Middlescence

Amy Rigby

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 15, 1998)
• Original Release Date: September 15, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Koch Records
• ASIN: B00000AFQ8
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,201 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Amy Rigby has a purpose. It's in her voice, her words, and her wardrobe. She gives voice to post-punk women who've spent years fretting about remaining hip only to find they're now more concerned with their expanding hips. The sequel to Rigby's eye-opening Diary of a Mod Housewife picks up where that 1996 collection left off. Rigby may be a couple of years wiser, but she remains alternately defiant and pliant in the face of advancing age. "Hearts and flowers have their place / On tablecloths and bits of lace," she scoffs one moment, only to fret, "I'm no hot chick / I'm hoping I'll wake up and won't care" the next. When she's not pondering midlife dating and motherhood ("Gee it's real nice to kiss you on the mouth / But this doesn't feel right / Could you sleep on the couch?"), she's reflecting on bygone revelry ("Summertime in '83 / The last time I took LSD"). Former Cars guitarist Elliot Easton is back in the producer's seat and the power pop/thrift-store country fusion he patched together on the earlier record is, if anything, more cohesive this time around. Rigby tails off here with the line "They say middle age is the beginning of life / I don't know if I buy that." Judging by this album and its predecessor, it may at least usher in better career days for one mod housewife. --Steven Stolder

Spin
Rigby lends her buttery-yet-tart voice to songs about facing loneliness even when you're part of a couple, about caring for kids, about just getting by--in other words, all the themes of classic country music, but with none of the smug, lip-glossed grandiloquence so much of modern Nashville falls prey to.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Staring down her Fear, September 2, 2000

By	Gerald D. McGee (Henderson, NV United States) - See all my reviews

Getting ready for the release of the new album by Amy Rigby. Heard she moved to Nashville. I used to live in her neighborhood in Brooklyn, so I'm curious to hear what effect the move will have had on her music. I was familiar with the first rate material on Diary of a Mod Housewife, and I find this album to be even better. Give it a second chance. Amy spends a great deal of time reflecting on the past. When she does look forward, it seems like there is a lot of dread on her horizon. I think the songs serve as a snapshot of a life awaiting transcendence. I hope she's found it, but even if she hasn't, I bet the new album is going to be way more interesting than 99% of the crap that is currently out there.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intimate observations of mid-life single parenthood, January 23, 1999

By	hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Rigby's debut, "Diary of a Mod Housewife," fueled by her divorce from dB's drummer Will Rigby, It effectively wedded the visceral anger of Alanis Morisette with the pop instincts of Big Star. Her follow-up traces the next step, turning from the remains of her crumbled marriage to the single-parenthood at midlife. She struggles with an empty canvas that has boundries proscribed by work and children.

Rigby captures both the lingering bitterness ("All I Want") and wistful memories ("The Summer of My Wasted Youth") of the-life-left-behind. Her present tense is a jumble of pressures, from keeping oneself emotionally intact, to juggling children, finances, and a love-life. She struggles with dating, singing to her children, "What I need / For you to disappear / But still be here / When he goes home." She ponders her 30-something invisibilty and dreams of escaping from the soap opera of her life to a fairytale world of happy endings.

Rigby doesn't so much wear her heart on her sleeve as strap it down for a dissection and probe. The results are quite illuminating, if not always comfortable.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not classic, but not bad, October 7, 1999

By A Customer

This album is not an instant classic like "Diary of a Mod Housewife," but give it a few spins and I bet you'll love it almost as much. Just proves she's human like the rest of us. Forget her less than visionary though anything but cliched take on middle-aged romance, its her take on class that floats this southern boy's bass boat.