track, because I like songs about the moon (it's weird, I know, but it got me to pick up the album in the first place). "See You on the Moon" is so haunting, and lyrically beautiful, that I had to listen to it a few times before I could move on. When I had gone through the entire album, I had to go to Tift Merritt's website and read the little stories about how she wrote each song. The stories, while not necessary, give an amazing additional depth to each track.

I'm not going to do a song-by-song review. But songs like Engine to Turn, Six More Days of Rain, and After Today are staggering in their depth. Hopefully this album will increase Tift Merritt's presence so that people won't have to discover her the way I did. Talent like this deserves to be recognized.

This was my first experience with Tift Merritt, but it's definitely not going to be my last. I look forward to going back and exploring her past releases while waiting for her next album.

Once upon a time, Tift Merritt was the next-big-thing, either in the Alt.Country universe or even in the regular Country universe (she did, after all, receive an inexplicable Best Country Album Grammy nomination for the genre-bending Tambourine). For obvious reasons - let's call them "sales numbers" - Universal subsidiary Lost Highway unceremoniously dumped Merritt, partially explaining a four year absence before releasing Another Country in 2008 on Concord Music's Fantasy label. That album went a long way in resetting expectations for Merrit's music, largely abandoning the rock-n-soul throwdown approach that highlighted Tambourine as well as Merritt's gritty live performances. What emerged in its place was an uncommonly thoughtful and graceful artist, equally at ease behind a grand piano as she was fronting her soulful band.

See You On The Moon only reinforces the notion Tift Merritt is most at home in her introspective skin, and the new record certainly builds on the success of Another Country. Most importantly, with the help of producer Tucker Martine she has found new ways to frame her music that are surprising yet subtle. The album's opener "Mixtape" is perhaps the most surprising, drenched in 1970's R&B conventions complete with dramatic stabs of strings. If Merritt was looking to thow down the gauntlet to declare her diversity, she chose a heckuva great opening track. However, skeptical fans will be relieved to hear the second track "Engine To Turn" which manages the neat track of being melancholy and sublimely hopeful at the same time. Thanks to gently swelling arrangement, it may also be the most beautifully produced song she's ever recorded (though that honor could easily go instead to the fifth track "Feel Of The World", which features My Morning Jacket's Jim James on ghostly backing vocals).

The album's second half is highlighted by a muscular cover of Emmit Rhodes' "Live Till You Die" and a return to the classic R&B vibe with "Papercut". The album's home stretch turns delicate with a trio of songs starting with the title track. It is followed by lovely take on the Anne Murray (!) hit "Danny's Song" before winding up with the socially conscious "After Today". Closing out a record with three mellow performances is perhaps not the most advisable commercial move, but it's really with these songs that you appreciate the depth of Merritt's singing and performing talent. There's really no other singer that I can call to mind (okay, maybe Patty Griffin or Emmylou Harris) who so pours her heart and soul into her songs the way Merritt does so completely.

What Tift Merritt does so well - and what so few other singer-songwriters do - is tackle heartwrenching themes while finding the hope buried underneath. At times, one gets the impression that her own music career has required more perseverence than even Merritt thought she had. That she's found more success on her new label and built a committed fanbase with little more than beautiful music and hard work should be a lesson to aspiring musicians, if not the music industry at large. If this album has a weak spot, it's that the good material on the album's second half is a bit overshadowed by its nearly flawless first half. It's a mild criticism to note that See You On The Moon merely builds upon her previous three excellent records, rather than transcend them completely. That's a tall order for an artist as consistent as Tift Merritt, but I'm fairly certain - based on abundance evidence here - that such a record is still very much in her future.

In the meantime, you can be sure that See You On The Moon is one of the best records you'll hear this year.

Tify Merritt seems to get better with each release. I loved ANOTHER COUNTRY and really didn't think that she could top it, but she has. Tift's voice is warm and comforting, and her songs speak to the vagaries of life and love as only the best songwriters are able to do. This is pop music at its best, and Tift Merritt has become one of the better singer-songwriters around.

If there is one thing that can be said about Tift Merritt, it's that she has never made a bad album. Starting with her 2002 debut "Bramble Rose", her body of work has been nothing short of consistent. She has garnered widespread critical acclaim- even if the promotion was lacking. She seemed to be destined for stardom with her sophomore album "Tambourine" getting a Grammy nomination and the first single "Good Hearted Man" receiving a little airplay on Country Music Television. Unfortunately, her then label Lost Highway Records dropped the ball, which caused her to defect to the recently reactivated Fantasy Records for the release of the 2008 concept album "Another Country".

George Drakoulias- who produced "Tambourine" and the criminally overlooked "Another Country"- has been replaced by indie-rock producer Tucker Martine (Spoon, The Decemberists, Surfjan Stevens), who builds on the sound that Drakoulias crafted for her on her previous efforts. Tift, much like her fellow alt-country peer Shelby Lynne, walks the fine line between country and R&B on the songs "Papercut" and the lead off track "Mixtape". Jim James of My Morning Jacket provides background vocals on the ballad "Feel Of The World". The songs "The Things That Everybody Does", "Never Talk About It" and the title track "See You On The Moon" have a largely acoustic backing. She tackles a couple of covers, such as "Live Till You Die" and her slightly different take on the Loggins & Messina classic "Danny's Song". The album ends with the somber piano driven ballad "After Today". In short, "See You On The Moon" is another wonderful addition to Tift's catalog and hopefully, she will get that long overdue recognition.

For purely selfish reasons, I'm glad Tift isn't a big star. Yet. We just saw her at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle and I love the intimacy of that space. If you've never seen her live, she's funny, high-energy and an incredible musician in addition to being a top-notch songwriter. I just moved and listened to all of her CD's in chronological order while I was unpacking. It's interesting hearing her evolution from a more country sound to a very sophisticated songwriter who defies categorization. This probably accounts for why she gets little airplay since she doesn't fit into a nice, neat packeaged genre. This is a good thing for those of us who love hooky songs with thoughtful lyrics. She just keeps getting better and better.

Why Isn't She A First-Magnitude Star Yet?!. A previous reviewer asked this question and I couldn't agree with him more. I have been listening to Tift Merritt since her "Bramble Rose" CD. She is definitely one of the most gifted and versatile artists out there. I highly recommend going to one of her live performances.

"Mixtape", the first song on SEE YOU ON THE MOON, hooks the listener immediately. "Feel of the World" makes you stop whatever you are doing to just listen to the hauntingly beautiful lyrics. "Six More Days of Rain" deals with struggle and frustration and still manages to be uplifting.

Another outstanding CD from Tift Merritt

This is one of those albums in which the beauty and complexity of the music and lyrics has to sort of...grow on you (if, like me, you are a slow learner). When I first heard it, I liked it -- loved some songs, liked it as a whole -- but wasn't nearly as impressed as I am now. After listening to the album four times in a row (it was the only CD I had with me on a short road trip), I was blown away by the absolutely tight writing (tune-wise and lyric-wise) and by the perfectly balanced themes throughout (even with one cover song thrown in). "SEE YOU ON THE MOON" is one of the best albums -- with an overall theme -- addressing the ups and downs of being in love (in some ways, one could say it's a sequel to "ANOTHER COUNTRY", wherein Merrit yearned for love). Most out there probably won't remember mix-tapes (check out "Hi Fidelity" with John Cusack), but "Mix-tape", bouncy pop song, is a great tribute to that lost art (a homemade album/tape/CD made especially for a special someone you are wooing). The second tune, the country-rock "Engine to Turn", is the lament of a lover who is trying to instill some passion back into a relationship -- to get it to _work_. "The Things That Everybody Does" is a lovely ballad about waking up to find oneself suddenly in love. "Six More Days of Rain" is a country rock song in which the singer is simply holding on for dear life as life, love, anger, sadness -- the whole bit -- sweeps her and those she loves right along through everyday chaos. A country-tinged ballad in which the singer muses on missing her lover while he is gone (separated, on a business trip?), "Fell of the World" gets under the skin with slide guitar and an almost mournful chorus. The things that are unsaid, and unresolved, is the core of "Never Talk About it", in which the singer laments the fact that she and her lover never sit down and seriously discuss their love for each other, or share their past lives and their feelings, and what it all means. Featuring a steady 4/4 beat, "All the Reasons We Don't Have to Fight" is country-rock tune that also features lyrics that hit like a hammer to the heart:
"These words we shout, well who's to say
Where they will go, when they fall away?
Maybe they hang around with the lonely kids,
With a balled up fist, saying you did this, you did this."
The next song, "Live till You Die" is deceptively simple. It's the one song I thought was the weakest, at first. Then (doh) it dawned on me that the simple lyrics were written that way to express the simplicity of the notion: one _must_ continue to have passion -- for life, for one's lover -- in order to live to the fullest. Simple as that. And the repetitive nature of the chorus works perfectly to drive home a point 90 percent of humans forget. If/when she hears it, Bonnie Riatt shold go green around the gills with envy when "Papercut" plays: a bluesy, kick-in-gut (to an ex-lover, or a lover with whom one is fighting), it's another display of Merrit's range as a singer. For this reviewer, the ballad "See You On the Moon" is one of the most poetic, beautifully written, laments about a love that isn't quite working out (even after two lovers have given it their all). It's one of Merrit's best tunes, and one of the best songs ever written: period. Merrit's spare cover of "Danny's Song" is beautiful, and well-placed in an album about lovers and the struggle to make love work. And, as the end-note, Merrit's "After Today" works well -- even when one considers that it is about a woman in prison (for killing someone, perhaps?), because, after all, being in a relationship that isn't working, or that is in it's last throes, is very much like being in an emotional prison.

A solid, five-star, album, and one of the best musical and lyrical musings upon the complexities of love and relationships.

I own all of Tift's albums and this seems to be a departure from her previous work. She seems to have moved on - the lyrics seem even more personal and the music seems more complex.

She has mastered the "songwriter" part of "singer/songwriter" and I hope that she achieves more popular success than she seems to have up until this point. Only one negative - all songs on this CD were composed by Tift except for the cover of "Danny's Song". Could she have written one more song and leave this cover off the album?