All Fall Down by Shawn Colvin

Posted by: Mike Hughes on 09 October 2012

Can't search via the iPhone app but has anyone mentioned this album on here?

Our household are big Shawn fans and were pleased that These Four Walls was a partial return to form. However, really not sure about this one. It has almost no upbeat tracks and it's her darkest album in tone by some distance. Occasionally the dark is also beautiful but often times it just sounds dour and lacking in inspiration to me.

Apologies if there are no paragraphs in this  post. It's the fault of the iPhone app as noted elsewhere.

Anyway, thoughts?

Also, anyone read her biography?
Posted on: 09 October 2012 by ewemon
Don't like the album and I think that is mainly down to the production as it is not "sensitive" towards her style of music. There are some good tracks on the album but personally I don't think she has made a good album since Small Repairs though this could have been.

Maybe I have to give it another chance.
Posted on: 10 October 2012 by Colin Lorenson

Personally I prefer Whole New You, and These Four Walls,  to Small Repairs.  The live album is also good, but not as fine as Live 88.  All fall down is her worst record ever sadly.  Apart from a few songs I can't connect with most of the album and the production is bleak and unsympathetic to her.  A shame because I rate Shawn as one of the very best singer / songwriters out there.  I'll just have to look forward to the next album.

Posted on: 10 October 2012 by fred simon

I've been a huge fan of Shawn's since Steady On, which in my opinion is one of the greatest debuts of all time. Fat City has some great songs, but I'm not sold on Larry Klein's production on that album. I think A Few Small Repairs is absolutely nothing less than a masterpiece. I love Whole New You almost as much, and while I love both solo live albums, I agree with Colin that Live 88 is the better of the two. These Four Walls is (are?) solid, but not quite as inspired as AFSR and WNY.

 

That brings us to All Fall Down ... no one wanted to love an album as much as I wanted to love this one, but (so far, at least ... I will always give Shawn another try) I don't except for the title track, which I think is as good as anything Shawn has ever done, and a big part of that, in my view, is the co-writing of John Leventhal ... I think all of her very best work has been with John as primary co-writer and as producer, and on this one he's neither. I do like Buddy Miller a lot, and like his more raw, looser approach, but for me it's got to be in the writing by which I mostly mean the music, the tunes, the melodies, the chords.

 

A half-amusing aside: When I was in college in central Illinois USA, in the 1970s, I would see ads in the college paper for The Shawn Colvin Band playing at some lame beer bar like The Red Lion, etc. I never went to check her out because I thought it was a dude with some lame beer bar band playing in a lame beer bar. I've been kicking myself ever since.

 

A not-so-amusing aside: In the 1990s when both Shawn and I were on the Columbia label, we actually met after one of her gigs and talked about having her sing on one of my albums, which she seemed willing to do. Never came to fruition for a variety of reasons, none of which having anything to do with music.

 

And that's my story.

Posted on: 11 October 2012 by Mike Hughes
I seem to recall Fred and I disagreeing over the quality of Whole New You which I felt was her weakest until now. Live 88 is certainly the better of the two live albums. I don't like Buddy Miller productions generally but I have to say I've loved too many Patty Griffin albums to have too much of a downer on him and now my system is working properly I really don't think the production is that far away from Leventhal. I certainly don't think it's the production which makes the album come across as bleak although I do think the sequencing is poor. Interestingly a significant number of the best songs on All Fall Down are very old. American Jerusalem for example. I fear we may looking at a hopefully temporary down turn in the quality and quantity of new songs.