Leah Andreone

Remember the good ol' days when they played female singer-songwriters on the radio? Way back 10 years ago. They called it "the year of the woman", it was a movement. Alternative was slowly fading away into rock-rap and boy bands, and somewhere in the middle was the popular Alanis Morissette and all the record companies scrambling to find other women with something to get off their chest to plop on the radio. This is was how I got into music. I hadn't been into music until they started playing these women on the radio and I was able to relate to it.

Back then one of those women on the radio I heard and fell in love with immediately was Leah Andreone. She had a song on the radio called "It's Alright, It's Ok" that had some dark and personal lyrics in it and I was drawn in immediately. I receiving her album "Veiled" for Christmas that year (as well as Patti Rothberg's "Between The 1 and the 9", and I still associate the 2 together because I would alternate between them trying to decide which I loved more) and adored it. I took it into school and got my friends into it. I covered my English notebook with lyrics from it, I loved it. Now I look back, still enjoy it, but mostly it makes me nostalgic, remembering when this was all so new to me and being amazed someone was being so powerful and so personal on a record like that.

Now Leah Andreone has a new album available for purchase at CdBaby.com. This is her first new release since 1998's "Alchemy". I was never a big fan of Alchemy, it was too polished and felt like she was trying too hard. I've not heard anything but clips from the new album, but it sounds more acoustic, which is nice. I don't think we'll ever get another album like "Veiled" though, it came from a very dark place and dealt with some very heavy issues (a song from the point of view of a fetus questioning life's worth, depression and break-ups, child molestation, religion, etc.) and I think Veiled served as a way to get that darkness out of her system and move on.

As it is, during her long hiatus between records she released some tracks to her website that I quite enjoyed so i thought I would link those here for you to enjoy and get a taste for Ms. Andreone.

• "I Trip"
• "My Only Home"
• "Show Me"
• "Something I Can Feel"