Written by If you’ve been reading this blog on any sort of a regular basis, you know then that I wasn’t going to wait very long to review the latest album release from one of my all time favorite musicians, Melissa Etheridge. Earlier this month Melissa and Island (formerly Island Records) released her 12th studio album, 4th Street Feeling, two years after her previous and still popular album release, Fearless Love
I’m a little late to the party. This album is tearing up the record charts! When I looked this morning, it was #85 in the top 100 in “Music” overall for sales on Amazon. That’s against many 1,000s of other albums. Incredible!
I really like this one because, while we still get lots of her rock roots with plenty of great vocals and great guitar licks we also get several tracks where she flat out sings in the smokey, bluesy voice she’s always only given us little tastes of before. Also, in a nod to all of our lesbian and lesbian friendly folk singers out there, we get a folk track too with the song, “Falling Up” and, surprise, it’s a track she plays with the banjo/banjito.
Critics are proclaiming that she really tells some stories with this album, a coming home sort of album where she’s getting back to her Kansas roots. If you’re a fan, you know that her music has always told a story…every song, every album, all the time. That’s Melissa Etheridge. She’s a singer/songwriter with life as her soundtrack.
