CD Odyssey Disc 1403: Grace Potter

I managed to skip the music store last weekend, which was a minor victory for me. I’ve got a few too many albums of late (went a bit crazy on Bandcamp earlier in the year) and I need to spend more time listening and less time buying. Also, I need to be as discerning as possible in determining what is “shelf worthy” – hopefully before making a purchase.

An occasional failing which brings us to this next review.

Disc 1403 is…. Midnight

Artist: Grace Potter

Year of Release: 2015

What’s up with the Cover? Grace herself, looking intergalactically gorgeous against a backdrop of nebula dust and stars.

How I Came To Know It: I discovered Grace Potter through her 2019 album “Daylight” and dug backward from there. “Midnight” was the last of the three albums I found, when it finally turned up used at my local record shop.

How It Stacks Up: Of my three Grace Potter albums, I rank “Midnight” at #3. Hey, someone has to be last.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Midnight” is a solid album if you really like power pop, and if you buy it that’s what you should expect. It’s loaded with catchy anthems suitable for dancing or coke commercials, or even dancing in coke commercials. Those ones where lots of young people flip their hair around and there is some large, generic outdoor festival going on.

That came off unkind. There are plenty of songs that get coopted into soft drink and beer commercials. It doesn’t make the song bad. However, it does paint a picture of something that is very mainstream and acceptable to the masses. Again, this is fine (popular music is popular for a reason) but already owning and enjoying the records that came out before and after “Midnight”, I had higher expectations.

The record before this one was Potter’s last fronting her band, the Nocturnals. As she did there, on “Midnight” Potter plays a host of instruments. This includes a variety of guitar type things, piano type things and a bunch of other things too numerous to mention. Her main collaborator (and partner) Eric Valentine does more of the same, making the performance credits a torrent of talent. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything to highlight out of all this work. I never noticed anything exceptional on the playing, even though it is all competent and professional grade.

Valentine’s real talent is for production. The album sounds crisp and professional with all the right amount of thump and attention-drawing isolations to organs, bass riffs or hand claps as individual songs may demand. This is some slick work on that front.

As ever, Potter’s big contribution is on vocals, where she once again shows off her powerhouse range. She’s a pop artist at heart, but like any good one she can infuse just the right amount of growl to make the rock and roll believable. She belts out these tunes with enthusiasm.

That said, while the vocal range is there, the artistic range is lacking. On her follow-up, 2019’s “Daylight” (reviewed back at Disc 1365) Potter plays with the elements of other genres to keep all that pop music interesting. But on “Midnight” it is pretty much just a big glitz party; done well but without much to say.

Lyrically this album was a disappointment. The best of the bunch is “Your Girl” where the narrator decides she won’t pursue her love interest, out of respect for his current girlfriend, but even there things are pretty by the book. At its worst, we are given “Instigators” which is supposed to be edgy but feels more like how a Wall Street executive might right a protest song about himself. Here’s a verse, with my apologies for the share:

“United we stand, divided we fall
It’s time to cross over, shoulder to shoulder
Raise up your arms, come one come all
We’ve got to cross over
Shoulder to shoulder we’ll blow on the coals
In the cold of our souls as we’re crashing the hall.”

Lots of writing 101 internal rhyme action here, but as generic as imagery gets (note she couldn’t even be bothered to raise fists, just…arms). With all the accompanying “oh-oh-oh” chants it feels like the hall they’re crashing is just a nightclub. A night out dancing is good fun for sure, but even on that basis the song holds neither the edge nor the compelling imagery needed to make your blood pump.

Even so, this record is full of catchy tunes, that are easy to listen to. Even after many consecutive listens I didn’t get tired of these songs, and I didn’t get bored either. But I also wasn’t inspired. It’s the musical equivalent of a lot of tasty, but empty calories and I enjoyed it for the delicious and guilty pleasure it was. That said, it isn’t something I can see being part of my regular diet, and I’m going to send it to a home that will appreciate it more than I did.

Best tracks: Your Girl, Empty Heart

CD Odyssey Disc 1365: Grace Potter

Would you believe that this next artist is the granddaughter of Colonel Sherman Potter and Beatrix Potter?

I sure hope not. Because it is totally not true, and the reason is obvious: Beatrix Potter is old enough to be Col. Potter’s mother! Also, Col. Potter is a fictional character, and thus incapable of siring children outside of the imaginary kind.

But I digress…here’s a music review.

Disc 1365 is…. Daylight

Artist: Grace Potter

Year of Release: 2019

What’s up with the Cover? Behold the cyclopean majesty of Grace Potter’s Giant Head. Her voice is even bigger.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review of this album last year. It was enough to go check her out, and I liked what I heard.

How It Stacks Up:  I liked what I heard so much I went out looking for two of her other albums as well. I found one of them (“The Lion, the Beast and the Beat”) and am still looking for another. Of the two I have so far, I rank “Daylight” #1.

Ratings: 3 stars

I didn’t learn anything special about my inmost soul listening to “Daylight.” It didn’t break any new ground in terms of songwriting or production either. In the end none of that mattered very much, however, because it does what it does very well.

This is straightforward, mainstream music, straddling the safest confluences of pop, rock and R&B. What makes it worth your time is the high level of excellence it accomplishes in the execution of these well-worn paths.

It helps that Grace Potter has a voice that has unearthly power and tone. She can sing any style of music, and on “Daylight” she proves it, ranging through most of what popular music has to offer. She can croon with sweetness in her head voice or belt out a rock growl from down in the chest with equal effect. Listening to her slide from style to style as the individual song demands is worth experiencing just for the technical joy of it all.

Eric Valentine’s production is nice and pure, and gives room for those vocals to soar. And while this is a solo album, Potter has surrounded herself with an exceptional set of musicians, including Heartbreaker Benmont Tench on piano, and pop duo Lucius providing additional layers on backing vocals.

“Back to Me” is the perfect confluence of the album’s best elements, featuring a mid-seventies R&B groove. Potter delivers a raspy rock growl, which is offset by in-the-groove backing vocals from Lucius. Throw in a horn section, and some proto-disco funk and you’ve got a song with a little bit of everything that somehow manages to all fit together.

Another standout is “Release.” Here Potter trades in all that wild funk production for a stripped down, emotionally raw song. Potter still belts it out with authority, but this time her vocal is filled with pain and loss. Pianist Michael Busbee is featured on this track, and his somber, majestic playing adds even greater gravitas to the tune. When I was looking him up my heart caught in my throat when I saw he died of brain cancer in October 2019, only a month after this record came out. If this was one of his last recordings, he left a worthy legacy.

Lyrically, the album doesn’t have any revelatory moments, although Potter’s vocals infuse what is there with plenty of emotion. On the best songs, she draws you in and transports the words to a higher plane than they earn on their own. On the lesser tracks, I found myself thinking they should be appearing on an episode of American Idol. You know, those songs that give the singer lots of room to show how great they are but that are generic enough not to offend the middle-America sensibilities of the voters.

While that’s a bit of a criticism (a hypocritical one given that I still watch American Idol), it is a muted one. If anything, I’m picking up on the accessibility of these tunes, and wondering why Grace Potter isn’t knocking out chart-topping hits.

In the end, I wasn’t overwhelmed by this record, but it does go beyond simply technical prowess, managing more than a few moments of genuine transcendence in the process.  

Best tracks: Back To Me, Every Heartbeat, Release, Shout It Out