It seems as though every time I’m just starting to think that rock and roll really is dead, it seems another great female artist from some facet of the globe manages to change my mind again. This time that artist was Courtney Barnett. Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, the 28 year-old released one of the best rock albums of 2015 back in March of this year.
This 12-song album is a collection of guitar-fueled pop rock that never strays too far from a common theme. Refreshingly simple, Barnett doesn’t brood on about the difficulties of life or a broken heart; but rather the occasional mundaneness of modern life and how, when you think about it, things really aren’t so bad.
If there’s a famous lesson learned throughout the 60-plus year reign of rock and roll, it’s that you don’t need to to reinvent the wheel. Barnett makes no effort to do this. There’s nothing spectacularly groundbreaking or experimental on this album, but it still finds a way to be completely original and genuine. This is in large part due to Barnett’s lyrics, which manage to be satirical, witty, and completely relatable at the same. Many times while listening, I found myself thinking about a time I had had the exact same thought – what separates me from Barnett, however, is that I had never thought to turn it into a song.
Barnett’s vocals are gritty, dead-pan and, occasionally, downright ugly. And of course, there’s a thick Australian accent that she never fails to let go of, continually reminding you of where exactly this artist comes from. On my first listen of the album, I was initially turned off by this combination. However, by the end of the last track it all made perfect sense. In fact, any other vocalist simply wouldn’t jive so well with the overall feel of every song. Any other vocalist might try too hard to make it work, while Barnett just does it. Effortlessly.
A great example of this is the track “Aqua Profonda!,” whose lyrics are simply about seeing an attractive swimmer of the opposite sex while doing laps at the local public pool, but having them leave before you even had a chance to say anything (perhaps because your goggles were fogged up).
The album’s highlight track, “Dead Fox,” is a song about genetically modified foods. Instead of taking a political stance on the issue, Barnett plays the role of the casual observer caught up in the whole GMO debate and wondering if any of it really matters anyway. “I must admit that I was a little skeptical at first/ a little pesticide can’t hurt.” Again, she finds a way to make this so relatable, especially to young twenty-somethings. “Never having too much money/ I get the cheap stuff at the supermarket.”
If there’s anything holding this album back from being an instant classic, it’s that some of the songs feel slightly incomplete. Maybe it’s the simplicity of many of the compositions.
It could also be the fact that although Barnett spent nearly a year crafting the tunes, she didn’t actually present them to her band until a week before the album was recorded. This was to achieve a truly “fresh” feel in the studio, Barnett explained in an interview with Australian culture blog Broadsheet.
But who cares about perfection anyway? That would defeat the purpose of this whole work. The album is rock and roll at its best.
Loud, head-bangable, and not trying to be anything more profound than it is, this might be one of the best debut albums in recent years.