Skin

Melissa Etheridge

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 10, 2001)
• Original Release Date: July 10, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Island
• ASIN: B00005LODB
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (122 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,511 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Rock > Singer-Songwriters

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com's Best of 2001
During the dark days of the singer's split from Julie Cypher, her companion of 12 years, Melissa Etheridge retreated to her home studio to pen songs lit from within with her searing pain and confusion. From those heart-wrenching sessions comes arguably Etheridge's finest work. She vents and rages and all but spits on her Tony Llama boots, giving these 10 songs a depth and grit that she only hinted at in her prior six albums. And those early albums were plenty gritty. But early tunes such as "Come to My Window," and "Yes I Am" don't approach the naked vulnerability heard here--even though the breakup was hinted at in "Stronger Than Me," on 1999's Breakdown. Skin peels back layers of Etheridge's pain and addresses her personal melodrama in such a compelling way that her despair is transmuted into true art, as she takes the listener through the stages of grief and recovery. And what a journey, beginning with the bristling "Lover Please" ("Didn't I love you right / Then tell me where are you going dressed to kill tonight? / Oh, this one's gonna hurt like hell") and ending with the stirring "Heal Me," which features background vocals by famous pals Laura Dern and Meg Ryan. That's almost all the help she has on the record; Etheridge plays almost all the instruments and penned all the songs. But, ultimately, Skin is the sound of one heart breaking. --Jaan Uhelszki

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb companion to her autobiography, July 10, 2001

By	Erica Anderson (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new fan is born, September 20, 2001

By	R. Snarski (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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. :)

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From Heartbreak to Hope, October 14, 2001

By	"[e-mail]" (Frankfort, KY USA) - See all my reviews

"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.