How the Y Chromosome Resulted in the Worst Reviews of Lucinda Williams' Career

The verdict's in on the latest Lucinda Williams album, West, and it's not good. By which I mean the critical take on the artist's first release of new material since 2003's World Without Tears is a thumbs-down.

The album represents somewhat of a departure for Williams, whose five releases from 1988's Lucinda Williams to World Without Tears garnered nearly universal raves from (for want of a better umbrella term) the alt-country crowd. (Williams had released two LPs prior to the eponymous breakout disc, as well as a two-disc live set that came out in 2005.)

Everybody loved Lucinda (a poet's daughter) for her songwriting, filled with intimate details rendered in stark specificity, and her delivery, a drawl that could range from languid to leonine to, well, to lip-lickingly lusty. That she was a perfectionist who lingered over production minutiae, putting out what seemed like an album every hundred years or so, only burnished her cult-fave status.

West was a long time in the making, but the songs are more atmospheric, less down-to-the-DNA detailed. The album's sound—which you might also call atmospheric—is a break from the past as well; Williams enlisted producer Hal Willner, who some say invented the modern tribute album. (There are violins on here, for cripes sake!)

More to the point, West reflects the fact that Williams' mother died last year, that she's now involved with a guy who's not a nutjob, and also—not to put too fine a point on it—that the singer, who was 36 years old in 1989, recently turned 54. "I'm really excited about this record and my future," Williams recently told longtime rock writer Bud Scoppa (see his story in Paste). "I've always been a late bloomer, and I feel like I'm only just now peaking as an artist—just coming into my own. I'm getting more comfortable in my own skin."

Thanks to aggregator sites like Metacritic, which link to dozens of reviews from beaucoup publications, it's pretty easy to see the big picture. According to Metacritic's "metascore," West's overall grade stands at 69. (For an explanation of how they arrive at that number, see www.metacritic.com/about/scoring.shtml.) Savvy blog-surfer that you are, you already knew all that.

But I was struck by something as I looked down Metacritic's list—and I do mean down. The site arranges its review links in descending order; individual scores in West's case ranged from 100 points down to a low of 30.

Nearly all the reviewers are men. Discerning observer of popular culture that you are, you already knew that, too.

I'm not going to take issue with the critics. They write what they write based on what goes in their ear.

I'm not reviewing the CD myself, either. But I think the tide of critical opinion points to an element of the album and its audience that's worth discussing: I have a feeling the male-female critic ratio is more illuminating regarding West than the by-the-numbers critical take is. I have a feeling—just a feeling—that women will respond more positively to this record than men. Why do I think so? Because I think the place Williams is in her life will resonate with women on a level that's beyond intellectual discussion of songwriting or production or career arc. Not the subject matter, per se, but the sensibility that's delivering it seems to me to be more easily related to by women than by men.

Yeah, astute critic of the patriarchy that you are, you were way ahead of me here yet again! And yeah, not only do I qualify for skid-row status as a music critic, what business do I have weighing in on what women think?

But to forge blithely ahead, is this any different from the way women artists are received in the wider world? I couldn't say, though I'd guess not.

As for West, you can come to your own conclusions about the critical mass. Here's a list of excerpts of reviews I found on Metacritic and beyond.

Unlike Metacritic's, this list is ordered from least to most love. Reviews written by women are in bold.

The New Yorker (Ben Greenman): "Snoozy and boozy and often blurry with self-help cliché...."

The New York Times (Ben Ratliff): "There's not enough humility on this puffed-up, draggy roots-rock record, except at the beginning and the end."

Pitchfork (Stephen M. Deusner): "[T]he heartbreak that has been a defining theme in her music sounds newly tedious, the romantic conflicts manufactured."

Now Magazine (Sarah Liss): [T]he gloom 'n' doom ballads here follow the woman Time once voted America's best songwriter deeper into her vortex of inane Seussian couplets."

The Austin Chronicle (Christopher Gray): "[Much of] West is just too musically placid or lyrically uninspired to elicit much passion from either the listener or, disappointingly, Williams herself."

The Village Voice (Nate Cavalieri): "[C]onfronting mortality seems to have thrown Williams into wandering, formless meditations."

Riverfront Times (Roy Kasten): "When Williams isn't working very hard to distance herself from herself, she just repeats herself."

Blender (David Browne): "[T]he album is often duller than its predecessors, with bummed-out banalities repeated from previous records."