Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Bluegrass
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 3-AUG-1999

Track Listing

1. Stay
2. Forget About It
3. It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference
4. Maybe
5. Empty Hearts
6. Never Got Off the Ground
7. Ghost in This House
8. It Don't Matter Now
9. That Kind of Love
10. Could You Lie
11. Dreaming My Dreams With You

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6280 in Music
• Brand: KRAUSS,ALISON
• Released on: 1999-08-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Amazon.com
When you possess a great pop voice, it's inevitable that you'll someday make a pop album, and Alison Krauss has finally made hers. Instead of bidding for radio airplay with the extravagant, extroverted pop of Shania Twain, Trisha Yearwood, or Celine Dion, Krauss has crafted an intimate, understated chamber-pop album reminiscent of Joni Mitchell's Blue or Rosanne Cash's Interiors. The material comes from such mainstream-pop writers as Michael McDonald, Todd Rundgren, Allen Reynolds, and Danny O'Keefe, but Krauss the producer gives the songs a distinctive spin. She layers the harmonies of her regular Union Station band, the Cox Family singers, pianist Matt Rollings, drummer Jim Keltner, and mandolinist Sam Bush to create a lush, hushed sound that's neither traditional bluegrass nor electric country-pop. Krauss multitracks her own fiddle parts and blends them with Jerry Douglas's Dobro to create an unorthodox string-quartet sound. In this setting her tender, translucent vocals capture that moment when a relationship is unraveling before the lovers are ready to let it go. --Geoffrey Himes

Country Music
"God bless Alison Krauss for her deep sense of country music roots and history, and her stubborn refusal to be stylistically bound by it."

People
"... much to admire, including Krauss's strong soprano voice, which has turned silkier over time, and her diverse song choices."

Customer Reviews

Not bluegrass, not country, not pop just astounding
I have been an Alison Krauss and Union Station fan for a long time. I bought this CD the day it came out. I fell in love with with "Stay" right from the start. It is an absolutely amazing song you can hear her soul being poured out to you as you listen and it makes your heart sag, you find your self singing along even though you don't know the words your lips try to find them. The entire album is like this. You will be dragged into the songs, the songs are visual, and very emotional. Do I miss the lack of picking bluegrass on this album, yes of course I do. Would I replace any of the songs on this album to make room for a bluegrass number...no. In my opinion this album is perfection you couldnot add or subtract a single song without destroying it as a work of art. If you remove one song you miss the entire concept of the album you miss the "whole" of it's beauty. This is not an album you should listen to a song hear and a song there...to be able to fully comprehend and sink into the beauty you have to envelope yourself for the entire album. I want to state first that this album is not depressing. One would state that happiness is the lack of sadness. How else to make yourself happy than to purge your sad emotions by letting them flow from you as you sing this beautiful music. Personally after listening to this album I felt exhausted, but emotionally cleaned.

A guilty pleasure
I find it odd that I would ever refer to Alison Krauss as a "guilty pleasure." So, I guess that definitely warrants an explanation. This album is unlike any of her other ones in that it strays away from her bluegrass roots and instead plants its feet more firmly in pop.

But that's not quite right either. She doesn't "stray" as you get the distinct impression that she knows exactly what she is doing and where she wants to go. Also, no matter how poppish she may get, there are two qualities in the music that are inherently redeeming. One is that her voice is great for bluegrass, but it is unbelievable in a pop context. Second, no matter how "pop" she gets (and I mean that without a hint of sarcasm or mockery), her music retains a bluegrass feel.

I can understand not liking this album...or at least NOT ADMITTING to liking this album. But frankly, it is gorgeous - but not in a Kenny G sense of the word. It is achingly beautiful, soulful music that is well-performed. What more could you ask for? It may be a guilty pleasure, but so is chocolate, and I'm not about to swear off either one of them.

AK does a Chick Disc
Women know better than men that melancholy is an underated emotion, it's comfortable sometimes to be blue. Well next time you're kinda down play yourself this CD before you pop the Prozak.

Krauss uses her talent as a producer to put together a fine album of sad songs; uses her talent as a singer to break a few hearts; and uses her talent with a fiddle to create the best two songs on the album: "Could You Lie", and "Never Got Off the Ground".

You'll find the usual gang around her here, the Union Station guys, Jerry Douglas on the Dobro; with a few others added in. And they're all as reliably terrific as ever.

An aside here: Whoever put Alison Krauss and Union Station together years ago is a genius. Her voice is the perfect instrument to bring a soul to their incredible sound. And the addition of Douglas' dobro to so much of their work over the past few years has made this group the definition of contemporary bluegrass, the reason bluegrass has gained so much in popularity recently.

Looking up I see I've written a five star review and only given four. Well, the music and prouction are just fine, but there's just a little too much heartache here for me. Can't fault any one or two songs, they're all good. Just wish she'd thrown in a couple of upbeat tunes to lighten the load. My wife tells me that ladies are fine with eleven straight heart breaking tunes. OK, we'll call this one a chick disc.