Turn Out The Lights

Dear Julien. I love this woman almost as much as she hates herself. She's Taylor Swift if Taylor Swift had all her (ridiculous, annoying) self-belief drained away and replaced with self-loathing. She loathes herself at least as much as Mark Eitzel did back in the day. She's yet another female confessional songwriter, yes. But her self-lacerating lyrics leave the rest of them far behind. Julien is what's known as a worry, a cause for concern. Will she manage not to totally fall apart before she makes a third album? I sound flippant, but it's a serious question, based on the contents of her second album. Will she end up as just a parody of herself? (Which is a real danger.) I thought on first listen, that maybe she already has, but no, no, we're okay. It's important to look beyond the self-pitying quality that her music has, which is the quality that stands out on first listen, and appreciate the craft of the woman as a songwriter: both her ability as a soaring melodicist and also as an accomplished lyricist, creating beautiful and memorable imagery with her words. Like 'A cathedral of arching ribs, heaving out their broken hymns' and 'I shouldn't have built a house in the middle of your chest/Plywood boards joined at your breast'. On this second album one can understand better the role of religion in her life. It's the need of the truly desperate to believe in something greater than what they're currently experiencing/suffering. The heartbreaking meekness of 'Happy To Be Here' (a title dripping with irony, if it was anyone else, but maybe not Julien) when she sings: 'If you swear it's true, then I have to believe, what I hear evangelicals say on TV, And if there's enough left, after everyone else, then why not me?' It's almost on the level of Oliver Twist's 'Please sir, can I have some more?' It blatantly tugs at the heartstrings, but it's genuine. One responds to her, inevitably, on an emotional level, since she puts maximum emotion into all her songs. But there's more than emotion, there's structure, there's craft in abundance. In a music world starved of quality of late, Julien is a shining light, even if she's not to herself. Certainly her pain and misery and self-doubt - in other words, her life experience - are what make her the vital artist she is, but at the same time, one can't help wishing she wasn't quite so self-lacerating all the time, maybe if she could just introduce a bit of black humour into her analysis of her predicament at times (something Eitzel was hardly lacking). Asking too much? Oh well, Never mind. A lot of people would no doubt be put off by the level of self-pity she displays at times, but not yours truly. If you've been brought up in the Morrissey school of lyric-writing, then it's no problem at all. Although it tends to distract from the fact she is such an accomplished artist, albeit in a horrible predicament. She looks for divine intervention to save her, because she knows she can't save herself. And yet, being so full of self-loathing, she knows that she's not worth saving, that she's not worth God's love. 'It's not that I think I'm good, I know that I'm evil, I guess I was trying to even it out.' That from the feminist-troubling 'Even' with its 'You were right, I was asking for it, I always am. It's no good if the pain doesn't make you feel like you earned it, and I probably deserved it.' Feminists throw their hands in the air, every person with sense will tell her, 'no you didn't', but this is Julien we're talking about! In her eyes, she no doubt deserves any suffering and punishment handed out to her. It's a southern religious mentality, sadly. It's easy to think that Julien is trapped in a world of her own creation, and the world of her own environment, but she's doing possibly the one thing she's supremely good at: translating her suffering into art. And yes, Turn Out The Lights is art. It's immediate, in-your-face, grab-you-by-the-shoulders art. You don't need a degree to understand it. You just need a heart. Julien Baker is a human being who creates very human art. She has the same weaknesses as the worst of us, the same resilience as the best of us. She is our heroine, you see. Yes, heroine. Not that she will ever see herself as this, of course. All that those unfamiliar with her art need to know is, Turn Out The Lights was the best album of 2017. You owe it to yourself to listen to it, to brace yourself against the overpowering wave of self-pity that one first encounters with her, and see past it to the artist she undoubtedly is. Dear Julien.

Only 22 years old surely some mistake here how can someone so young be so wise and write such profound lyrics probably only from havinglived them,'spained ankle' was so good surely a one off work of greatness but no this album moves her further forward with richer productionstrings etc but more importantly the words are still so moving I really want to meet her and give her a huge hug and reassure her that despiteeverything things will get better,clearer as life moves forward.As a 68 year old I still get moved to tears by things like music and films whichcompared to real life are not really that important but that won't stop me excuse me while I get another tissue.

one of the most vocalist

It's best to line up some Phoebe Bridgers for afterwards to cheer yourself up again. Fascinating and at times TMI. Defo worth a listen

Great value and speedy delivery thanks

Julien Baker's astounding debut album "Sprained Ankle" blew away this reviewer upon release and happily remains a go-to CD. "Turn Up the Lights" is the follow-up and is every bit its equal. Indeed. Baker's sound has "filled out" and the production on this second album is a far more professional and polished affair. Like her debut, the songs present feel rooted in pain and heartbreak. One review has described her music as "crushingly intimate" an indication in turn to how Baker is prepared to expose her inner self to public view.The songs are uniformly wondrous. The melancholy beauty of "Appointments" pulls on your emotions on first listen and subsequently lays waste to your sensibilities with its sad emphasis on the corrosive impact of depression. The lines which hit home most are the repeated phrase “I think if I fail again, that I know you’re still listening / Maybe it’s all gonna turn out all right / I know that it’s not, but I have to believe that it is” and in that strained vocal at 4.33 you can feel the hurt. It is followed by a brilliant range of songs including the powerhouse "Shadowboxing" where Baker shows that her vocals are beginning to develop an expressive quality which can only be found in singers like Laura Viers of the late great Judee Sill. You could argue that Baker is too downcast yet amongst the dejection is optimism. "Happy To Be Here" whilst unrelenting in its dark chord structure plots a course through a personal crisis and hopefully questions “If it makes me feel better/how bad could it be?. The album concludes with the remarkable piano ballad "Claws on My Back" which has a slightly Thom Yorke feel to it. As a finale, its raw power drives it relentlessly with a vocal performance that is extraordinary on a song that deals with the troublesome burden of self-worth."Turn out the Lights" confirms that the precocious nineteen-year-old of 2015's "Sprained Ankle" has delivered on the massive inherent promise in that record and at twenty-two become a force of nature. The album is by no means a cheery or uplifting listen with a review in American Songwriter describing Baker as the high priestess of pain. It is a mark of a great songwriter, however, that out of misfortune and adversity comes catharsis which leads to music that transcends the ordinary and moves to a different plane. Baker has achieved this feat on "Turn out the Lights" and you should invest real energy into appreciating her artistry.

WOW!!.....BLIMEY!! what an amazing talent & so good so young.Beautiful album of,i guess,folk country with a very very gentle pop edge,don't expect Shania....you will be disappointed.This is one of those albums that just gently washes over you,part of its charm is the simplicity of it,even though it's probably far from it.Love her voice & on the last track,Julien goes into vocal orbit,she soared & my jaw hit the floor.Stunning...i love it.

Not a cd I got much pleasure from listening to.I can appreciate the writing,the musicianship and the craft, but whatever emotion was there just washed over me.Reminded me a lot of Birdy for all the same reasons.

Julien Baker picks at the scabs over wounds you didn't realize hadn't fully healed in her sophomore album Turn Out The Lights. A pained instrumental opens the album I can only describe as a 3am lucid dream through severe depression, substance abuse, toxic codependency, and a do-or-die question following your every footstep like a shadow with a whisper that could rip your throat open. Julien's incredibly honest and carefully-crafted lyricism paints portraits of the darkest corners of an abandoned home inside the human soul while delivering them in raw, vulnerable, and captivating vocals. Anyone who has ever stepped foot in a church, or its basement, needs to listen to this album.Also worth noting: the vinyl includes a double sided poster featuring Julien on one side and all lyrics on the other!

Un gran trabajo de Julien. Totalmente recomendado.

Love love love.

Eigentlich wollte ich mal weniger melancholische Musik hören. Und dann trifft man zufällig auf Julien Baker, hört ihre Musik, während man raus auf eine triste Herbstlandschaft blickt und schon brennen sich einem die Zeilen"Maybe it's gonna turnout allrightAnd I know that it's notBut I have to believe that it ist"unfassbar schnell und tief ins Gehirn, so dass man nicht mehr aufhören kann, die Musik dieses wunderbaren Geschöpfs zu hören.Ich weiß: etwas kitschig formuliert. Aber ich bin wirklich von ihr begeistert. Als dieses Album rauskam, war sie erst 22 und sie schreibt schon Texte mit einer emotionalen Tiefe, wie es nur wenige (in der Regel sehr erfahrene) Musiker können. Die Arrangements sind ebenfalls hervorragend. Mir wurde zu Beginn nicht mal bewusst, dass die Instrumentalisierung sehr dünn ist (häufig Gitarre und/oder Klavier), weil die Songs trotzdem sehr dicht und nie langweilig klingen. Die Qualität der Songs ist homogen sehr hoch. Jeder hat seine Daseinsberechtigung, jederhat etwas Eigenes, das ihn hörenswert macht.Allerdings muss ich zugeben, dass es sich merkwürdig anfühlt, als 29 jähriger Mann einem 20 Jährigen Mädchen dabei zuzuhören, wie sie intime Einblicke in ihre Seele gibt. Irgendwie creepy. Aber musikalisch trotzdem exzellent.

Disco di rara intensità. Brani scritti con maturità e raffinatezza. E una voce di profonda espressività.