About that blonde woman’s album that came out October 3rd…
Forgive me for the subject line of this newsletter, a tacky bait-and-switch. But in a world of fifteen-second TikTok clips, sometimes you must resort to the low road. Because no, I’m not talking about Taylor Swift here - though I am happy to talk about Taylor! I am talking about Carter Faith, whose debut album, Cherry Valley, also came out on October 3rd. I plan to make no comparisons, and that’s the last time I’ll talk about Taylor. Maybe. I did this solely for attention, because Cherry Valley deserves attention, and I am desperate.
It's a strange time in country music, as it always is. Music Row would love you to believe that because of the success of Lainey Wilson and Megan Moroney, all’s well in the world when it comes to representation of women – and, actually, maybe it’s Lainey’s job to fix anything outstanding, while we’re at it! Truth is, things look just about the same as they have for the past decade. Marketing dollars and radio promo budgets are skill skewed in a way that makes it almost impossible for women to find success through traditional channels. And I won’t let anyone use Lainey Wilson as their convenient band-aid. Ain’t her problem to fix, and she isn’t your cover.
In the middle of all this, come some of the most exciting country artists around, with some of the best voices – who yes, happen to be women. Kaitlin Butts. Caylee Hammack. Kassi Ashton. And now, Carter Faith, with one of the most realized, wittiest, thoughtful country records to come out this year it’s almost shocking that it’s a debut.
Faith, like some of the best artists do, is able to create a world within her music: Cherry Valley, if you will, but it’s really the interior life of a young woman who is growing up, feeling broken, making mistakes, getting lost in music and men and feeling her way out. She’s funny and self-aware (“Bar Star,” an excellent, country-radio-in-a-better world kind of bop), tender and a heartbreaking (“So I Sing”) and capable of a killer ballad (“If I Had Never Lost My Mind…” which turns a classic sort of country phrasing into a song also about mental health and culpability). There’s also your ode to the finer things in life – “Sex, Drugs, and Country Music” - which some friends tell me has made some men feel a little unsettled, because a grown woman is mentioning sex? Sigh. That song sounds fun, and it is, but it's actually a more somber commentary on how we cope than meets the eye, because everything Faith writes has that little twist to it.
She's also pretty fearless along the way - one of my favorite lines, from "Grudge," is "if I were a good Christian woman (like you), I'd probably forgive, but I'm pretty sure that even Jesus thinks your a bitch." Might not get a lot of points in modern day Music Row talking like that, but hell, even Taylor Swift loves a good grudge song.
I think sometimes about what if country music had looked different for Taylor Swift- not to go back to that, but sorry? If it had been a hospitable place for her to keep making music and experimenting, like it is for so many of its leading men. I worry we'll ultimately lose not just women who want to play sonically, but all of them, even the traditional-minded: to pop, to Americana, to wherever might not make them start a race 100 meters behind the Chase McChasen's of the world. Cherry Valley is one of those records that makes me remember how good music can be so timeless and current all at once. We're lucky Faith's in country, and I sure hope country realizes it, too.
