Be aware, this review is a bit of a rant.
Faye Webster is, by all accounts, an indie darling. The Atlanta-based songstress blends Indie Folk/Rock, Alt-Country, R&B, and Pop into a dreamy blend of charming Americana and pairs it with very personal lyrics. Her last two albums, 2019’s Atlanta Millionaires Club and 2021’s I Know I’m Funny Haha, earned a 7.8 and an 8.4, respectively, on Pitchfork. And if you even just casually check in on Pitchfork reviews, you’ll be aware that those scores are high praise over there.
For the record, before we proceed, Underdressed at the Symphony, Webster’s fifth album, has earned a 7.5 at Pitchfork.
As a Georgia native, I love this for Webster. And I figured I’d heard her name enough that I should check her out.
And, by all accounts, there is brilliance at play here. Opening track “Thinking About You” slides into the ear with sexy-smooth steel guitar — which is a personal weakness — and a gorgeously realized melody. But by the time you’re two minutes into this six-and-a-half minute song, you’ve already heard all there is to hear. When you hit the point of, “okay, this is getting too repetitive”, there’s still three minutes left in the song, and the rest of the song is the same ~8 bars over and over. They’re *pretty* bars, but you’re still repeating the same thing (the song’s title, basically) for several minutes, and the artistic point of somebody being on your mind to the point of driving you crazy just doesn’t carry that much weight.
Capital-A “Art” should not be obnoxious just for the sake of being obnoxious.
Maybe it’s just a fluke, right? Track 2, “But Not Kiss”, is also initially gorgeous, but the only refrain in the song is a discordant “Yeah, yeah”. It’s a harsh, grating interruption, which might be fine, except that it takes over the song. It’s a strange compositional decision which feels rooted in pretension.
Track 5, “Feeling Good Today”, again had me checking to see how much time was left (two-and-a-half minutes, btw) when I hit the point of being annoyed by the repetition. And the section it repeats is about half the length and repeated twice as much.
The second half of the album continues this trend. Either the songs are too repetitive to enjoy, or there are just bizarre decisions in the composition or production, despite having an amazing core sound.
The only decent songs that I can salvage here are tracks 3-5 — “Wanna Quit All the Time” and “Lego Ring” are solid, enjoyable songs with no irritations, and “Feeling Good Today” is an amusing and accurate depiction of a "good day” when you’re suffering from depression.
Long story short, Pitchfork continues to be a joke, and this album is insufferable because it continually taunts you with beauty and then wrecks it on a whim. Webster is clearly a superior talent. She has vision. She’s an exceptional vocalist, and her genric blend is powerful and gorgeous. But the execution is awful. She needs editing; I don’t know who she has around her or what that process is, but somebody needs to point out that if you’re making music that is painful to listen to, nobody will listen.
Except all of the acclaim from outlets run by snobs reinforces those decisions. But hey, I’m an amateur here. If you’ve listened to this one and you think otherwise, please feel free to let me know.
Rating: Red