Jessica Simpson’s fifth album finds its groove in the second song, Remember That.
“Remember,” she sings, “how he told you you were stupid.” For a moment it seems as if she might be referring to her public image as a lip-biting, aw-shucksing simple girl who rose to fame on the heels of marrying young and consenting to have the accompanying foibles televised. But then the song shows its hand, morphing into an angry rumination on domestic violence, sung with vigor. And something unexpected becomes clear: Simpson, the erstwhile pop singer and failed actress, has found a backbone.
Here’s hoping it remains stiff when faced with those who would dismiss her foray into country music out of hand. (Simpson is not alone. Many stars of other genres, including Jewel, Kid Rock and Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish, have recently attempted to make inroads to the country crowd.) Ignore that this album was made by Simpson, and it’s still utterly competent. Acknowledge that — especially given her history of making unmemorable pop songs — and it almost qualifies as an accomplishment.
Almost. On Remember That she’s believably incensed, and on the impressive, brassy ballad Might as Well Be Making Love, she sounds certain as she tells a lover not to let a fight come between them. Simpson has a strong voice, but it has little nuance, rendering her exercises in self-empowerment (Pray Out Loud, Still Don’t Stop Me) particularly banal. And inevitably she falls victim to familiar Nashville traps: hackneyed lyrics about the tireless love of Johnny and June Carter Cash (Sipping on History) and several references, veiled and not, to faith and God, which seems less like pandering in light of Simpson’s days as a youth Christian singer, but not by much.
But she avoids references to anything rural: shockingly there isn’t one mention of her Texas roots here. Rather this is an album that assiduously avoids specificity. For a pop singer seeking refuge in country music it’s a smart move. It doesn’t seem as if she’s trying too hard, when of course she totally is.
Every song is a short story for Will Sheff, the songwriter and singer of the Austin, Texas, band Okkervil River. Usually his stories are first-person monologues, their drama stoked by Sheff’s fearlessly disheveled voice: crooning like Morrissey, quavering like David Byrne, cracking, aching. The band matches his mood swings and eggs him on, harking back to the 1960s and 1970s with folk-rock, new wave, country and an occasional stately ballad, sometimes sprinkled with mariachi horns or sleigh bells or banjo.
Over a decade of prolific recording and steady touring, Sheff has been thinking more and more about the life of a performer. That theme runs through Okkervil River’s 2005 album, Black Sheep Boy, The Stage Names from 2007 and its new album, The Stand Ins, which was recorded at the same sessions as The Stage Names but easily stands on its own.
On The Stand Ins Sheff contemplates all sorts of entertainers and hangers-on: singer-songwriters (there’s a song called Singer Songwriter), a movie star, a supermodel, a faded movie star, an actor’s fan, a backstage fling and an imagined interview with the 1970s glam-rocker Jobriath (whose albums, coincidentally, have just been reissued). There’s a sailor too, who sings (in Lost Coastlines), “Every night finds us rocking and rolling on waves wild and white.”
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