Record of the Month

I figured I'd do a monthly 'what I'm listening to' kind of thing. This could be viewed as a lame placeholder kind of post. And probably it is. But it's my blog! So there!   

Lucinda Williams has a new disk out as of a week ago - World's Gone Wrong.

As spot-on as that title may be, I usually like to have more than a week's worth of listening to a disk before reviewing, but a) I had no other new disks to review. b) I don't set the release schedules - no matter how much I lobby. 

Williams has been pretty consistent in the last few years with output. Some stuff better than others, but all of it beating stuff a decade ago. So I was semi-excited for a new disk. 

As the title suggests, it might not be an 'up' album. And it ways it is not. 

Since it was recorded in the Spring of 2025, we'd already gone through the election cycle and start of this administration. It would be difficult to believe that "How Much Did You Get for Your Soul? isn't about you know who, when there is a lyric that is: "you sold the one thing given by God, ’cause you thought it would make you rich / You’re nothing but a worthless fraud, it was all just bait and switch.”

In "Something's Gotta Give" Williams sings of "we've lost our way".  But it's a good song and well done. 

Yeah - you could equate it to a relationship song, but again, the title of the disk. 

It's Lucinda, so it is roots oriented rock with an overlay of blues. Gritty guitars. Gritty vocals (still better than they were a decade ago). 

She teams up with Norah Jones for a piano driven closer with "We've Come too Far to Turn Around". I want their voices to work better together. Or at all. Their tones don't match or compliment each other. She does better pairing with Mavis Staples with "So Much Trouble in the World".  That is one of the highlights of the album - for me. 

I like "Freedom Speaks" too. 

There isn't a huge divergence in William's style here. The songs are clearly more protest oriented and that's ok. Any voice railing against what we've become as a country (or world) is fine by me. 

It's a good kick of to music for 2026.......I hope.