Track Listing

1. In Shock
2. Nerve Endings
3. Day Glow
4. Christian Hearse
5. Ice
6. Under the Gun
7. Piano 1
8. Sugarbaby
9. Peggy Lee
10. Piano 2
11. Vertigo
12. Winter
13. Wild Vanilla
14. Thin Man

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39978 in Music
• Released on: 2007-01-23
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
Kristin Hersh's prolific career spans twenty years, from founding pioneering post-punk art-rockers Throwing Muses (at age fourteen!) through more than ten Throwing Muses records, eight solo releases, and three releases with her harder-than-ever punk rock outfit 50FootWave. Learn to Sing Like a Star, her most recent solo outing (and first on Yep Roc Records), might finally be the rock record Hersh has hinted at for years - an intense, openly emotional and beautiful statement. Produced by Kristin and mixed in Nashville by two time Grammy winner Trina Shoemaker, Learn to Sing Like a Star comes across as the lovingly obsessive work of an artist who never fails to "bring it" - an indie-rock symphony.

Amazon.com
Her seventh solo album in the books, Kristin Hersh now has a body of work stretching back two decades to when her band Throwing Muses tossed the angst-ridden teenager directly into the indie-rock spotlight. Hersh has made great personal strides since branching off on her own, each record of engaging pop music serving as a reflective document of her impulsive lifestyle, each song allowing her voice to grow from young and girlish to broadly mature. She plays most of the instruments on all 14 songs, several of which deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Hersh once lived in New Orleans) and a personal misfortune in her own home. Heartbreak practically drips from Hersh's voice when she vows that "getting up is what hurts" in the commanding rocker "Day Glow" or admits that "nervous energy keeps us busy" in the pensive "Ice." As usual, the turbulently talented musician picks herself off the mat with the self-deprecating instrumental "Christian Hearse," the Nirvana-like "Under the Gun," and "Winter," complete with tubular bells, strings, and an Irish-tinged chorus that is as triumphant as the artist herself. --Scott Holter

Rolling Stone
"...the best songs are unsettling in a good way: The haunting, plaintive "Sugar Baby" builds to a cathartic climax, and "Under the Gun" conjures a long night filled with fever dreams. Like a Star proves Hersh can rock powerfully"

Customer Reviews

Spicing up her solo work
Kristen's solo work is usually dark and a bit pensive, but for some reason the songs came out with a bit more push and drive for this solo effort. The Amazon review above nailed it pretty well. She, as always, shows great creativity, emotion, and layering in her songs that draw you in. Her voice is now more raw and powerful than in previous albums, but this is not a bad thing at all. Don't forget to check out her other bands - the hard charging 50 Foot Wave, and The Throwing Muses.

A carefully crafted yet compulsively delivered gem.
The emo kids should lend an ear to Kristin Hersh if they want their music with dollops of misery.

It is never more eloquently done than on "Nerve Endings", the agonised lyrics set against uncomfortable chord changes, with only the elegant string arrangement to provide any balm.

"Getting up is what hurts," she wails on "Day Glo", and sings of being "twisted in slo-mo by angry water". (Having had the misfortune to name her last band 50 Foot Wave just before the Asian tsunami, and then mourning the flood disaster in New Orleans, Hersh's own home suffered a burst pipe so destructive that it used up the family savings and forced her to sell up.)
As Hersh's spiky work goes, this is less fraught, the sourness of that cracked voice balanced by the sweetness off the strings.
Still, it's never exactly easy listening.

DIZZY MISS KRISTI
Being a junkie for Kristin Hersh can be a tricky business. Inevitably rewarding but at times it's a bit of a chore. Reading some of the reviews posted here I feel a bit cheated. Like I got a different album altogether.

"Learn To Sing..." has proven to be the most difficult listening in Hersh's canon, for me. It's bleak & depressing. That's nothing new for her, I realize...but it was always bathed in a radiant swirl before. The emotions conjured here end up feeling like a noxious hangover.

I don't expect her to regurgitate "The Real Ramona" time & again, but the gentle beauty of "Hips & Makers" has turned into a dizzying stream of mournful dirges. There is a very ugly sound here that even the exquisite strings on the first track cannot cover-up. Her voice, also seems immersed in muck.

After several listenings I've found only "Vertigo" to be bearable. It would've been a perfect title for this disc. It's disorienting, and not in a good way.

I wish I could feel as positive about this as some of the other reviewers here, but this one will be collecting dust on my shelf.