Alright
kluen, here is your other Martina request!
Waking Up Laughing - Martina McBride
Time to jump ahead a few years. 12 years later, to be exact! After a decisive rise to superstardom, four more #1 hits, 2-3 wildly successful album eras, an iconic Christmas album, at least a dozen more top 10 hits, several high profile tours, a Greatest Hits era, and then a step back from the radio limelight to focus on a covers album, the scene was set for 2007's Waking Up Laughing.
While 2005's Timeless was widely acclaimed and sold like hotcakes, it was not a radio darling. Which meant that Waking Up Laughing was her first attempt at widespread and consistent airplay since 2003's Martina. That's right, we've got ourselves a comeback album!!!!!!
Unfortunately, where I praised Wild Angels for its maverick energy, Waking Up Laughing is the product of a superstar who is resting on her laurels. Do not get the wrong impression from that! This album is receiving an A from me, and has several A+ moments to be found within the tracklist! However, it is also receiving a 7.74% in the standard deviation score, where Wild Angels got a 3.97%. So while Martina has always been a rather consistent albums artist, this one is less consistent than the previous review. I'd even argue that it is one of her least consistent albums, although I do not have scores from all her other albums yet to back that claim up.
This album has aaaalmost everything that you would expect from a Martina album. Incredible vocals (obviously). Slick, pop-country instrumentation that somehow doesn't overshadow her country roots (usually). Production value that has held up incredibly well. Powerful lyrics, meaningful stories, emotional moments, strong radio choices, album tracks that are just as good...it's all there!
Where this album falls a little short is in the "inspiration" department. Martina has always had a knack for delivering important messages. Whether happy or sad, if it's about something meaningful, she will make you feel it. This time, however, the messages ring a little more hollow. Look at a song like "For These Times". It is a vague, there-is-so-much-bad-in-the-world-so-let's-focus-on-the-good message song. It's catchy, it's well-sung, and yet it is instantly forgettable compared to some of Martina's similar-themed earlier work like "Love's the Only House". The difference here is that the message has no teeth behind it, and the arrangement has no creativity to it. It is a bunch of vague platitudes. It's a random call for prayer designed to pull at the heartstrings without having anything specific to say, and a bland, uninspired instrumental backing it up.
Then look at a love song like "How I Feel". It's got some creative metaphor work in the verses (where we got the album title!)! But then the chorus is...**checks notes**... "That's how I feel when I'm with you. That's how I feel when I'm with you. That's how I feel, and that's how I feel when I'm with you." Like, WHAT?! That's got to be the least inspired songwriting in her entire career! I feel like it's important to her because she helped write it, but...it feels unfinished or underdeveloped. Yes it's catchy enough, but the arrangement is also stereotypical uninspired orchestra-laden-with-electric-guitars that makes this feel even more tired and less creative.
Those are the two most egregious offenders in terms of feeling bland and uninspired.... The rest of the album has some really creative moments that help add to her career. But then BOTH OF THESE SONGS BECAME SINGLES!!!!!! THAT right there is the biggest shame of this album. After "Anyway" brought her back in full force, she had ample choices on this album that could have helped advance her career. Instead, she leaned full-force into the options that would be seen as "safe". And playing it safe brought her nothing but diminishing returns, and ultimately began her gradual decline in radio's good graces.
The most unfortunate thing about all the playing it safe is that, looking at the country landscape around the mid-'00s, she made herself look tired and out of touch when Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and Taylor Swift were all breaking through in a big way. Seriously, how is "For These Times" supposed to look like a favorable alternative when "So Small" is competing for the same airplay? How is the saccharine orchestral "How I Feel" supposed to make noise when the more rowdy arrangements of "Before He Cheats" and "Kerosene" were the sound consumers were currently getting excited about from female performers? And of course a detailed, specific love narrative like "Our Song" and "Love Story" is going to trounce that one in the lyrical department. She could not afford to look so out of touch after spending a few years outside of the direct spotlight, and unfortunately that is exactly what she did with this era.
All that being said, let's focus on some of the good!!!!!!
A+ range:
-"Anyway" - I literally could never hype this one up enough. This song is INCREDIBLE! Sure, people can criticize the songwriting for being basic, but I challenge you to watch Martina sing the "You can spend your whole life singing a song you believe in that tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang. Sing it anyway" verse live without getting a little bit misty-eyed. Not to mention the goosebumps upon goosebumps she can bring on the belted power notes! The final cherry on top is that, while her voice has not been aging great in the modern era, this remains the one power-ballad in her catalog that she can still bring the most-consistent show-stopping performance.
-"House of a Thousand Dreams" - If any song on the album aside from "Anyway" had the potential to be a connect-with-the-masses, Grammy-winning, acclaimed fan favorite type of hit, it would've been "House". She sings this so well, and wrings every bit of emotion out of it. And the emotion from this one feels so natural compared to something like "For These Times", where it just comes across as manufactured.
-"Tryin' To Find a Reason" - Such a beautiful and well-written ballad. Keith Urban's contributions are incredible. And this one got a really nice boost in points for absolutely loading up on instrumental extra credit! (Steel, fiddle, piano, AND mandolin?! Well done!)
-"Beautiful Again" - Okay, this one might have been overranked by my system, but it tells a story about a woman who is trying to make it in the world despite facing poverty with her parents, abuse and sexual assault from her uncle, neglect from a boyfriend who ultimately gets her pregnant and leaves her alone to be a single mother...and yet through it all she never loses her faith that things will turn out for the best. The biggest problem with this one is that the melody and arrangement is so upbeat and cheery, which definitely will take some people out of the song and possibly make it feel disingenuous! But to me it is a good story, and the melody is catchy even if it doesn't fit the story, and then all the country instrumentation boosts it up... So yeah, it helps the album's overall score, although it's not one I would consider a hit that got away or anything.
-"Everybody Does" - THIS is the hit that got away!!! My God, this melody is absolutely KILLER!!!! The guitar work is awesome, the drums truly rock, everything about this is a slam dunk hit. WHY WAS IT PASSED OVER FOR "HOW I FEEL"!!!!!
A range:
-"Cry Cry ('Til the Sun Shines)" is catchy as heck. It's also a tad light in the lyrics department, but it still has an inspired energy behind it that was absent from "How I Feel". I would give it an A+ personally, because it's one of my favorites from the album, but the lack of country instrumentation meant it lost out on a few easy percentage points. Also, this is one of the rare songs where she has one of those random ragged raspy moments that were all over the Wild Angels album! The line "She left a note on the dresser" has it!
-"Blue Bayou" - The random and impossible to find bonus track to this album is worth hunting down if you haven't heard it yet!!! This Linda Ronstadt cover is noteworthy in almost every way, from the iconic bass opening to the way it pushes Martina so seamlessly from the bottom parts of her range to the upper parts of her range. She delivers it delicately and masterfully, with superstar dexterity. I wish this was more widely-known!
B+ range:
-"Love Land" - It is beautifully written and sung. Many people will love it. I find it to be a little bit boring, and the lyrics are slightly awkward and the melody slightly clunky because of how the story is crammed in.
B range:
-"For These Times" - Don't get me wrong, it's a good song, and some will really love it. Just one of the least inspired songs on the album. Martina believes in it with her whole heart though, and that's important!
-"How I Feel" - Underwritten chorus, super bland arrangement, but it's got some good writing in the verses without a doubt! Horrible choice for radio though.
-"If I Had Your Name" - Something very unique for Martina!!! It is well-written and has a cool arrangement! For me, the melody has always hit the ear a little weird though, in a way that I don't feel like it is fully convincing as a Martina song. I've heard people say before that it feels more like a Sara Evans song. Which is interesting, because I also love everything Sara touches and am just not a fan of this melody... But either way, some people will love this song! I think it's the black sheep of this album.
B- range:
-"I'll Still Be Me" - This is just tooooo saccharine to be a universally-enjoyable love song. It speaks to Martina's experiences, being a normal girl from small-town-Nowhere and all that. But some of the lyrics are just so cringe, like "I'll still be the mommy of our babies." And while it has moments of steel guitar, the entire song just relies WAY too heavily on orchestral flair for it to feel like it fully fits in her catalog. This actively feels like it has negative hit potential.
Man, this turned into a LONG review! Don't get me wrong, I do love this album, and it easily earns an A grade based on the strength of the top 8-9 songs! It is just one of Martina's most disappointing eras to me, because the album itself is less consistent than her usual standard, and then she leaned into the least hit-worthy songs for the single choices...
Here's how I would have done the singles:
1. "Anyway" (PERFECT lead, did exactly what it needed to do, remains a Martina staple to this day!)
2. "Everybody Does" (The catchy uptempo that radio desperately needed to make this era exciting)
3. "House of a Thousand Dreams" (This song has the most potential for acclaim, Grammy potential, fan favorite status, etc.)
4. "Cry Cry ('Til the Sun Shines)" (Realistically this era may not have needed more than 3 singles, but if it did get a fourth, this is catchy and radio friendly, if a little vapid.)
5. "Tryin' To Find a Reason" (Again, probably wouldn't have gone 5 deep, but if they did keep going, this is a beautiful country ballad that could have been a good risk for a closing single!)