There’s a reason no artist brags on leaving his or her lover in the lurch for 12 songs. Try imagining sensitive coffeehouse singers accrue their weekly chump change hawking CDs with such titles as I Used You, Baby or Kiss Ya Now, Dump Ya Later Tonight! It’s a rule in pop that listeners love the dumpee, except for the ones they themselves have dropkicked. So it stands to reason you’ll flip for this spellbinding CD, unless, of course, you’ve dated Edith Frost. While the two of you were lovebirds, she was already obsessing over the day you’d split and how the mementos you just won her at the state fair will soon be icy reminders that “My Lover Won’t Call.” Even the title track, a skipping frolic on a beautiful day, has Frost readying herself for the “game over” buzzer. And every missive here is delivered with the minimalism of some morose old maid who doesn’t visit the 21st century, or go into town very much, except maybe to the occasional picture show. It’s as if science stopped advancing since Patsy Cline’s plane crash.
Maybe that’s a good thing. Leave the breaking-up-through-text-messaging songs to Avril Lavigne, we need all the melancholic spinster ballads we can get.
Serene Dominic writes about music for Metro Times. Send comments to [email protected].
