Uninvited party crasher: Google AI
Well, this is shocking. I, Wayne Robins, the human being, your Critical Conditions correspondent, was at my desk this morning to pull up a review I had previously done for PS Audio’s online magazine Copper, about the talented Australian singer-songwriter, left-handed guitar player Courtney Barnett. I just wanted to re-read the review before I wrote about her intriguing new album, Creature of Habit.
But Google AI beat me to the punch. What used to be the default search engine to find things we want, Google instead gives us what it wants. Entering my name, Copper, and Courtney’s name, up came this:
AI Overview
Wayne Robins is a music writer and critic who has analyzed the work of Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett. In a 2022 article for PS Audio’s Copper magazine, Robins discussed his admiration for Barnett’s music, particularly her 2015 debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.
Key Takeaways from Robins’ Commentary:
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Appreciation for “Pedestrian at Best”: Robins highlighted this track as a standout, high-energy rock song.
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Analysis of Style: He noted that Barnett’s music often features a “self-knowing” quality, appreciating her songwriting, which he felt stood out from more “average” rock music.
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Focus on Music over Persona: Robins expressed more interest in the music itself than the specific personal details of Barnett’s life.
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This is Wayne again. It was an accurate if lifeless outline, but since I already wrote it, it was useless to me. As my massage therapist and I like to joke: “Hot towel. No AI.”
What I was going to do was start by going back to the Barnett song that first captivated me: “Pedestrian at Best.” I thought, here is a young woman who really understands the shorthand of rock criticism. I imagined the song as a succinct Christgau's Consumer Guide review:
“Artist Name, “Album Name”: Pedestrian at best. Grade: B minus.”
Barnett’s new album, Creature of Habit, features a praying mantis on the cover. I grew up with the notion that to kill a praying mantis was punishable by fine. Or maybe the dead rising. I think maybe my Catholic school friends had been brainwashed when they insisted on the protected status of the Mantodea. It was like one of those tags on the bottom of a piece of furniture that declared it was a federal crime to remove it. I found it baffling. Who would know? It was already in our house, under the table. I was titillated by the idea of removing the tag, and waiting for the G-men to break down the door and haul me off to the hoosegow. Little did I imagine how plausible that would one day be.
Anyway, Barnett meditates on the mantis. She is a jumble of thoughts, a perfectionist looking for direction, inspiration, some significance in the moment. “Organizing all my thoughts, making them rhyme.” In the same song, she sings, “there is no such thing as a perfect melody, but I’ll keep searching.”
I don’t know if she’s been going through writer’s block, or just living a busy life behind the scenes. In 2012, she and former business and life partner Jen Cloher started Milk! Records in Melbourne, an indie label that released their records and others in Australia. Milk! ended in 2023, and the conclusion must have been emotionally and financially stressful. Her U.S. label is Mom + Pop Music.
Go away, creeping AI info input! But details that used to adorn album sleeves, on which the writer/critic relies, are in short supply. I bought Creature of Habit through Bandcamp. I had to rely on the useful site Genius lyric to make sure I heard the words clearly. Genius also names the three or four producers for each track, but besides Barnett, I haven’t been able to find credits for the musicians in her band. There sounds like an organ player filling out the sound on “Same” and “Another Beautiful Day,” and I’m guessing it is Barnett who plays both the rhythm guitar and the smart, short solos that form the outro to most tracks. Her guitar style reminds me of Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, without the flash but always in service of the song.
The album opens with a hurtling rocker, “Stayed in My Lane.” She sounds possessed in the chorus, expressing excessive regret for not having taken the advice suggested in the song’s title. “Rip this thing out of my head (please be patient),” she sings.
My favorite Barnett voice is a deadpan style halfway between talking and singing. That is why her 2017 album-length collaboration with Philadelphia’s Kurt Vile, “Lotta See Lice,” works so well: Two audacious guitar players, idiosyncratic songwriters, with not dissimilar vocal timbres. And both at times feel the presence of the hovering ghost of Lou Reed.
Her voice has become more attuned to melody as her melodies become riper (see: “Another Beautiful Day”), but there’s also a sardonic side that sounds like Lou Reed’s seething sarcasm. “Great Advice” has Barnett channeling Reed: You can see her (or Reed) discussing career development with an executive at a new label. Someone has apparently suggested Barnett needs a “catchphrase,” like a comedian’s personality stamp. As Steve Martin used to say, “Ex-cuuuse, me!” “Catch phrase/there’s gotta be a better way/for what you want to say.” Barnett’s response: “Appreciate your great advice, and I need your opinion like a needle in the eye.”
The most immediate song on the album may be “Site Unseen,” with a guest appearance by Katie Crutchfield, the Alabama musician who performs as Waxahatchee. The harmonies are firm and affirming, even though the song is typically, for Barnett, wracked with self-doubt. “From now on I wanna finish what I start and/That indecision’s never been of much help to me.” But it’s not like our Baroness of Boredom is going to actually do anything about her entropy. “Let’s figure out the rest another day.” Kicking the can down the road, hanging out with a pal: What’s more fun than that?
This article is reprinted from Wayne Robins’ Substack and is used here by permission. Wayne’s Words columnist Wayne Robins writes the Critical Conditions Substack: https://waynerobins.substack.com/.
Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Raph_PH.
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