QR Music Review: Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel
5/5
Following 2015's observational masterpiece Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I just Sit, Courtney Barnett began the task of the often-daunting sophomore album and was met, in her own words, with 'Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Confidence'. Since then, she's managed to churn out two records; last year's collaboration with fellow plaid-clad jag player Kurt Vile, and her second full length solo LP Tell Me How You Really Feel– pretty impressive for someone suffering from writer's block and self-doubt. The secret to overcoming these creative hurdles? Writing about them.
Barnett characterised previous releases with a careful slacker-rock approach to documenting the mundane, making each one its own unique phase of introspection. The charm of this was, unfortunately, lost on a handful of anonymous screen names. But instead of taking criticism on board, Barnett writes about it; creating an even wittier, plainly straight forward conversation– the strength of the record lying in exactly that which her detractors pointed out. "I don't know, I don't know anything," she sings on 'Crippling Self Doubt...', not a guilty admission so much as a 'yeah, and what?' cast back at the unabashed keyboard warriors whose comments were shouted (and, thankfully, lost) in the void of the internet. "I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and spit out better words than you,' says one. "But you didn't," replies Barnett wryly in 'Nameless, Faceless'.
In the same vein as her prior records, Barnett's conversational lyricism and blunt phrasing somehow lends itself to be the most profound and astute commentary on both herself and her generation; the simplicity pf her style only adding to its poesy. "This one's new. Sarcastic," she says before launching into 'Charity' at London's APE festival: "You must be having so much fun, everything's amazing / so subservient, I make myself sick" she sings, tongue-in-cheek. An exploration of the frustrating, crushing feeling of restlessness in the era of likes and follows, and the emptiness this atmosphere fosters. Much of the record is Barnett talking to herself, and from that comes a certain comfort. By laying out her own self-doubt, she assuages ours in ways she couldn't if the album was outwardly directed. Closing track 'Sunday Roast' encapsulates her message: "I know you're doing your best, I think you're doing just fine / keep on keepin' on, you know you're not alone," the tenderness in her voice swaddling like the kind and necessary words of a friend over coffee.
Finding herself amongst a generation of millennials all with an opinion and an online platform, Barnett vocalises the shared spirit of a generation fragmented too much to feel connected, echoing a sense of ennui and personal dissatisfaction only ever really captured by grunge icons who came before her. "Everybody wants to have their say, forever waiting for some car crash" she sings, feeling overwhelmed in 'Need a Little Time'– not a far cry away from her allergy-induced panic attack documented in 2015's 'Avant Gardener': "I feel proactive, I pull out weeds / all of a sudden, I'm having trouble breathing in".
Then, "I'm not your mother, I'm not your bitch" she growls on the track of the same name, veering from the tired "I don't know quite who I am oh but man I am trying" on 2015's 'Small Poppies'. Who, then, is Barnett? She is defiant, vulnerable, angry, honest, reassuring; and in voicing it she is everyone this record speaks to– and perhaps that's all we need to know about her. A lesson in not defining the artist by their musings or projecting expectations onto them; if this album is Barnett telling us how she really feels, there's still no rush to know who she really is, she seems to be telling us and herself.
A record borne out of self-doubt and uncertainty, it's Barnett's most sure and commanding incarnation yet. We're listening Courtney, and we think you're doing just fine.
By Addison Paterson