There are a lot of valid reasons to be cynical about the state of the music industry, music criticism and even music itself, but when it comes down to one crucial point, I’m an optimist: I believe that truly great music usually finds the audience it deserves.
That’s not to say to say there aren’t exceptionsof course there will always be worthwhile songwriters and bands that never find their breakbut in general, the cream of the crop does eventually get recognized. This has been especially true in the last half decade, when blogs have created homes for even the loneliest music niches, and underfunded independent bands have been able to sell out 1,000 theaters largely on just strong word of mouth. I’m not suggesting that every band can achieve success on that scale just by being great at what they dothere will always be a ceiling on music that’s too esoteric or specialized, and the tables will always be tilted toward music with the broadest appealbut nonetheless I believe that most great music eventually rises to the (relative) top.
I spent a lot of time thinking about that as I watched Brooklyn’s Sharon Van Etten play to a mostly empty Cactus Club on a frigid January night this year. Watching her mesmerize the meager crowd, there was no doubt in my mind that one day she’d be playing to much, much bigger rooms. And there still isn’t. Van Etten is a far too striking singer and a far too poignant songwriter not to build a large following.
This month, Van Etten released Epic, a seven-song mini-album that builds on the promise of her 2009 debut Because I Was In Love (the album is for sale digitally now in advance of its Oct. 5 physical release). Recorded with a full band, it’s more up-tempo than her sparse debut, the acoustic songs now balanced with electric ones. The sound is straight forward, perhaps surprisingly so for an artist who attracts such breathless accolades, but the songs are anything but. Van Etten sings in seemly simple and direct sentiments that disguise layers of ambiguity and double meanings.
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On Epic’s chilling closer, "Love More," Van Etten censures an emotionally abusive ex. “Chained to the wall of our room,” she sings. “Yeah, you chained me like a dog in our room/ I thought that’s how it was.” But she follows that recrimination with an unexpected display of appreciation, concluding, “it made me love more.” It’s unclear whether she’s simply thankful for having escaped such a destructive relationship, or whether she’s nostalgic for the affection she felt toward her oppressor. Her motivations are similarly cloudy when she tries to talk a self-destructive boyfriend down from the ledge on “Don’t Do It.” By song’s end she sounds more fed up than concerned, almost as if she’s even daringif not outright tauntinghim to follow through with his threats.
On song after song, Van Etten calls out and denigrates her exes under pretenses of forgiving or moving on. We sympathize with her because her impassioned, vulnerable soprano suggests that she’s singing with complete candor, but the droll, cynical tones that sometimes catch in her throat reveal otherwise. She’s firmly in control of these songs, and she’s using them to settle scores and manipulate exes. Apparently she picked up a few tricks during all those bad relationships.
