insult, but it is far from it. Starbucks plays tunes filled with casual melancholy, the type that slides off the brain (Paul McCartney’s later work, for instance). For One I Knew is an album of sad songs that stick.
On an emotional level, Courtney Marie Andrews achieves the maturity and depth I associate with Blue-era Joni Mitchell.
I worried that Andrews would end up going the Jewel-route with her acoustic guitar-driven songs, making them more and more innocuous until they were impossible to take seriously. Instead, by adding lyrical honesty and lush synth-buoyed instrumentation, she has made her music more relevant than ever.
Lyrics were a big concern for me. I always saw talent in Andrews’ songs, but I felt she was hiding behind lyrical obscurity. Direct “Do you love me now? How about now?”, detail-rich “Dried up flowers on your dashboard / Pomegranate in your teeth” lines are the hallmark of For One I Knew. They have elevated her songs from “well-played yet hard to decipher” to “I can relate even when I can’t.”
I’m gushing, I know. The transformation of a talent that wasn’t quite there yet into one that demands attention always gets me excited. For One I Knew documents such a transformation. It is another highlight in an already great year for Arizona music.
