Posted on March 14, 2021 | Views: 359
cwebb2021-03-13T19:46:29-08:00
by Laura Studarus: Their desire for avoidance is a predisposition so common that it’s become hard-baked into Finnish culture…
I met my now best friend Hanna a few years ago during my first visit to Helsinki, on a coffee date set up out of desperation. Without any acquaintances in the city, I just wanted someone to sit next to in public, and given our tenuous work connection, she fitted the bill. Our drink quickly turned into dinner, wrapping up four hours later after doing deep dives on politics, religion, sex and life, the kind of topics that usually take friends years to address. A year later, I flew back to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, still shocked at how fast we forged a connection.
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It’s become a cliché, even for post-Baby Boomers, to look back wistfully on the early ’70s as some kind of untouchable golden age for popular music. But when you survey all the era’s best albums in list form, it’s hard not to trust that instinct.
I mean…
holy shit.
In 1971, the psychedelic era hadn’t completely wilted; prog was nearing its popularity apex; Motown was still a revolutionizing soul music; the folk-rock movement was in full flight. The possibilities were limitless.
You know it’s a banner year when 50 albums don’t begin to scratch the surface when both John Lennon and Paul McCartney release definitive LPs and neither make the top 10. Was 1971 the greatest album year ever? We’ll save that debate for another time (or maybe another list).
Since her first album, 2016’s
Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, Margo Price has often been positioned in outlaw country, flanked by comparisons to Bobbie Gentry and Loretta Lynn. But on her third LP,
That’s How Rumors Get Started, Price veers closer to classic rock and away from the honky-tonk that once echoed through the Nashville songwriter’s music. While her debut was charged with drinking tropes and her sophomore effort (2017’s
All American Made)
steeped in political consciousness,
Rumors focuses on the more vulnerable stories of touring life: being away from home, surviving relationships and the anxiety of stillness. Price is at her most stunning on the gospel-tinged confessional “Prisoner of the Highway,” in which she reflects on the cost of being an artist on the road while in love and starting a family. The same goes for power ballad “I’d Die For You,” where she parallels a soaring Stevie Nicks. A little bit of Nashville and Southern rock seems to ha