Indigo Girls

Come On Now Social

This may be the beginning of the end for me

Review Score:

(4/10)
I feel horrible having to say this, because I've been a big fan of nearly every album of theirs, but I think the Indigo Girls have moved in a direction that is not about what they should be about. What always amazed me about them was the way that Amy's raw anger and Emily's complex sweetness meshed into something that was greater than the sum of its parts. I'm not feeling that on this album. It's a more pop-y album than they've ever made before. Shaming of The Sun was moving in this direction, but I think that album worked--something about their apprehensive interaction with pop created some highly original sounds. This album is a hodge-podge of pop stereotypes, from the opening hard sound of Amy's "GO" (which is one of the only sounds that is familiar from earlier albums, but also one of my least favorite), to the country sound of "GONE AGAIN", to an incredibly slickly-produced top-40 song called "TROUBLE" that has great words, but sounds like Sheryl Crow (who guests on the album), or even Blink182. Apparently all the time the Indigo Girls spent on tour with the Lilith Fair crowd influenced their sound. And I for one always thought that the Indigo Girls were better musicians that the rest of the Lilith folks. It seems like they've been pulled down. My problem with this album is that it sounds like the kind of album a studio encourages new bands to make. It is musically safe, could sell some singles, and is so thickly produced (especially Emily's songs) that you don't have to listen to the words. This is a shame, because the words have always been put in center stage in the past, and they deserve to. As I said, even this album has good lyrics, but if you just put it on your stereo, you'll find no great reason to learn them.

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