Justin Townes Earle
Kids In The Street
Reviewed by: Jane Roser
After earning street cred on his six previous albums, Justin Townes Earle (country music icon Steve Earle’s son) has found a solid, clear vision on his latest and perhaps best album to date. Kids In The Street is a leap of faith for Earle and it pays off tenfold. The nostalgia-tinged, semi-autobiographical record pays homage to his rambunctious youth-the album title, as well as the track “Maybe A Moment” were inspired by Earle’s penchant for hopping in a car with a bunch of older kids and hot-rodding around town all night.
Released by New West Records, the twelve tracks were produced by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, First Aid Kit) and marks the first time Earle has worked with an outside producer, as well as outside of Nashville. While creating “Kids In The Street”, Earle’s wife discovered she was pregnant- the news added an uplifting aspect to the album and a positive vibe permeates throughout, even surprisingly enough, on Earle’s take of the classic murder ballad “Stagger Lee” (titled “Same Old Stagolee”).
“Champagne Corolla”, the records first single, is a rollicking ’50s style tune Earle decided to write after another songwriter complained to him about not being able to write songs about modern cars. Earle recalled how all anyone drove in his suburban Nashville neighborhood growing up was Corollas, Camrys and Altimas, so he wrote a cheeky song about it.
Several songs reference these middle-class Nashville neighborhoods and Earle laments how they’ve lost their uniqueness and character to gentrification. This is a fact he passionately mentioned to me in our 2015 interview when he stated that everything he’d grown up with, including familiar street names, was gone or had been replaced by condos or a convention center.
“15-25” tells the story of a stubborn, devil-may-care man who gets arrested bearing a “heavy heart weighing on a troubled mind”, while in the end feeling lucky the he “survived, well I could be doing 25 to life.”
Justin Townes Earle delivers a clever, fun, yet gritty album which is truly spell-binding.
Rating: Iconic
