`DEMO' MIDLIFE CRISIS WITH HAPPY ENDING.``10 Song Demo''/Rosanne Cash Rosanne Cash's new album opens with a plaintive plain·tive adj. Expressing sorrow; mournful or melancholy. [Middle English plaintif, from Old French, aggrieved, lamenting, from plaint, complaint; see plaint. piano and a dire warning. This mixture of sweet and somber runs through ``10 Song Demo'' like the fallout from a midlife crisis midlife crisis n. A period of psychological doubt and anxiety that some people experience in middle age. midlife crisis . Lucky for us, it's a crisis with a happy ending. Cash's new collection is a kind of mini-journey of sorts for a woman who is surprised to find there is life after 40. Like her father, the legendary Johnny Cash Noun 1. Johnny Cash - United States country music singer and songwriter (1932-2003) John Cash, Cash , Rosanne has settled comfortably into a kind of folk-country setting for her songs, which convey the emotions and tribulations of real life in a way that has truth and feeling. The best song on the album, a romp of a tune called ``The Summer I Read Collette,'' threatens to be pretentious pre·ten·tious adj. 1. Claiming or demanding a position of distinction or merit, especially when unjustified. 2. Making or marked by an extravagant outward show; ostentatious. See Synonyms at showy. but ends up reveling in its own reverence for things sentimental and literate. About a woman who goes to Paris to forget herself and her problems only to realize she was ``blinded by the beauty in our own lives,'' it shares a kind of happy melancholy that washes through the entire album. There's the sweet ``Western Wall,'' the lovely ``Child of Steel'' and the wonderful, irreverent ir·rev·er·ent adj. 1. Lacking or exhibiting a lack of reverence; disrespectful. 2. Critical of what is generally accepted or respected; satirical: irreverent humor. ``Take My Body.'' Cash has her fun here, but mostly it's a serious album, made hopeful by its very spare, understated tone. Originally meant as a demo, the unfiltered Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. Remove this template after wikifying. This article has been tagged since , unrefined sound makes it seem that much more true (though sometimes it's hard not to wish her always-capable backup had made an appearance). But it might not have worked here, not on a record that finds its journey through transformation, as if all the living on the edge was worth it. Like the opening lines to the first song ``The Price of Temptation,'' says: ``Standing on the edge tonight/Don't know whether I'll fall or fly/But that's the price you pay/for temptation.'' Four Stars |
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