Originally posted to Instagram, February 29, 2020.
Show of hands, how many people knew MTV Unplugged was still a thing? I know I didn't. Well, apparently it is, and I'm glad, because this is a magical and incredibly different look at the artistry of modern-day rock goddess Courtney Barnett.
So much of Courtney Barnett's typical sound comes from her lo-fi, garage rock electric guitar sound, so in many ways, this is an unusual album for her. But in other ways, it seems like a natural extension of her usual style, making her intensely personal, stream-of-consciousness lyrics seem even more intimate. I don't think it's a coincidence that several of the original songs featured on this album ("Depreston", "Nameless, Faceless", "Avant Gardener") show her in very vulnerable, very human situations. "Nameless, Faceless" in particular becomes a very different song when stripped down to just Barnett's voice, a piano, and a female backing singer, less defiant and more deeply unsettling.
This album plays to two of her less-obvious strengths as well, in a way she hadn't explored since her collaborative album with Kurt Vile: how great she sounds as one half of a duet, and how amazing she is as an interpreter of other people's songs. She's able to find the same deeply personal feelings she draws out of her own words in the lyrics of others, ending the set with a cover of Leonard Cohen's "So Long, Marianne" that soars to the most incredible heights and depths of emotion- six minutes of glorious, heavenly catharsis.
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