I’m hurtling down a stretch of highway that transforms into a busy street, with traffic light after traffic light popping up at a succession of intersections and Smokey Bear gauging speeds from the grassy median. Firing up the Mazda3 Time Machine’s Flux Capacitor V8 even to check the date is impossible, in other words, unless I want to throw caution to the wind. I’m stuck. This is the 1990s, right? The last gasp before sanity imploded? I don’t recall this many SUVs on the roads, true, but memory is malleable. I’m sure I’ve forgotten more than I remember. Besides, David Dye’s on the radio. Cracker is, too.
“I used to be an angel ’til I sold my god-damn soul,” Anna Graves sings on the first line of America’s Greatest Burnout, her full-length album. Much of the Minnesota native’s 12-track, 37-minute set feels comfortable to my ears, the sonic equivalent to the decades-old corduroy shirt I’m wearing to stem the morning’s a.c.-derived chill. One reason: half the tunes were released as singles over the past many months, so I’m familiar with them. It’s kinda wild, right? To press play on a new release that’s only half new? Marketing in the modern music world, which seems intrinsically linked to playlist placement, is—from the outside looking in, at least—nuts. When Apple Music releases its “replay” stats for August, as a result, those older tracks will be responsible for the album making my most-played for the month. (To employ a cliche, I’ve been playing it to death.)
That’s neither here nor there, I suppose. America’s Greatest Burnout plays out in the best of ways, with songs that range from alt.country to folk to pop to, whenever the harmonica kicks in—such as on the stellar “Goldmine”—Neil Young circa Harvest Moon. Lucinda, Joan Osbourne, and Sophie B. “Damn I Wish I was Your Lover” Hawkins, too. (Okay, so maybe not so much Hawkins. But you get the point.) It’s something of a flashback to an era when car wheels spun down gravel roads and a flash forward to the micro-managed present, with the latter primarily due to the short song lengths—the longest clocks in at 3:48, with most hovering around the three-minute mark.
Graves’ vocals are an earthy delight throughout, while the songs—all cowrites—share stories of stumbles, tumbles, and stick-to-itiveness, of refusing to quit. In her website bio, she says that “America’s Greatest Burnout is the story of falling off the horse and picking yourself back up again as an adult, and reevaluating what success means to you. It’s about learning to fall into the dirt, finding the courage to dust yourself off, and getting up to do it all over again…stumbling forward, perhaps a bit scuffed, dirty, and bruised, but wiser and stronger than ever.”
Highlights abound, from the opening title track to “Damn in Love,” about the distance that sometimes develops in relationships, to the aforementioned “Goldmine” to “Granted,” which—like “Damn in Love”—reminds me a bit of Hawkins. “Two-Faced” is a slow burn of a tune, figuratively torching an ex who wasn’t all he presented himself to be, while “Burn On”—which she wrote when she was in her teens—includes a line that’s haunted me since I first heard it: “I don’t wanna go to heaven if it means I gotta die.” “Minnesota,” a love song for her home state, also resonates, while the closing “Honkie Was a Wise Man” offers a touching portrait of a colorful character she met on tour. (FYI, Atwood Magazine has an insightful interview with Graves. It’s well worth the read.)
Back to the top: I’m not sure where I am in life’s timeline and, honestly, it doesn’t much matter whether I’m lost—Anna Graves’ America’s Greatest Burnout is a great soundtrack for whenever, and wherever, one may find themselves.
The album can be purchased via Bandcamp or the Rounder website, with the latter version including a signed print.
The Old Grey Cat 