On the line jenny lewis review năm 2024

With a country-rock backdrop, the singer-songwriter lives, loves, and yearns on one of her most easygoing records

Jenny Lewis has never had trouble expressing herself. On Joy’All’s “Puppy and a Truck,” she sings, “My 40s are kicking my ass … and handing them to me in a margarita glass.” Even before she split with her indie-rock group Rilo Kiley a decade ago, she’d assumed a persona that’s one part Dusty Springfield, another part Linda Ronstadt, and one more of Mary Richards (shake gently and sprinkle in a dash of Gram Parsons to taste.) She has always sounded a little down on her luck, and she’s always sounded OK with it.

Joy’All is the latest volume in an ongoing drama we might call The Many Loves and Losses of Jenny Lewis. She’s a few years older, just as wise, and as clever as always. Where she spent her 20s lamenting the good that won’t come out of her with Rilo Kiley and her 30s rising up with fists as a solo artist, she’s spent her 40s so far flirting with new wave (the self-titled 2016 album by Nice as Fuck), AM radio pop rock (2019’s On the Line), and now countryish pop rock on Joy’All. On the Line was Lewis’ best album since her 2006 solo debut, Rabbit Fur Coat, full of memorable melodies, cutting lyrics, and an easygoing, natural vibe. She professed that while she used to be a hot mess (or a “Party Clown”), she was kind of getting over it (other than all the Red Bull and Hennessey). Her 40s were treating her well for the most part.

That charm continues on Joy’All, but it’s somehow a little looser. She’s still full of amusing turns of phrase (“I’m not a psycho/I’m just trying to get laid” on “Psychos” and “I’m not paranoid/But I’m not not” on “Giddy Up”), and she still ruminates on midnight confessions she confessed many midnights ago. There’s a longing and a nostalgia that threads through Joy’All, as Lewis attempts (and often fails at) romance, and it’s often veiled with a smile. “I ain’t got no kids,” she sings on “Puppy and a Truck” concluding “I got a puppy and a truck and some unconditional love.”

Coupled with the album’s Music City vibes (think Elvis Country or Nashville Skyline but with silkier vocals) Lewis’ wit and candor find more leg room on Joy’All than on previous albums. “I’m not a toy y’all, I’ve got heart,” she sings between claps on the soulful title track, and she sounds like she means it. Producer-guitarist Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile, the Highwomen) and a group of musicians that includes multi-instrumentalist John Brion, steel guitarist Greg Leisz, and Lucius’ Jess Wolfe on backing vocals, among others, turn Lewis’ compositions into robust country rockers.

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The recipe works especially well in the easy groove of “Apples and Oranges,” which adds extra beauty and pain to Lewis’ pining when she sings, “He’s hot and he’s cool/He just isn’t you.” And the country-rock feeling complements the album’s best songs: When Lewis sings about screaming “I want you back” on “Essence of Life,” the steel guitar wails, too, and on the upbeat “Cherry Baby,” they create a sweet yacht-rock texture that makes “I fall in love too easily with anyone who touches me, fucks with me” almost suitable for radio. By the time she sings, “A chain of tears leads me back to you” (country songwriting at its core) on the springy final track, “Chain of Tears,” and the album ends (after only 32 minutes) there’s a feeling of positivity about the album that makes you want to play it again.

Joy’All is the sound of a woman who has accepted herself — her past and her present — and now just wants to cut loose. Her broken heart still bears bruises, but it has healed enough to keep her moving. When life hands Lewis lemons now, she makes Lynchburg lemonade.

To witness a shape-shifting musician like Jenny Lewis truly evolve throughout the years—succeed in multiple projects, try on manifold musical styles, experience pain and loss and outline it all in her songs—and then arrive at a sensational album like On The Line feels monumental. First as the frontwoman of one of the most beloved indie-rock groups of the aughts and then as a realized soloist and supergroup hero, Lewis has had a brilliant career, even when things took a turn for the rocky in her personal life. The best of her four albums outside of Rilo Kiley, On The Line is absolutely dazzling. It sounds decidedly grown up, mature both lyrically and musically, and it’s a spectacular studio effort. Lewis sings contemplative lyrics with a glamorous edge, giving us an album that’s as much a rock ‘n’ roll relaxer as it is a lyrical thunderbolt.

The On the Line singles are all illustrious earworms, but the album opener, “Heads Gonna Roll,” is especially grandiose. As ever, Lewis’ attention to detail and location is mesmerizing. She makes a boxing reference, namedrops Elliot Smith and the “sycophants in Marrakesh,” recalls a run-in with “Harlem nuns” and relaxes with a pack of Marlboros all before proclaiming, “Maybe a little bit of hooking up is good for the soul.” In a most delightful way, “Heads Gonna Roll” is about everything and nothing. Another single, “Red Bull & Hennessy,” is one of the best rock songs of the year so far. Marking at least the second mention of cocktail ingredients on this album, “Red Bull & Hennessy” is a delicious display of desire. Lewis teases and taunts as electric keys and sweltering guitar chords carry the song to the point of extinguishing. Even as it digs up personal traumas, On the Line often flirts with indulgence, and a line like “Don’t you wanna even try and devour the moon?” sounds nearly lustful.

Lewis, like any good songwriter, also has a knack for fiction. On “Wasted Youth,” she sings, “I wasted my youth on a poppy,” even though she did no such thing: In the ‘80s, Lewis began working as a child actress almost as soon as she could walk. Only later did she discover her mother, a heroin addict throughout Lewis’ childhood who recently passed away, was using her earnings to buy and sell drugs. But on that same song, before chirping a series of “doo doo doos” and offering the dark statement that “the cookie crumbles into dust,” Lewis pitches us her humor: “Why you lyin’?” she teases. “The Bourbon’s gone / Mercury hasn’t been in / Retrograde for that long.” Where in the past she faced sadness head-on, here Lewis views trauma through a wizened, witty lens.

Songs like “Do Si Do” don’t come around too often. Lewis’ collaboration with Beck is a highlight of the album, the rare tune that, much like “Heads Gonna Roll,” might not be about anything in particular, but still glimmers and glows like a prophecy purchased from a fortune teller—meaningless if you’re a nonbeliever, but deeply insightful should you look inwards. What does she mean when she sings “Life is a disco, a mambo”? I can’t be entirely sure, but I’d like to think Lewis is telling us life is a party. “Turn up the stereo / ‘Til everything rattles,” she sings. It’s a command you can be sure Lewis is following herself.

The penultimate tracks sees Lewis again creating colorful characters and larger-than-life situations. In the first verse she sings, “He left me for an Eastside girl called Caroline,” and later on she says, “Whenever things get complicated / You run away to Mexico.” It’s a fitting way to close an album full of Hollywood-sized scenes of booze and boys and hyperbolic emotions. Jenny Lewis has been through the ringer. But On The Line, her best solo work to date, finds her trading chaos for peace and pain for parties. And West Coast rock combined with piano glam and Lewis’ lyrics makes for a most celebratory listen, indeed.

Why is Jenny Lewis famous?

She was born in Las Vegas in 1976 and by the 1980s had a thriving career as a child actor, with roles in TV shows such as The Twilight Zone, The Golden Girls, Baywatch and Murder, She Wrote, as well as films including Pleasantville, Foxfire – opposite a young Angelina Jolie – and the now cult classic Troop Beverly ...

Who has Jenny Lewis opened for?

Lewis was on the road extensively the past few years, catching a big break while opening for Harry Styles' “Love On” tour in 2021, arena shows with Phoenix and Beck, festival gigs, and of course, being a part of the 20th anniversary of the Postal Service album.