Customer Reviews

Skin

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Here is another artist whose music I never was a fan of, Melissa Etheridge. Radio overkill on her singles and the constant labelling by critics really turned me off to Melissa's music to be painfully honest. What changed my mind? I just started reading her book after I read a segment of it in Rolling Stone and from there my interest in Melissa Etheridge and her new album "Skin" snowballed from there. After hearing "I Want to Be In Love" on the radio, that is all that convinced me 100% completely to buy her new album when it would come out.

After having listened to "Skin" three times today, I find myself amazed by what I have heard on this cd. The lyrics delves deep into Melissa's emotions as she was going through her painful breakful with her partner. I love how songs like "The Prison" and "Please Forgive Me" captured Melissa's emotions perfectly. I heard a yearning for true love in Melissa's voice in "I Want to Be In Love", and the song makes me want her to be in love again. Angst and sorrow is written all over "Lover Please" and "Down to One", and so well written too.

I love "Skin". Next to Lucinda Williams' "Essence" and Dar Williams' "The Green World", "Skin" is one of the best introspective albums I have heard in years. "Skin" may be short but it leaves the listener breathless and captivated, and wanting more. Truly a wonderful piece of art.

Like many others, I enjoyed "Come to My Window" and Etheridges other hits, but I'd never listened to one of her albums all the way through. Then, I read a review of her book, which prompted me to buy it. The book was so good, interesting, honest, and revealing, that it prompted me to buy "Skin." This album is amazing and it has turned me into a true admirer of Melissa Etheridge.

The lyrics are amazingly deep, real and familiar to any of us who have had our hearts broken. I can just lay back, play the songs and remember the most heart wrenching relationships that I've ever lost. It is a healing process to know that others have the same feelings. And the music! Catchy... well done, colorful and just amazing. The effects in "Down to One" are fantastic (read the book to learn about it) and as always the guitar is great, and the voice raspy and compelling.

I loved this album so much that I bought all her previous albums. I'm amazed that such an excellent artist was out there and all I knew of her were a few top 40 hits. GET THIS ALBUM and listen to it everyday! :) I can only hope that someday my writing can affect someone half has much as Melissa's music and truth have impacted me. I feel... less alone. :)

"Skin," Melissa Etheridge's seventh CD, like all her music, comes from deep within and is the refashioning of failed love into songs that will touch everyone who has wondered if it really is "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." For any still wondering, Melissa's answer is a life affirming "Yes."

I admit that I am a maniacal, ballistic Melissa Etheridge fan. Five of her albums, including this one, give me decidophobia each time I must choose one to play; they're all that good. If there's divine providence, Melissa Etheridge is God's gift to blues/rock after Janis Joplin left us thirty years ago. The woman sings her heart and soul out with American abandon and French "love hurts" pathos.

"Skin" is an apt title for an album so emotionally naked as this one. Melissa says it's "about shedding old skin. It's about new skin. It's about life." At first hearing, "Skin" seems downright embarrassing, an act of masochistic exhibitionism springing from the heartbreak of her failed long-term relationship with filmmaker Julie Cipher. Her fans are used to the scratching and crawling and screaming, the longing and aching and pleading ("To hell with the consequence"), but this recording is so personal that it would be depressing if it didn't turn its heartbreak into hope with a triumph of spirit and a determination that saves it from being maudlin.

All the stages of failed romance are here. The shock ("Lover Please"), grief ("The Prison"), guilt ("Walking on Water"), withdrawal ("Down to One"), and denial ("It's Only Me") give way to sheer will born of need to love again ("I Want to be in Love"), and by the albums end we know that there is life-even love-after love, and that like Janis ("Honey, ain't nobody gonna dog me down"), Melissa's "Heal Me" moves from "For a moment there I just gave up trying" to "I am a witness to my resurrection" and finally to "My battered heart will make a new start/Let everyone know I'll be coming home again." As Rolling Stone observed, "Skin" is cathartic and redemptive.

"Skin" is Etheridge's most technically innovative release to date. Not only is she an extraordinarily gifted singer and writer (she wrote all the songs), but on this studio album she played all the keyboards, harmonicas, and guitars. On "Lover Please," the opening track, her electric guitar articulates "This one's gonna hurt like hell," almost as clearly as a human voice. Six drum cuts by Kenny Arnoff and nine bass tracks featuring Mark Browne were laid down and mixed after her solo performance. There was no band, but you'd swear otherwise.

Buy this album and be amazed by the music and humanity of her hurting, haunting, hunting, and healing. Then, like me, try to decide what to play next time-"Melissa Etheridge"? Or "Yes, I Am"? Or "Your Little Secret"? Or "Breakdown"? Or "Skin"? Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Being a big fan of Melissa Etheridge, I'm torn on my feelings on this new release. While she continues to enlighten the world with her raw and honest lyrics, this album is quite a different style for her. The music leans much more towards "pop" music than her previous releases which really ROCK. Her voice and attitude seem somewhat less "edgy" and somewhat more "resigned" and sad which is expected given she has described this release as a tremendous healing experience after her difficult year. I really do love the CD, including the background vocals provided by Meg Ryan and Laura Dern on "Heal Me". However, I miss the great guitar work and use of her tremendous voice she showed on "Yes I Am" and her self titled album.

I have always been one for deep and meaningful music. I have always enjoyed Melissa Etheridge. When I heard SKIN for the first time, I honestly thought I had died and gone to heaven! Her emotional ballads, such as The Prison, had me in tears. I not only enjoyed the 'tunes' but the words as well. Her music inspires me to be happy, but sad at the same time, thinking of lost loves, very emotional but very satisfying, if you can understand that.

I've been a Melissa fan since the beginning, and everytime there's a new release it instantly becomes my favourite one. This one is different. This is the best Melissa album, ever.

Her break-up with long time partner is present in every single word of the songs. It's there, so raw, so simple to be understood. It may sound weird, but the songs tell you so much abou break ups and relationships that it can almost make you feel this way, no matter how happy you are.

Melissa made a classic Melissa album, you won't hear weird songs, but they talk about a person suffering, wanting to fix mistakes, wanting to be free from its own pain. Songs so beautiful you'll get addicted to them so easily. Since the first one, "Lover Please", when you notice everything's seems out of place and something's gonna happen, until the end, "Heal Me", where you just want to be free and live your life again, you'll love this album.

And she proves she can do all by herself, playing wonderfully every single instrument. If you are a Melissa fan, you're probably listening to this album right now. If you're not, give it a chance and buy it, you won't regret. Even if you're not heartbroken, you'll fall in love with this album.

I just hope she finds his way again, and keeps delivering us, her loyal fans, songs like those. Thank you again, Melissa, for sharing so beautifully your feelings

Melissa Etheridge's "Skin" is a masterwork in rock & roll. Her opener "Lover Please" is one of the best rock tunes of the decade, currently #1 in my own personal top ten. It's the kind of song one can't pass without hitting the repeat button. "The Prison" is a gorgeous melody with a slower beat and great lyric, "I held you so close I thought my soul would break, but you were just a ghost, the holiest mistake." "Walking On Water" & "Down to One" are another two favorite great tracks with gorgeous melodies and passionate vocals. "Goodnight" snakes with a propulsive beat, a sexy lyric & Melissa's expansive vocals. "It's Only Me" is another strong track with Melissa bearing her heart on vocals. The CD concludes with a midtempo masterpiece "Heal Me," "Amazing grace has touched my face & the sweet sound doesn't lie." This is a classic set by one of America's great rock singer/composers. Summer doesn't get any hotter than this! Enjoy!

I do like Lissy, and have quite a few of her albums, but when I think about it I think I like her more for what she is (ie when I was 19, the fact she was an out lesbian rocker was enough) than her actual output. Prior to this one, only her debut would I put on and listen to all the way through, though many of her other albums do have fantastic standout tracks.

Having said that, Skin is one of the most completely accomplished albums in my collection (and I have a few!). It runs the gamut of human emotion (well, to do with love) and encompasses variation in musical terms. It's all rock, but there are ballads, pure rockers, folk and even a bit of electronica sneaks on The Different, my fave track from the album.

Her naive lyrics are charming and "in front of total strangers won't you kiss me" on I Want To Be In Love, I think, absolutely sums up a gay person falling in love in one succinct line, like I have heard nowhere else, ever. (Please don't take that as any kind of gay versus straight comment, it's just straight people kissing in front of strangers doesn't really compare to gay people doing it.)

If you're thinking of buying a Lissy and don't know where to start, there's no better place than here. Skin really is an awesome, adult, heart-felt album that will not leave your 'regularly played' selection for years. I bought it on special after the fact and I almost want to send her a cheque for the difference. It's that good.

(Almost, obviously. I'm not a fool.)

I have listened to "Skin" more than often enough; and I find this is a perfect album to play when you're the most depressed; considering the circumstances of Julie Cypher leaving. "Please Forgive Me" personally rips me apart; perfectly detailed to the bone and I can almost feel her emotions on her lips, "It's been so long since I've touched/So long since I've wanted/and you made me laugh/and my heart opened..." and "It's Only Me" shows her at her lowest point, "Maybe you can just pretend/that maybe you can love again/oh babe i know better/it's only me/and wherever you are tonight/the satisfaction you invite/nobody knows better/it's only me." This is one of the few albums that I know by heart every word and every chord. This album is perfect. When a singer goes through trauma, as bad as it hurts, it does bring out beautiful and real music.

With 1999's haunting Breakdown, where Melissa was on the verge of a split with her long-time 'life-companion' (if that's the correct term), audiences everywhere could sense an angst & melancholy in Melissa's voice & musical arrangement - stark & barren.

Skin tells a wholly different story. Now having shed her skin off that relationship (with a very public break up to boot), Melissa's song-writing still borders on analysis of her relationship, but also builds on that by moving forwards into the future, prefigured by the pop class of the first-single I Want To Be In Love. The album has some other killer songs in its midst, particularly the opening track Lover Please, with a bombastic chorus - welcome back, missy!!!! The album's highlight for me is a plaintive ballad entitled Please, Forgive Me. Anyone I know who has seen her live!& alone tour has said it's a show-stopper & I can imagine why. Resoundingly poignant & bare, Melissa sheds her skin & her soul in finding an avenue that she can take without lumbering any baggage from past relationships. You can feel her euphoria shine through but not withouth a tender & touching moment of regret. An astounding epic from one of rock's foremost influences