Customer Reviews

The White Broken Line: live recordings

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

 

 

An eclectic selection mixing pretty tunes and rowdy tunes, this CD showcases Juliana Hatfield's beautiful voice and guitar mastery. That she's not a superstar is one of rock's great injustices but at least she enjoys the freedom to do quirky things like including "Ten Foot Pole" on her first live CD. For those of us who somehow missed the "Beautiful Creature/Total System Failure" tour, it's nice to finally hear "My Protegee" live! My only complaint is that we hear the opening chords of "Stay Awake" after "Down on Me" before the volume is faded out in favor of "My Protegee" (in case anyone missed it, this is a compilation of tunes from several concerts.) I wanted to hear "Stay Awake" as well!

"The White Broken Line" is arguably Julianna Hatfield at her best! Live recordings are always a prime opportunity to break new ground as well as revisit old favorites and this cd has plenty of both! What everyone loves about power trios is that there's nowhere for any of the instrumentalists to hide-- every note/beat they play is going to show, so they have to make the most of each one-- and what we are reminded again and again is that Julianna can really sing with a unique style all her own and play guitar with lots of imagination and creativity! To her credit, she channels a lot of the same energy & sensibilities as a young Kurt Cobain as well as the Blake Babies but effectively transcends them as she builds off of them. The only thing I would like to see more than White Broken Line, part 2 (and maybe she should include some of the tracks that other reviewers are whining about as being "missing" from this one) is for Juliana to put herself to the test the same way that John Frusciante did: 6 albums in 6 months (or whatever it was)- I think it could be brilliant stuff! Well- how about it, Juliana?

I was sorely disappointed by this album. I expect bands to release live albums when they are actually good live, when the album documents them ably performing their songs, but with the energy that comes from a live audience, etc. This album does none of that.

I was very excited to get this cd in the mail, but while half a dozen songs are well done, well performed and sound great, I have to believe that Juliana could have chosen tracks that were more mistake free (the album is frought with bad solos, off-key vocals, and general sloppiness). Additionally, and this may have more to do with the order of the tracks on the album, but there is no momentum here. Likely the result of culling tracks from various shows, there is no continuity, and this lack of continuity enhances the flaws that are there (flaws that would likely be ignored if we were getting an entire show).

"The White Broken Line" is a live album, collecting tracks mostly from Juliana Hatfield's 2005 tour (with a couple from 2002), with Hatfield backed by her touring band of Ed Valauskas (bass) and Pete Caldes (drums). Plucking songs from different shows grants the luxury for better performances and diversity often not found in tours behind a given album, but as a longtime fan, I found myself remarkably disappointed with this release.

The nice thing about pulling songs from different shows is that while you lose the integrity of the individual performance, you get the luxury of populating the album any way seen appropriate. Given this, it was kind of a downer that while a number of live favorites were here ("Necessito", "Down on Me", "Somebody is Waiting for Me" for example), a number of them were noticably absent-- "Stay Awake", "Going Blonde", "Dirty Dog", "Daniel", "Sellout", "What a Life" and "Dumb Fun" all got played at one time or another during the shows these were taken from (I was at all but one of them), and with the album only filling about half the CD's capacity (clocking in under 45 minutes), there was certainly room for a number of these.

As far as the material itself, it's mostly well executed, although I do find that it seems to be missing something that's in the live performance-- let's face it, punky music never really gets its live energy captured well on record ("Get in Line") and this is a fine example of that. There's still a number of fine performances ("Down on Me" is pretty much always a winner, "Hotels" has a great funky backbeat, "Oh" benefits from NOT having "Made in China" styled production), but by and large, this is something I rarely listen to.

Given Juliana Hatfield's falling out of the public eye, I suspect anyone reading this is going to buy it anyway-- she's one of my absolute favorite performers, but I found this one lacking.

Perhaps the negative reviewers have not seen Juliana perform. This album correctly captures the energy and moments of imperfection which can and do occur during a live performance. I would far-and-away rather hear it true with flaws and excitement that a live performance offers as opposed to a studio offering. I have been listening to JH since first hearing the Blake Babies in about 1988, and have been fortunate enough to see two shows. This album, in my opinion, was like being there ... love it!

I am a huge JH fan and was really looking forward to this. Unfortunately it just doesn't gel for some reason. Maybe not enough of her better songs or whatever, but it definitely misses the mark. "Choose Drugs' is one great track though.

I can't review this record because I don't have it yet. I have seven others, as I find the art in JH's verse and music magnetically compelling, richly textured, resonant, more... So because I must light up star/stars to have these comments published, gotta go with five, being my overall regard for her work. The express reason I'm writing here, though, is to express dismay at the reviewer, down below, who made the slur about other "white lines." Such disrespect runs fully counter to JH's ethos; I can't see how this person might connect with the whole of her expressions. To recognize, in one's own ways, that nobody or no thing is perfect, except Buddha or whom- or whatever one may unconditionally revere, is only natural. Freeing onself to accept this is the first step toward understanding, within the mere blip of our lifetimes, the extraordinary complexities of our world.

.. I would hate to hear her lesser performances!

Having been a Hatfield fan for as long as I can remember, I am severely dissapointed that this is what I get in a live cd(ep) after all these years.
I've heard alot of bootlegs that put this lackluster effort to shame. sounds like she's been doing far too many white broken lines lately.