More people love her now
After a long career of alt-rock expression, Boston musician Juliana Hatfield has reissued her debut album from the ’90s, Hey Babe. Going to look at the original album cover, one can’t help but feel a warmth toward Hatfield. From the candid film photo of a shaggy bob, to the Microsoft word art fonts, no one needs to inform when this album was released. This is some prime ’90s action right here. And that’s the throwback effect that the first song “Everybody Loves Me But You” gives off — a brightness and optimism that cannot be dimmed by anybody.
The beauty of ’90s rock is the pure sunshine of so much of it. “Everybody Loves Me” delivers on that promise with spunk-infused borderline sing-talking melodies, to lyrics that acknowledge pain but simply have no time to dwell, to some sick cowbell to round out the instrumentation. It’s just a flat-out good song, and one is inclined to thank Hatfield for reintroducing her music to the modern world. Not much is changed in comparison from the original to the reissued version, aside from some clear remastering that simply lifts all the sounds up instead of taking away any vintage feel.
The beauty of alt-rock is that it can very rarely ever be called “bad.” Even if the second song “Lost and Saved” doesn’t have as much raw punch as the opener, one still wants to simply throw it on and clean their room, or call a friend to gossip about Susan. This is not to say that Dave Matthews should be revisited anytime soon, but the point is made.
The slower songs are where the remastering really shines, as “The Lights” now has so much more breathing room around the instrumentation where there once was a nostalgic compression. In both versions, there’s such a believability that acts as the common thread to want to keep coming back. The guitar tone on songs like “Ugly” creates such a wonderful slightly twangy bedroom quality as the bedrock to the poignant lyrics about Hatfield’s inner thoughts. It’s a bedrock that one has to rely on when she starts breaking your heart with her poignant take on her insecurities. The other side of ’90s sunshine is the strong shadows that were just as famous. It’s clear that Hatfield was aware of this, as the album contains a tribute to Nirvana with the song of the same name.
The reissue admittedly doesn’t offer a whole lot of new thoughts in the way of production, but listening to “No Answer” with Hatfield’s star power spunky vocals, over lovingly simplistic rock chords, it doesn’t matter one bit. ’90s alt is flawlessly sincere and warming when done right, and Hey Babe is some quality genre material that deserved a second look.
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