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Washington Square Serenade

Steve Earle

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iTunes Review

As a songwriter, Steve Earle deals with the topical and the timeless. The Texan, who spent years slightly out of step in Nashville, has ended up in New York City and has adopted the city as his muse. With wife Allison Moorer, who harmonizes, adds backing vocals and co-wrote a tune, Earle sets off for the big city (“Tennessee Blues”) and immediately feels at home (“City of Immigrants”), lands a new job as a satellite radio DJ (“Satellite Radio”) and records this album with John King of the Dust Brothers (Beastie Boys, Beck), who adds a few extra hip-hop beats with negligible results. Earle has always been more about the convincing timbre of his voice and his forceful, to-the-point lyrics, not fancy musical accompaniment, and he waxes romantic {“Sparkle and Shine,” “Come Home to Me”) and turns to the news (“Oxycontin Blues”) with equal ease. He does droning country-blues (“Red is the Color”) as well as Son Volt and his cover of Tom Waits’ haunted “Way Down in the Hole” never freaks out but surprisingly colors within the lines.

Customer Reviews

Never falters

I've been a Steve Earle fan for years (decades?) now... and WSS is one of the first new albums in recent memory that I've been genuinely excited about. Whenever you anticipate something being great, it seldom meets your expectations. But Steve's new album does not dissapoint. In fact, it's everything I was hoping for -- colorful, heartfelt, honest and offers some damn fine beats. These are songs you can listen to over and over again; and they just keep getting better. Some early standouts for me are City of Immigrants (I can't get enough of it), Steve's Hammer and Down Here Below, but I'm sure it will be different for everyone who listens to this album. Every song holds a lot of lasting promise. Thanks, Steve, for staying true to what you do so well -- defying mainstream radio fare and consistently delivering songs that blow us away.

Good but we've heard it before

This is a good recording but not great. Steve always puts out a good recording but somehow he seems to be getting formulaic. We have heard this all before. Don't get me wrong, it is good but I have deja vu when I listen to this. The feel is good but it seems he is just going through the motions. That said, there is one number here that is one of his best, Come Home to Me is tremendous with a very emotional Steve coming through in his voice. This is Steve at his best. Jericho Road sounds suspiciously like "Telephone Road" and many of the flow of this recording seems like many before. He has the olbligatory duet, the sad songs and the protest songs. Again, they are all good recordings and there is nothing wrong with formulaic approaches, but I kind of wish he would blaze a bit more a trail like he did with "I Feel Alright" and hit us square between the eyes. All in all, a good recroding, but not great.

Country boy heads to the big city

I have a hard time being critical of a songwriting master of this caliber but here goes: Washington Square Serenade starts out really strong both thematically (country guy now in the Big Apple) and melodically. I really dig the flow of the first half of this record, and I definitely got my ten bucks worth this morning bike commuting with this on my Ipod. I was grinning as I passed through Waltham, MA to City of Immigrants, which like New York it most definitely is. Sparkle and Shine is a sweet almost Beatlesesque love song which is obviously for Allison and is followed by another slow and now lonesome Come Home To Me. From here on the rest of the tunes are interesting but don't grab me like the first half of the record did. There is some old timey and apocalyptic blues material (Red Is The Color) which is all interesting, though a little lyrically repetitive and not as interesting as the first half of the record. By the end of Way Down In The Hole I was left wanting a much more memorable closer. All in all this is a solid effort that may have been rushed by a deadline to finish but I'm thoroughly enjoying Down Here Below and Tennessee Blues and look forward to a repeat on tomorrow's bike commute.

Biography

Born: January 17, 1955 in Fort Monroe, VA

Genre: Country

Years Active: '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s

In the strictest sense, Steve Earle isn't a country artist; he's a roots rocker. Earle emerged in the mid-'80s, after Bruce Springsteen had popularized populist rock & roll and Dwight Yoakam had kick-started the neo-traditionalist movement in country music. At first, Earle appeared to be more indebted to the rock side than country, as he played a stripped-down, neo-rockabilly style that occasionally verged on outlaw country. However, his unwillingness to conform to the rules of Nashville or rock...
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