Tag Archives: Josh Rouse

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Song of the Day #585: ‘Flight Attendant’ – Josh Rouse

A year after Under Cold Blue Stars, in 2003, Josh Rouse released another semi-concept album, 1972. The album was named after the year Rouse was born (and the year I was born, incidentally) and the music and packaging were designed to evoke that era.

1972 is a definite candidate for Rouse’s best album. It’s certainly his most fun and musically adventurous… he packs strings, horns, flutes and eclectic percussion into every song and gives his falsetto a workout on tracks both sensual and surreal. He even finds room for a mournful acoustic track that makes the best use of gospel backup singers this side of Lyle Lovett.

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Song of the Day #584: ‘Women and Men’ – Josh Rouse

In 2002, with the release of his third full-length album, Under Cold Blue Stars, Josh Rouse the caterpillar became Josh Rouse the butterfly. While his first two albums established him as a solid pop-rock songwriter, they didn’t set him apart from the pack. Under Cold Blue Stars very much did.

This is a concept album loosely based on the lives of Rouse’s parents, or as he puts it in the production notes, “a Midwestern couple in the 1950s.” The songs don’t exactly tell a linear story but they touch on different moments in a relationship, from the giddy lovesick beginning through trials of infidelity and emotional and physical distance through to a comfortable, if not outright happy, finish.

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Song of the Day #579: ‘Laughter’ – Josh Rouse

Josh Rouse’s second album, Home, was released in 2000 and basically picked up where Dressed Up Like Nebraska left off. Rouse was born in Nebraska, incidentally, a distinction he shares with fellow pop tunesmiths Elliott Smith, Conor Oberst and Matthew Sweet. Must be something in the water of the Great Plains.

Home has a more polished sound than Rouse’s debut and introduces horns and strings into the mix. But it’s otherwise not much of a departure… more solid, mostly acoustic pop songs.

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Song of the Day #578: ‘Late Night Conversation’ – Josh Rouse

Recently, I was scrolling through my iTunes library trying to decide who should be honored with my next theme week (it’s a big honor, you know… you should see the stack of mail I have from performers asking to be featured). And I was shocked to realize I’d gone this far without spending a week on Josh Rouse.

It’s not that he’s a household name — on the contrary, he probably has family members who aren’t aware he records albums. But in my household, he’s as well-regarded as any Hall of Famer. Rouse is one of those artists whose entire discography I cycle through every other month or so. When I’m grabbing CDs to load up the car stereo, he’s always represented and usually over-represented.

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Chinese come through with Josh Rouse song

tudou_logoSo I tracked down an online version of Josh Rouse’s ‘My Love Has Gone,’ which I mentioned the other day in my tirade about YouTube’s copyright Nazis.

I found it on Tudou.com, China’s version of YouTube, which apparently serves up five times the volume of video every day than YouTube. Gotta love the Chinese.

Josh Rouse – ‘My Love Has Gone’ from Nashville