After the breakup of Blake Babies, Boston born Juliana Hatfield released her first solo album Hey Babe, in 1992. By 1996, she had recorded three more albums and toured with Jeff Buckley. By 1997, the band had broken up. 2015 will see their reunion with Whatever, My Love. Check out this newly released song.
Speaking about their reunion, Juliana says the songs are
stuff I am sort of known for, I guess. But I am a lot more confident now than I was then with the first album. And I had more fun recording this one.
The first single from the album, “If I Could” was released in December of last year, and was featured in Rolling Stone magazine. The release date, set for February 17th, 2015, was also announced. A featured interview from Nylon.com has Juliana calling the album “unforced” and describing it as having a “mega-hooky coffeehouse-grunge aesthetic.”
The song starts with a great vibrato organ chord progression that leads into a nice foot tapping guitar rhythm, as Juliana describes unabashedly her awkwardness when it comes to encountering men: “I was never good at getting guys so when I come across any good ones I just drive away, the tears I cry are toxic, my face is blotchy and red”…it goes on in this honesty vein until the chorus comes around, with its excellently melodic early nineties attitude. There is grunge and indignity. There is wit (you gotta give the extra attention cause I got feelings I don’t mention). The tune works well with its instrumentation, there is a verse chorus pattern that is broken by a nice guitar solo that is equally simple and straightforward, and manages to include some well placed harmonies.
In this track, Juliana has nothing to hide, and the simplicity of the backup instrumentation couples well with her lyrics. Even the cover of the new album fits well with everything that this song is doing. It is just her lying on what looks like a stage with a typewriter font of the details below. There are no facades here. Nothing is being asked of the listener except simply the lending of their ears to explore and relate with one woman’s honesty about her plight.
This song will surely get some great radio time, as its length and reliability appeal to the masses. Keep your ears peeled for the release of the album, and celebrate the reunion of a great act below by checking out the tune!
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