Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Raw and aggressive., August 9, 2005
Juliana Hatfield can't seem to catch a break-- after having a major label refuse to release what she considers her masterpiece (the still unreleased "God's Foot") and an indepedent label evidentally dictate direction to her, she's decided to release her latest, "Made in China", on her own label.
It's said that artists mellow with age. In this case, it's not true. "Made in China" is powerful, aggressive, stripped down. It lacks the keyboards and pop arrangements that appear on many of her previous records, instead going with a direct guitar assault. Throughout the album, she's largely backed by Cape Cod band The Unbusted, although three songs find her unaccompanied other than guitar and one ("Oh") features her playing all the instruments herself.
At it's best, it's sarcastic and powerful, relying on pulsing rhythms and loud guitars (the stunning "Stay Awake", "Going Blonde"). The album also excels at a wistful sort of sound-- Hatfield has given up the balladry she's excelled at on previous records in favor of a sort of crunchy alternative ballad sound ("Hole in the Sky"). And while it may be stripped back, one of the better songs on here features a somewhat more detailed arrangement and a great hook ("Digital Penetration").
If there's a complaint to be made, its that there's largely a lack of variety on the record-- it's got a very low-fi sound to it, and it can grate now and again ("What Do I Care"). And as a rule, the album is pretty dense, dark, and uninviting. Still, it's a good effort, even if it's not going to win any new fans.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Review From Marc! (www.julianahatfield.com), August 13, 2006
It's a real shame when an artist gets unfairly lumped in with a 'movement' or a 'scene', because there's a good chance that their commercial shelf life is going to be cut short the minute that journalists run out of nice things to say about their particular fad. In the case of Juliana Hatfield, the press came up with some silly notion that women hadn't made rock music until the early 1990's and exploited every woman with a distortion pedal who mentioned their libido in any form at all. Back in 1993, she was in every magazine's sidebar when they wrote their inevitable "1993 - Year Of The Woman" article, next to PJ Harvey, Bjork and Liz Phair. And sure, those are all decent artists in their own right, (or at least they were at the time... right Liz?), but besides their recording contracts and genitalia, they couldn't have been further removed from each other. When the mainstream press did give her a proper article they were preoccupied with Juliana's unusually high voice, her virginity and her relationship with Evan Dando... everything but the fact that she was one of the best musicians and songwriters to eek out of the nineties alternative rock boom.
From her early days in the Blake Babies until her recent sojurn with the Some Girls side project, Juliana has concurrently exceeded and confounded the expectations of her loyal fan base. When we expected another jangly pop hit like 1993's megasuccessful "My Sister", we got the dark heaviness of the Only Everything album. On the same day in 2000 we got the gorgeous, laid-back and mostly acoustic Beautiful Creature... as well as the mangled and deafening Total System Failure record. When Atlantic refused to release her 1997 album God's Foot for no discernible reason, Juliana went on an unsuccessful hunger strike. When the critics hailed her as the Next Big Thing, she refused to 'smile for the camera', because she felt she hadn't 'earned it'. She's unpredictable for sure, but she can also bust out with some of the most innovative guitarwork since J Mascis.
Most critics (and some stubborn fans) don't want to look past her major label heyday, but it'd behoove any fan of well crafted pop/rock to do so. If you want some slicker-than-turtlewax pop sheen, you gotta check out In Exile Deo. Want some loud, first-take rock with seriously bipolar lyrics? Man, come over and I'll play you Bed from 1998 and follw it up with last year's insidious Made In China. You won't leave my house the same, I assure you.
If it exists in the rock spectrum, you can bet that Juliana Hatfield has tried it and likely improved upon the formula. So why is she so consistently overlooked? As far as I can tell, the cardinal sin of commercial success is following your heart and writing to please yourself, in which case Juliana will continue to be passed over for artists that will show cleavage and flirt with reporters. You'd think that sticking to your guns, being yourself and having an impeccable resume of records under your belt would be enough to set the world on fire. Nope, the world at large will have to settle for hearing "My Sister" and and the jangly hit "Spin The Bottle" on every 'old school weekend' that Modern Rock stations like to do when they are out of ideas. The rest of us will just have to settle for Juliana Hatfield being our little secret.
Damn.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Short and sour, September 25, 2005
Crtics think its fair , true fans love it. It is not watered down commercial pop. It's raw, loud, aggresive and some of
her best Work.
Rolling stone said two stars. Forget them. This
coming from the same source that called [ Weezer-Pinkerton]
the worst album of '96. So I don't pay much attention to
them. Their reason was for this album, Juliana is not trying hard enough on this album. Making it sound sloppy and
incomplete. Somewhat true. According to her website, Juliana says,
"I did make this record very fast and very cheaply... I sold most of my records more than ten years ago and since then everything I do is measured against that. Fed up, discouraged, sick-of-it-all ("I don't want to stay awake" ["Stay Awake"].....People can buy this record or not. I don't care. In Exile Deo", my last album, was a fairly clean, tailored, buttoned-up, adult affair, influenced somewhat by the record company who wanted a product they could sell. But I could have told them I am not very marketable. I don't fit in anywhere. I am a sensitive singer-songwriter, a hard rocker, a pop diva, and a dadaist. I am none of these things. "Made in China" fell together faster and looser and louder than "Exile".
Not too happy. Some of these songs do feel like rough
demos,"Hole in the sky, send money." They are still great. With
a little more time, " hole in the sly" could have been really
good, I think. No matter. The rest of the album: "what do I care, Stay awake, On video," are three really catchy, good songs, sounding somewhat radio friendly. "Oh" is not a favorite along with " A doe and two fawns". They are simply O.K. songs. Same with "Going blonde" it's only about a minute,not bad.I've got more used to " Digital penetration",and " Rats in the attic". Those songs grow on you. " New waif" good opener. Finally, " My pet lion" is a rocky favorite.
The bridge part or whatever at about 1:40 is awesome.
That is her flesh on the front cover and looking good.
Juliana's pissed off, but this is just great.
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~ Juliana Hatfield
~ Juliana Hatfield
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by Juliana Hatfield
album Made in China 
