Janet Devlin - "Emotional Rodeo"
She's in the saddle on her terms
This is a review I’ve been trying to figure out how to write since the album was announced — before it even had a due date. Which makes it funny that I somehow missed its actual release back in November because I actually actively checked for it multiple times this year.
Janet Devlin is — was — an up-and-coming Indie Folk-Pop artist from Ireland. She originally gained her first bit of fame by participating in the eighth season of The X Factor in 2011 (at the age of 16), making it all the way to the Quarter Finals before being eliminated. Her fifth-place finish was enough to help her start her career, though, and she released her first album, Running With Scissors, in 2014.1 Her sophomore effort wouldn’t come until 2020’s Confessional. Both albums charted on the UK Indie and Indie Breakers charts; Running With Scissors hit the top 50, overall, in the UK, and Confessional broke into the top 100, overall, in the US.
And her songs, which frequently discuss dating, interpersonal, and mental health issues, are genuinely really good. I would be remiss not to mention a couple: “Away With the Fairies” is very high on my all-time favorites list (and my daughter’s); and the raw, authentic emotionality of “Whiskey Lullabies”, which closes Running With Scissors, nearly brings me to tears every time I hear it — which is more often than I play it because it lives in my head.
So, naturally, learning that Devlin was jumping on this Country-shift bandwagon, I was immediately disconcerted. After all, she’s Irish. It felt inherently inauthentic. Even if she loves the genre, music should be personally meaningful to the musician because it will never connect with the audience if it isn’t.
Turns out, though, that Devlin’s family has always had a fondness for Country. More importantly, this shift was somewhat pre-meditated. In a quote found within the presser linked above, Devlin states:
“Country music has always been a huge part of my life. It was a genre that everyone in my house agreed to listen to. I have distinct memories of driving to show-jumping competitions with my father, playing a mix tape my brother made of some of our shared favorites. Always wearing my cowboy boots to the yard until it was time to saddle up. Since I started music, I always said that after 24 I’d jump into the country music scene. It’s an odd thing to have planned out but I always knew I wanted to. For me I love the storytelling. I love that there’s almost always a clever quip in there. Mostly, I love that it doesn’t always take itself too seriously. You can stick on a country radio station and cry, laugh and sing along.” [emphasis mine]
Which…totally disarms my preconceptions coming in.
So what’s left? Just the music, I suppose.
Emotional Rodeo was recorded in Nashville, and definitely has some of that Nashville polish to it, with thickly-layered acoustic instrumentation on most of the tracks. The album is firmly based in the Rock-infused Country that was prevalent through the 90s, and the title track and lead single, “Emotional Rodeo”, leans further into Rock stylings.
With that said, the instrumentation largely feels just…present. Uninspired. It helps to provide context for Devlin’s vocals and lyrics, but that’s about it. And that’s really the biggest issue with the album, because the instrumentation just feels manufactured. Pretty. But manufactured.
Devlin is the standout star in every single song. She isn’t phoning anything in. It’s weird to hear her shed her Irish accent and morph into this Country persona, but she does a solid job of it. Then you have the whooping “you”s in “Daddy”, the absolute enthusiasm in “Emotional Rodeo”, and pitch-perfection basically everywhere. She has also adapted her writing to the genre fluidly, with “Country Singer” making callbacks to Dolly Parton and Miranda Lambert, and several other tracks utilizing the exact sort of wordplay that Country songs have long done, but also staying true to herself as her songs still tackle addiction and mental health issues (including owning her own in “Emotional Rodeo”); songs like “Daddy” and “Country Singer” also promote feminist perspectives.
Frankly, with better (or more original) instrumental support, this could potentially be fighting for my top Country album of the year and be well inside my Top 40. As it is, it’s good, but is kneecapped by that restriction.
Rating: Green
The album also saw an earlier, limited release version in 2013 as Hide & Seek.