You Had Me at Goodbye
here are bunch of thoughts about the album and the songs. first of all, this album was produced by john vanderslice (who has produced my last two albums, as well as great albums by spoon and the mountain goats and strand of oaks) we recorded it at tiny telephone oakland completely analog. recorded on a neve 8068 console to 2 inch tape on a studer 820 24 track and then mixed down to 1/2 inch tape on an ATR 102. bernie grundman mastered the album (he is grammy award winning and mastered carole king's tapestry, michael jackson's thriller, dr.dre's the chronic, and prince's purple rain). basically, with this album i just wanted to have some fun. i've spent the majority of my young adulthood taking myself very seriously. i think this is because i recorded my first album when i was 19, and ever since that EP came out, everyone said I was an "old soul". i felt very strongly that i should live up to that expectation because I was young and I didn't really know who i was yet, so a bunch of music journalists and fans say i'm an old soul and i really grabbed a hold of that. the label permeated through me in every way, in my songwriting, in my demeanor, in my aesthetic. i always just acted older than i was, or what i thought an older person acted like. i was unsure of myself and oblivious in many ways. so, 10 years pass and, now, that i actually am older, i realize i missed out on a lot of freedom that comes with making art as a young person and that i was just taking my songwriting so serious in all the wrong ways, not in a way that was making me a better songwriter, but in a way that was making me write really contrived over-serious songs. so over the past few years, i've tried to inject humorous stories into my live performance to really give people an idea behind the sometimes funny realities that spur these songs. and on this record, i tried to, even on the more serious songs, put forth a bit of dark humor. i also just wanted to write some flat out pop songs. people think pop music is common, its uneducated, its uncreative, but really, its the exact opposite. i find the majority of singer-songwriter type music that is being made right now is really the lazy and unimaginative 3 chord, no melody stuff these days. the real creativity of key change and modulation and off-kilter instrumentation and clever lyric is in pop music right now. and that what i listen to almost 100 percent of the time. so i wanted to push myself and write some creative modulating music with hooks and weirder lyrics. i hope i succeeded a little. i feel like the world of americana, that somehow i got pushed into early on, is so hell bent on being "honest" and "authentic" that it become exactly the opposite of that. everything in that world is a cliche now and people aren't just being themselves. their crazy, changing, confusing, artistic selves...i just wanted to have some god-damn fun and make an album that was a picture of me--searching/whole, confident/paralyzed, happy/sad, creative/boring...etc
Also El Michels Affair - Return To the 37th Chamber and Samantha Crain - You Had Me At Goodbye
Discover You Had Me at Goodbye by Samantha Crain released in 2017. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
Oklahoma songwriter Samantha Crain returns, showing off her folk balladry and experimental spirit with a greater pop emphasis on You Had Me At Goodbye.
Back home in Norman, Oklahoma, Samantha Crain's fifth LP was written whilst Samantha was working shifts at a pizza restaurant to save up money for touring.