Faye Webster (2022)

One Liner: Americana singing photographer leaning towards R&B sometimes.

Wikipedia Genre: Indie folk, alternative country, R&B
Home: Atlanta

Poster Position: 25
Weekend Two Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  Last here in 2019.  Really great Americana-type soft rock stuff on her older albums, including a lovely cover of Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark."  Her 2019 disc includes some different sounds that don't lean quite so heavy on the steel guitar and strummed acoustic and even veer into R&B.  

She's pretty damn impressive.  She self released her first album while still in high school, and then moved to Nashville for college.  She lasted less than one year before moving back to Atlanta.  She apparently went to middle school with Lil Yachty and is signed to a label that does a lot of rap, but her favorite band is Asleep at the Wheel.  She's also a legit photographer (that one of Killer Mike is super dope).  So, quite a pile of contradictions.

Here is an interesting quote about Nashville that I find delicious:

I played one show there as a resident. The reason I left wasn’t because of college, though. It was because of living in Nashville. As a native of a diverse city like Atlanta, going to a gentrified, competitive city like Nashville, where everyone’s the same, [was hard]. Everybody is a singer-songwriter there. Every restaurant, every coffee shop looks the same. It felt like some “Black Mirror” shit.

Yes.

Four albums, 2013's Run and Tell, 2017's Faye Webster, 2019's Atlanta Millionaire's Club, and 2021's I Know I'm Funny Haha.  That original disc is heavy on the pedal steel, and a longing tone to the vocals that make this sound like a love-lorn country album secretly released by the vocalist for a rock band.  No track from that album cracks the million stream level.

The 2017 album adds a little more gloss to the sound, but it still hews pretty close to the formula - beautiful vocals, pedal steel, and a little hint of funk added into an Americana sound.  Maybe a little southern soul stuff.  She started playing with a band out of Athens, GA, so maybe they are helping to influence her sound that direction.  Sadly, this is an album that appears to be uncool, even though I like it, because the first song has many more streams than the rest.  This is "She Won't Go Away."  4.5 million streams.

I feel like I'd hurt myself if I rode that weird ass bike.  Nice tune - simple, light, fluffy like a fat summer cloud.  "It's Not a Sad Thing" is a beaut as well - that Jenny Lewis sound comes back in there as well.  Webster does a good job of combining sadness and odd whimsy in her albums as well (although I'm not missing that the steel is the perfect shortcut to making something feel sad).

Her grandfather was a bluegrass guitarist in Texas, and her mom was a guitarists and fiddle player, so she has some music in her blood for sure.  "Better Distractions" was chosen by President Obama as a favorite song of 2020.

The 2019 album gets a little more southern indie feel to go with the continued use of the steel guitar.  Something like "Right Side of My Neck" has that feel, with the steel guitar still prominent, but also some smooth organ groove in there. Some things go a little torchy on here as well, like "Hurts Me Too."  "Kingston" is the top track from that album (and her whole catalog) with 54.2 million streams.

Kind of a soft-rock vibe, but with pedal steel.  Kind of a Jenny Lewis vibe in there as well, or maybe Neko Case.  But even with the pedal, you can tell that this has gone pretty far afield from those earlier albums and their Americana/country feel.  And then there is "Flowers," which is more of an R&B track, all falsetto vocals and drum machines and a rap piece by something called Father.  I hate it.

Then the newer album - great title - feels like it goes back to the original plan.  The top track is "In a Good Way," with 13.6 million streams.  Torchy, gentle vibe.

I dig the musicianship going on with the real-deal band playing in the background.  They aren't working too hard, but the warmth that they add under her voice is wonderful.  The whole album is kind of like that, a lovely, warm, jazzy little thing to glide through the workday with.  "Cheers" fires up just a touch more, but otherwise it stays pretty chill.

Overall, I really like her, this has been a good find.