Lucinda Williams – Convince Me
Just so we’re clear, it lasts five minutes and 46 seconds…
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[4.78]
Ian Mathers: When did she and Craig Finn start sounding like the same person?
[4]
Chuck Eddy: God, she sounds like she’s half asleep. For almost six fucking minutes. You know, I do still have my CD copy of Car Wheels On A Gravel Road — seems like something I should keep for “reference”, just like the old Nirvana and Sleater-Kinney and Kanye West CDs on my shelf that I know damn well I’ll never play again. But I don’t know what it’s gonna take to, uh, convince me Lucinda was really ever very good in the first place. Her vocal murmur was always kind of ridiculous, somehow. And now she’s mumbling like she’s in dire need of codeine rehab. How the mildly diverting but hugely overrated have fallen.
[2]
Anthony Easton: This is supposed to be filled with erotic longing, but it’s passive aggressive between the audience and the performer, not the lover and the spurned. Williams plays the game well, but she has worn out her welcome.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Insufferable since newfound success convinced her that slurred vocals and elongated syllables signify lust for life, and the repetition of a two or three-word banality over echo-laden instruments her commitment to inertia, Williams now crosses the line into intractable. Six minutes, and all we get is a lousy guitar solo.
[2]
Jer Fairall: Lucinda rarely sounds this at ease without also sounding on the verge of being asleep, as I feel she has been on her last couple of records. Like the rest of Blessed, though, this is unfailingly polished and professional without sacrificing any of the passion of her standout work, which might be the best possible place for a greatly respected veteran artist to be at this particular stage in their career. Also, Elvis Costello’s blistering guitar work here (and elsewhere on the album) is fucking fantastic, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t always make a point of noticing such things.
[8]
Jonathan Bogart: I bet this is really meaningful for some people. For me? It’d be okay if there were a second riff anywhere in the thing.
[4]
Mallory O’Donnell: Lucinda’s always been pretty deft at repackaging this kind of all-purpose Southern roots/routes music for the NPR canvas shopping bag crowd. Here she’s pushed it up by pulling it back, and ended up with an authentic-ish blooze-derived number that even the most ardent Sarah MacLachlan fan could sway along to. Although the crunchy guitar outtro (easily the best part of the tune) might one day unconvince them, these are the kind of chance-taking moves that have always separated Williams from her more pallid cousins.
[5]
Alex Ostroff: The atmosphere is at times plodding and workmanlike, but over five minutes I’m gradually worn down. There’s something in Williams’ voice approaching naked desperation, an honesty that is as artistically attractive as it is off-putting. In isolation the final guitar solo could scan as triumphant, but in context it sounds like a Hail Mary pass in a losing game.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Do you sympathize with Lucinda or with the one she’s singing to? There are other, better tests out there — vocal tolerance, obviously, and tolerance for repetition — but this one’s the heart of things. It’ll determine whether you find this a gorgeous wringer, preserved in paper to devastate you further, or a four-minute ordeal of being sang at and wanting to scramble away from iteration one. Any other factors might nudge your score off either pole, but not much.
[7]