RC@5: Glaslighter by the Chicks

Record Club covered this album five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.

Gaslighter

The Chicks

Week 81: August 16-22, 2020

I like this album. Liked it then, and still like it now. I don't think an album has to be politically minded for it to land with me, and I don't even know that this album is all that politically-minded anyway. It's more about infidelity than anything else. Maybe I just focus on the political stuff (excising "Dixie," plus the Chicks' history otherwise) because that's the stuff I can relate to. Being in a relationship that is built in a way to make it extremely difficult to be adulterous at all makes the infidelity stuff tougher to understand. Maybe the less about that said on the public internet the better.

I was surprised to see that Pam never wrote a review for this one, because she listened to this shit all the time. Still does, five years later, to the point where I'm kinda tired of it. I definitely didn't need another listen this week, like this definitely wasn't one of those RC@5 albums that I had to rediscover. I'd rather discover something else, thank you. In fact, I did discover Fly for myself at some point in the past five years, and I like that album even better than Gaslighter. "Goodbye Earl" is objectively the best pop country song I've ever heard. Not that the bar is all that high, but the Chicks ably clear the bar and then some.

What I'm hearing on this umpteenth listen of Gaslighter is something besides the politics and the tales of infidelity. I'm hearing this time the idea of love while aging. I think it's helpful to hear women of middle age speak about challenges in love and life. Most pop music is tiny little baby girls singing about the boys they are crushing on. These are women, and their lives are full and rich and wonderful, and yet they are still embroiled in some fucking drama involving bathing trunks on a boat deck. I really like that, how life can manage to remain exciting and interesting even as we age. Maybe that's something I needed to hear today, I dunno.

Lines of the week:

Sunny: "Dis on Obama's playlist👀"

Sara: "I also will never fault a group of women who tell honest stories and aren't afraid to stand up for what's right."

I will include a line from my own reviews but only if there is a standout line, which I don't see this week.