Life Is Messy in Bloomington, MN

After the commercial falloff of
Keys to the Highway
,
Rodney Crowell
took two and a half years crafting his seventh album,
Life Is Messy
, in the interim going through a divorce from his wife,
Rosanne Cash
. The most notable characteristic of
was that it marked a complete return to his original style. With nary a steel guitar or fiddle to be heard, and featuring top
pop
session musicians as well as a slew of
guest stars (
Linda Ronstadt
Don Henley
Steve Winwood
, etc.),
wasn't really a
country
record at all. A couple of songs had a
country-rock
honky tonk
feel, but the dominant musical style was a pastiche of late-'50s/early-'60s
. The title song was a somewhat abstract meditation on romantic discord and career disappointment that was followed by the equally despairing
"I Hardly Know How to Be Myself,"
which actually had been co-written with
Cash
. These songs sounded so pained and deeply felt that some of the more uptempo songs came off as trivial, even if they made for a change of pace. But other songs came up to their standard without being quite so low in mood.
"Alone But Not Alone"
found the singer beginning to find his way, and
"It's Not for Me to Judge"
revealed the noncommittal feelings one can have when emotional certainties are uprooted. Taken together, the songs on
made for a fascinating portrait of an artist at a personal and professional crossroad -- but it didn't have much to do with commercial
music circa 1992, which is what it was primarily marketed as. After a few months,
Columbia Records
pulled the plug on promotion and parted ways with
Crowell
, who moved on to
MCA Records
. ~ William Ruhlmann