The Singles Jukebox

Earned wisdom.

[Video][Website]
[6.50]

Anthony Easton: This is Martina McBride level overemoting and oversinging, and Martina McBride is like the Sirk of female melodrama (which, I think, makes Nettles the Todd Haynes — unless Dolly is Sirk, and that makes Nettles Haynes on account of the Christmas Dolly movie) 
[8]

Alfred Soto: “If I were twenty-five, I know what I’d do,” she sings, and what a pleasure to hear an artist celebrate her age by honoring her limits and suggesting she has untapped possibilities. Nettles’ prominent twang gives her the lived-in virtues that transform the generic into the specific; it’s as solid as good Martina McBride.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: Country, by virtue of its (spurious) claims to folksy athenticity, has an uneasy relationship with the big dramatic pop that has been the dominant form of recorded schmaltz ever since Caruso, but if we must have country that tries to compete head-to-head with the big, bludgeoning work of the likes of Leona Lewis or Adele, this is one best-case scenario.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Nettles has one of the great soulful voices in country, akin to Wynonna (the gold standard), so her records will rarely be out-and-out bad. But she’s not a great judge of songs, and while “Unlove You” starts off promisingly — atmospheric almost like a Daniel Lanois production — by the second verse it gets overblown and a bit overwrought. Call it a draw.
[5]

Cassy Gress: So many bells of recognition were dinging in my head while I listened to this, but I couldn’t figure out why, because I have pretty much no frame of reference for country music outside of 1999-2002.  On the second runthrough, it hit me: this is like “I’ll Be Okay” by Amanda Marshall.  It’s got the faded, smoky steel guitars, it’s got a sort of scratchy voice (although Jennifer Nettles’s voice is less scratchy and more just, out of the back of her throat) and eventually it just goes out in the rain and cries some epic tears.
[7]

Brad Shoup: A thirtysomething hookup song with the bombast reserved for a younger set. There’s no lust in Nettles’ delivery, just lightly worn despair, which might be its own kind of wisdom. It’s like an “Ashes By Now” where no one burns.
[5]