No. 1 Debuts- Wasteland, Baby! & GIRL
What inspires you? What moves you? What gives you hope? Rockin Rox really loves to see true art, true songwriting get the recognition it deserves. The charts didn’t lie the last two weeks with giving well deserved accolades to two genuine songwriters, Andrew Hozier Byrne and Maren Morris. Both released their sophomore albums and both debuted No. 1 on the charts, Maren even breaking Apple Music records. Hozier’s album Wasteland, Baby! Held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart. Maren Morris broke iTunes records reaching No. 1 on the selling charts on day one of her album release for GIRL on March 8th. Maren topped her debut album Hero that landed No 5 on Billboards' Top 200 Album charts this second time around. With 46,000 sales Girl scored the No. 4 spot on the Top 200 Album charts!
Hozier graced us with his second masterpiece Wasteland, Baby! On March 1st. After two and a half years of touring his first album with hits like Take Me to Church, Cherry Wine, Someone New, Jackie and Wilson, Work Song (really everything on this album was so uniquely dark and beautiful they were all my favorites). A year off in Ireland after touring Hozier took another year and produced what only Hozier could masterfully do, a 14 song love letter to the end of the world, he penned an album of 14 wasteland babies around apocalyptic love.
Hozier got to work with power houses like Mavis Staples on the opening song Nina Cried Power an ode to all the powerful greats that used music to scream their truth, from Lennon, James Brown, Dylan, Joni, Mavis Staples, to Nina Simone herself. 'It's not the song its the singing it’s not the waking it's the rising'. Track 6 To Noise Making (Sing) also poetically describes the importance of singing your truth, no matter the world’s opinion. The verse that sings to me is “You don’t have to sing it right but who could call you wrong to put your emptiness to melody your awful heart to song you don’t have to sing it right but honey sing it strong. At best you find a little remedy at worst the world will sing along'. Once you know the lyrics you have to sing along! His brilliant way with words and language is what made this album No.. 1 on the charts. Every song needs to be heard because there really isn’t any other songwriting out there like it.
Hozier has just embarked on the Wasteland, Baby! Tour and I was honored to experience it fifth row at Palace Theatre in Albany, NY. I am not over exaggerating when I say his live show is a holy experience. Movement isn’t the only song on the album that will completely move you. Almost (Sweet Music) gives me a good chuckle with a very serious topic of how Hozier describes the intersection of memory and music and how when you associate memories with song you realize that song and person had a past and a different story before and will continue after you. My favorite line is ‘the same kind of music haunts her bedroom I’m almost me again she’s almost you’ and then the chorus ‘and I wouldn’t know where to start sweet music playing in the dark be still my foolish heart don’t ruin this on me’. How Hozier describes the theme of Shrike as an appropriate love song is just fantastic. A shrike is a bird that kills its prey and has it hang on the thorn, metaphor for love that kills ya but is also beautiful- ‘remember me love when I’m reborn as the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn’.
He also played NFWMB off of the Nina Cried Power EP introducing the rhythmic song as someone being completely unphased by complete disaster. Hozier’s poetry and metaphors for love so great yet destructive is so dark, yet hopeful. There’s beauty to that devoted desperate love. My only complaint is not hearing the album cover to cover. There’s a reason all 14 songs went No 1. And all I can hope for is for No Plan, Be, Talk, Sunlight, and To Noise Making (Sing) will be added to one if not all of the shows during his 5 night residency in NYC at Hammerstein Ballroom November 21st-26th.
Maren Morris has came out of the gate swinging with this second album, from the topics of independence, equality, sexuality, and love to the unique production and sound she put into each track. Maren’s album, like Hozier’s, opens up with a power anthem with the title track Girl. In a world of comparison and gender inequality and female competition, with words of encouragement to herself, she pens a universal message to men and women alike that everything is going to be alright, there’s no need to let the world drag you down. “Don’t you hang your head low don’t lose your halo.” In the music industry and the world in general girls and people need to stop comparing and putting each other down, we need more support to build each other up. Maren preaches ‘I don’t want to wear your crown there’s enough to go around’. And in her collaboration with Brandi Carlile in the song Common the two songwriters remind us that religion and everything else we use to divide us really doesn’t matter because we have too much in common, we are all deep down the same.
Maren has everything on this album; country rock, soul, pop, R & B production. From top to bottom the sound doesn’t fit in one box, she’s definitely not just going to shut up and sing and certainly not going to abide by one genre. She has so much to say about being a woman in the music industry, being a female in this world, being a newly married woman, in love with the love of her life, but still being the independent, sassy, fiery, sexy woman she’s growing into. There really is a song for everything and everyone on this album and that is exactly why it debuted number 1 sales on the iTunes charts and landed No. 4 on Billboard’s Top 200 Album chart. I love what she had to say in one of her release day interviews. She said she doesn’t want to be remembered as a great female artist, she just wants to be recognized as a great artist period. Very fitting that Girl was released on International Women’s Day. Rockin Rox attended front row Maren’s Today Show Woman’s Day performance where she performed Girl,
The Bones, and The Middle (the smash that wrapped up album release week by winning Song of the Year and Dance Song of the Year at the iHeart 2019 Music Awards)
Girl doesn’t just have empowerment and equality messages on this album. Maren is a newlywed to fellow artist and songwriter Ryan Hurd. The other half of the album is her love story, not your cliche love songs, but the genuine love that is unique to Maren and Ryan (the love that we all want to find after you hear these songs). Let’s start with The Bones a song about a relationship with such a strong foundation nothing can shake it - ‘yea life sure can try to put love through it but we built this right so nothing’s ever gonna move it/when there ain't a crack in the foundation baby I know any storm we’re facing will blow right over while we stay put the house don’t fall when the bones are good’. In To Hell and Back Maren sings about Ryan seeing nothing but beauty when they first met even when she felt broken, and true love really is not changing someone, but embracing all their flaws and past. There are just too many beautiful lines to single out in this one it’s impossible to just pick one- ‘you didn’t change me you didn’t think I needed changing you didn’t save me you didn’t think I needed saving lucky for me your kind of heaven has been to hell and back’. Gold Love is another sentiment about even if her stars burn out their light, her diamonds lose their shine, its Ryan’s love that will get her through anything. RSVP is a sexy jam, ‘if you want more then your eyes on me you can let me know privately if I’m where you wanna be RSVP’. As Maren says just because she’s married doesn’t mean she still can’t be the sexy woman she’s always been. For anyone who has already seen a show on the Girl World Tour then I am extremely jealous since I have to wait until May 3rd & 4th to see her in New York. If you have seen the show you might have been lucky enough to see Ryan come out on stage to sing Great Ones, the track that Ryan sings background vocals on. I have seen pictures of the show and just them on stage together makes me swoon. These two support each other personally and professionally, but it’s not a myth, like Maren wrote most loves don’t make it through but the great ones do.
I can go on and on about each song on both of these albums. It really makes me so happy that the world recognizes the songwriting and storytelling talent of both Hozier and Maren. They both landed on the top of Billboard’s all genre charts.
Recognizing not just a single, but the entire body of work that these two put their hearts and souls into. Now they are out for the rest of the world to connect to. Their songs are at the top because they are telling stories in a way that is uniquely them, but completely universal and relatable. Bottom line- what are you waiting for?! Wasteland, Baby is 14 songs and 57 minutes long and Girl is also 14 songs and 51 minutes long, time where you need to sit down and listen to each one top to bottom and then buy a ticket to the Wasteland, Baby! Tour and the Girl World Tour if they aren’t already sold out. Dive into these songs and discover for yourself why they deserve to be exactly where they are on the charts and in people’s hearts. See you on the road and in the crowd!
