I Feel Alright

Rolling Stone - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...Though much of the album offers a tour of one man's hell--with Earle as a roadhouse Dante--the songwriter's creative resurgence ultimately supplies his redemption..." Spin - 9 (out of 10) - "...A cautionary threat, I FEEL ALRIGHT gives grief to anybody who doesn't acknowledge life's tragic ambiguity--defeat always shadows victory, sadness always mirrors happiness....He's a passionately volatile SOB and there's a hint of menace in almost every lyric he gets near, no matter how damp with sentiment..." Village Voice - Ranked #6 in the Village Voice's 1996 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll. Spin - Ranked #75 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s." Musician - "...there's a grim undercurrent to Earle's patented bad-boy drawl as he swaggers through these 12 dour Canterbury tales....But Earle...still has a fluid way with a pop-twanging hook that slaps most of his material across..." Alternative Press - Included in A.P.'s "10 Essential Alt-Country Albums" - "...Earle comes across as a fork-tongued renegade, constantly defiant." Entertainment Weekly - "...If I FEEL ALRIGHT doesn't deliver the grit that has been Earle's gift to rock and country, his roots-rock joie de vivre sends no apologies, only a healthy message for the '90s: Don't feel bad about feeling good." - Rating: A Spin (9/99, p.158) - Ranked #75 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s." Village Voice (2/25/97) - Ranked #6 in the Village Voice's 1996 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll. Alternative Press (3/01, p.104) - Included in A.P.'s "10 Essential Alt-Country Albums" - "...Earle comes across as a fork-tongued renegade, constantly defiant." Rolling Stone (3/7/96, p.47) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...Though much of the album offers a tour of one man's hell--with Earle as a roadhouse Dante--the songwriter's creative resurgence ultimately supplies his redemption..." Spin (4/96, p.105) - 9 (out of 10) - "...A cautionary threat, I FEEL ALRIGHT gives grief to anybody who doesn't acknowledge life's tragic ambiguity--defeat always shadows victory, sadness always mirrors happiness....He's a passionately volatile SOB and there's a hint of menace in almost every lyric he gets near, no matter how damp with sentiment..." Musician (4/96, p.84) - "...there's a grim undercurrent to Earle's patented bad-boy drawl as he swaggers through these 12 dour Canterbury tales....But Earle...still has a fluid way with a pop-twanging hook that slaps most of his material across..." Entertainment Weekly (3/8/96, p.64) - "...If I FEEL ALRIGHT doesn't deliver the grit that has been Earle's gift to rock and country, his roots-rock joie de vivre sends no apologies, only a healthy message for the '90s: Don't feel bad about feeling good." - Rating: A

I FEEL ALRIGHT is country-rocker Steve Earle's first album of new material following a well-documented five-year residency on the wrong side of the Nashville tracks. Like TRAIN A COMIN', the acoustic set of folk and pop covers with which he made his quiet return a year earlier, this full-band record offers no apologies. It does offer a rocking reclamation of all the blues, folk and country Springsteenisms and Dylanisms that made Earle's return worth waiting for.
One of its highlights is a searing, acoustic blues number, "CCKMP", on which Earle declares himself free of most of his former demons. The title stands for "cocaine cannot kill my pain"; the incredibly dark punch line dryly notes that heroin still can. Earle's voice is a blurry twang in which all those demons seem to have left a residue. When on the rollicking opening cut he announces that, "I've been to hell and now I'm back again/I feel alright", you know he means it, but you don't know if he's strong enough to hold on. Which, ironically, is the source of I FEEL ALRIGHT's power. These are songs that seek, in folk and rock and blues, the kind of redemption that life itself can't always offer.|