Review: Kristin Hersh - Learn To Sing Like A Star

Kristin Hersh (like Money Mark) is another one of those artists who I first encountered back in the late nineties; not through Throwing Muses (although you can be damn sure that I soon caught up with that) or even through her first solo record, but through her second, acoustic, record Strange Angels, and I was smitten with the angular rasp of her vocals and the strength of her guitar/stringed instrument set up. But I've also been impressed by her moves back into Muses territory with an expanded, switched on band (although less so with the strangely dissatisfying 50 foot wave); and this is something she's continued with latest solo release, Learn to Sing like a Star, which came out last month.

Hersh has always seemed to me to have a pretty special take on the way she makes music; and I've never been able to figure out quite why it just works. There's almost a wilful attempt to take as many things that should jar against each other and then discovering that it actually just gels. Songs surge and revel in their power, even when they're at their most disarming. Learn to Sing like a Star hones this ability down to a tee; where earlier records have seared themselves across my mind with a powerful rock instinct, this is a record that turns it down and tones it up in a fiercely individual manner, and with a healthy dose of passion, intelligence and wit to boot. No one puts a guitar and violins together better. And did I say this record had "rock instinct"? Like all of Hersh's solo work, this is a deeply instinctual record. And it's one that bears many, many repeat listens.

Today, walking down NW 23rd, here in Portland, I saw no less than six different ladies wearing the exact same shoes. Shoes that were being sold in several places on that very street. I guessed that those ladies weren't foreign — they certainly looked like they belonged.

I began to wonder if besides wearing the same shoes, maybe they all listened to the same music, too. As a musician, I wonder this a lot. Marketing is very effective when it comes to shoes and music.

I looked down at my sturdy refugee shoes and thought, "Fashion. Again." In music it often seems to come down to that tiny bit of evil: style over substance, ephemeral over timeless.

Our American cities are disappearing under the weight of corporate giants who drive out competition while peddling sameness. Once the rents go up, no store other than a chain can afford to pursue the all-important Coed Consumer Monster, waving Daddy's credit card.

Over twenty years of touring the states, I've watched local accents and local music slip away from cities like Austin, Texas, Athens, Georgia and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. So sad! There used to be places to go in this country, pictures to take, people to meet. Now they look the same and sound the same. We even eat the same food! Do you remember regional cuisine? Can you really find any? It's even happening in foreign places like Europe, Asia, Australia, even my beloved New Zealand!

I'm done. I'm going back to sleep now. My sturdy shoes are right next to my face, but I don't mind. I like them now. They're on my radar. I love being an American, but I don't feel like I have to look like one. And I listen to all kinds of music, from lots of different places and eras; not because some giant sold it to me, but because it never sucked.


(from Hersh's blog)

I always come back to Kristin Hersh; that's as good a definition of timeless as I need.

MP3: Kristin Hersh - Day Glow