Emmy the Great - First Love (2009)

My first encounter with Emmy the Great was fairly soon after the release of this debut album of hers. A friend of mine used to have a music blog where he listed best albums of the year and he listed this one there. I really liked the album. It sounded fairly simple, but I kind of like simple melodies. The lyrics are really well written and who doesn't like a good break-up album. Back then, it would've been reasonably difficult to find this album anywhere in Finland, so I didn't buy it straight away. I actually ended up buying her second album, Virtue, first when I had just moved to London. This one I only found years later. Got it quite cheap at that time. Emmy the Great's folky sounds are quite well produced. There are elements of trad folk in there with some excellent fiddles, but the overall sound is much more modern, which I perhaps like a bit more.

It's kind of surprising that I haven't seen Emmy the Great live, considering she's a London-based singer-songwriter whom I have listened to for quite some time. I'm sure there would've been some opportunities, but I think what happened here was that she had by that time released her third album, which I didn't like that much and therefore I didn't prioritise her gigs over some others that were available. That's how it works in London. You need to prioritise the ones you really want to see, because there are so many good gigs all the time. Now, though, I think I would go and see her if that chance came up. We'll see once this lockdown is over.

The album begins with wavy waltz Absentee. The song starts off really minimalist and quiet and grows bit by bit adding more instruments. This is how I like songs to be. I really like the subtle overdrive in the electric guitar. It's quite unexpected amongst the folky instruments. 24 is a melancholic storytelling song. Just a kind of song I really do like. These are the kinds of songs I try to write myself, but I'm often having problems with coming up with such good lyrics. We Almost Had a Baby was the first single off the album. The lyrics are quite excellent in this one. The Easter Parade has some nice pianos and fiddles. It's a really simple sounding song that has still been made to sound really great. Dylan is one of my favourite songs from the album. There's a stomping beat over soaring folk fiddles. A sound that I've really grown to love at least since I played in a folk band myself. On the Museum Island sounds very lo-fi compared to other songs on the album. The vocals have been mixed so that they sound very natural, like being sung right next to you. War has some of the best piano playing on the album. I'm sure they're not really that complicated, but as someone who can hardly play piano, it sounds nice. I also like the sharply played strings. The title-track First Love reminds me of Damien Rice for some reason. There's a very similar kind of vibe. The song is about another song, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which has been cleverly embedded in the song briefly. MIA is actually about the singer M.I.A. I don't really like her music that much, but for some reason quite a few musicians I like seem to appreciate her music. Bad Things Coming, We Are Safe has very nice pizzicato sounds on a rolling piano, which gives the whole song a sense of urgency. Everything Reminds me of You has these strange distorted and echoey sounds that remind me of Elliott Smith's last album. The album ends with City Song, which is one of the most stripped down songs on the album, with just a natural sounding acoustic guitar and some great backing vocals.

The title-track First Love actually has a really nice music video even though it's clearly been made with quite a low budget.It mainly just shows Emmy on a theatre stage with changing props. The props are quite interesting though and there's a lot going on there. Emmy herself is very nice to look at. Towards the end you also see some other musicians playing various instruments.

Recently I've found it quite difficult to get excited about music. I listen to it quite a lot, but it's rare that anything jumps up and really catches my attention. I guess this is partly because I rarely just focus on listening to music. That's why I really like writing this blog. It makes me really listen attentively to music and usually when I do that, I find that I really do feel the music in a different way. Right now, for example, listening to First Love, makes me want to listen to Emmy the Great more and I'm already excited of the prospect of her next album coming up in this blog some time years later when I reach the letter 'V'.

Listen to the album on Spotify.