Promised Land | ||||
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Studio album by Dar Williams | ||||
Released | September 9, 2008 | |||
Genre | Folk | |||
Label | Razor & Tie | |||
Producer | Brad Wood | |||
Dar Williams chronology | ||||
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Promised Land is the seventh album by Dar Williams released September 9, 2008 on Razor & Tie, the label that has released almost all of her albums. It was her first studio album in three years.
Dorothy Snowden "Dar" Williams is an American singer-songwriter specializing in pop folk. Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker has described Williams as "one of America’s very best singer-songwriters."
Razor & Tie is an American entertainment company that consists of a record label and a music publishing company. It was established in 1990 by Craig Balsam and Cliff Chenfeld. Based in New York City, Razor & Tie releases are distributed by Universal Music Group.
My Better Self is the sixth album by singer/songwriter Dar Williams. It was released on September 13, 2005 by Razor & Tie.
All songs are written by Dar Williams if not noted otherwise.
The song "Buzzer" was inspired by the Milgram experiment; "Midnight Radio" is a cover of a song from Hedwig and the Angry Inch , written by a friend of hers from college. [1] "Troubled Times" is a cover of a Fountains of Wayne song from that band's 1999 album Utopia Parkway .
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner." These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.
In popular music, a cover version, cover song, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by someone other than the original artist or composer of a previously recorded, commercially released song.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask and a book by John Cameron Mitchell. The musical follows Hedwig Robinson, a genderqueer East German singer of a fictional rock and roll band. The story draws on Mitchell's life as the son of a U.S. Army Major General who once commanded the U.S. sector of occupied West Berlin. The character of Hedwig was inspired by a German divorced U.S. Army wife who was Mitchell's family babysitter and moonlighted as a prostitute at her trailer park home in Junction City, Kansas. The music is steeped in the androgynous 1970s glam rock style of David Bowie, as well as the work of John Lennon and early punk performers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.
Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | |
Paste 75/100 | (commendable) [3] |
PopMatters |
Slant Magazine called Promised Land "perhaps her strongest start-to-finish album since 1996's Mortal City . [5] A review from The Washington Post said the album "lacks any musical growth" though a "newcomer to her music might appreciate the tunes." [6]
Slant Magazine is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.
Mortal City is Dar Williams' second album, released in January 1996 by Razor & Tie.
The Washington Post is a major American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., with a particular emphasis on national politics and the federal government. It has the largest circulation in the Washington metropolitan area. Its slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" began appearing on its masthead in 2017. Daily broadsheet editions are printed for the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.
The album entered the Billboard 200 album chart at #95, making it the highest charting album of her career. [7]
The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Often, a recording act will be remembered by its "number ones", those of their albums that outperformed all others during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 in May 1967, and acquired its present title in March 1992. Its previous names include the Billboard Top LPs (1961–72), Billboard Top LPs & Tape (1972–84), Billboard Top 200 Albums (1984–85) and Billboard Top Pop Albums.
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in Billboard magazine. Billboard biz, the online extension of the Billboard charts, provides additional weekly charts. There are also Year End charts. The charts may be dedicated to specific genre such as R&B, country or rock, or they may cover all genres. The charts can be ranked according to sales, streams or airplay, and for main song charts such as the Hot 100 song chart, all three pools of data are used to compile the charts. For the Billboard 200 album chart, streams and track sales are included in addition to album sales.
Cry Cry Cry was a folk supergroup, consisting of Richard Shindell, Lucy Kaplansky, and Dar Williams. The band released a single eponymous album of cover songs on October 13, 1998.
The Green World is the fourth studio album by American folk music singer-songwriter Dar Williams, released in 2000.
The discography of Barbara Mandrell, an American country artist, consists of twenty five studio albums, one live album, seven compilation albums, sixty eight singles, and one B-side. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee after high school and signed a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1969.
Sweet Liberty is the second solo album from folk artist Cara Dillon. It was recorded at their home studio in Frome, Somerset. Similar to her debut album, Sweet Liberty was produced and recorded by Sam Lakeman, her husband and musical partner. Additional production was by John Reynolds, who also plays drums on the album and mixed it along with Alan Branch.
Day After Tomorrow is a studio album by American singer and musician Joan Baez, released in 2008, her first one in 5 years. The album features songs written by such composers as Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, T Bone Burnett, Patty Griffin, Thea Gilmore and Steve Earle. Steve Earle also produced the album. It was recorded in Nashville between December 2007 and March 2008.
"All of the Lights" is a song by American rapper Kanye West, as the fourth single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010). It was produced by West and features additional vocals from several other recording artists, including John Legend, The-Dream, Elly Jackson, Alicia Keys, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Elton John, Drake, and Rihanna; the last is the only credited feature on the single.
Rabbits on the Run is the fourth studio album from Vanessa Carlton, released on July 26, 2011, through Razor & Tie.
In the Time of Gods is the eighth studio album by Dar Williams. It was released April 17, 2012 on Razor & Tie, the label that has released almost all of her albums.
"Tongue Tied" is a song by American indie rock band Grouplove, featured on their debut studio album Never Trust a Happy Song (2011). The song was released as the second single from the album on September 2, 2011. It was featured in an Apple iPod Touch commercial in 2011. On June 18, 2012, "Tongue Tied" reached the number-one position on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, becoming their first number-one single. In May 2012, the song was covered by Fox television series Glee in the season 3 episode "Nationals". It also appears in The Three Stooges, Wadjda, GT Racing 2: The Real Car Experience and Premature.
"I Knew You Were Trouble" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for her fourth studio album, Red (2012). It was released on October 9, 2012, in the United States by Big Machine Records as the third promotional single from the album. Later, "I Knew You Were Trouble" was released as the third single from Red on November 27, 2012, in the United States. It was written by Swift, Max Martin and Shellback, with the production handled by the latter two.
Cathy Lee "Catt" Gravitt is an American songwriter based in Nashville, Tennessee. In the music business for over 20 years, she signed on as a writer with her current publishing company, Razor and Tie, in 2008. Gravitt has songwriting credits in multiple genres, and most recently won the Canadian Country Music Association's 2018 Songwriter(s) of the Year award, along with co-writers Skip Black and Aaron Goodvin, for the song "Lonely Drum," performed by Aaron Goodvin.
Sweet Talker is the third studio album by English singer Jessie J. It was released on 13 October 2014, by Lava Records and Island Records. Contributing on the album; including rappers 2 Chainz, and Nicki Minaj, singer Ariana Grande, making guest appearances, and the addition to the album was the hip hop group De La Soul and the violinist Lindsey Stirling. Jessie co-wrote the album and worked with several producers such as The-Dream, Diplo, Tricky Stewart, Max Martin, Ammo and amongst the hosts of collaborators from both the new and the old.
"Trespassing" is a song by American singer Adam Lambert from his second studio album, Trespassing. The song was released as the album's third and final single on October 8, 2012. It was written and produced by Pharrell Williams. It received generally favorable reviews from critics and fans. The song peaked at number 92 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart, and peaked at number 33 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart.
"Some Hearts" is a song written by Diane Warren. The track was originally written for Belinda Carlisle, who recorded it as a demo for her 1987 Heaven on Earth album, but it was not included on the album. It was released as a single by Marshall Crenshaw from his 1989 album, Good Evening, but it failed to chart. Singers that have covered the song include Kelly Levesque, featured in the 2001 film America's Sweethearts, Maria Arredondo for her 2004 album Not Going Under, and Carrie Underwood for her debut album of the same name.
Glory is the ninth studio album by American singer Britney Spears. It was released on August 26, 2016, through RCA Records. After renewing her contract with RCA, Spears began work on the album in 2014. Lacking a deadline for completion, she continued work into 2015 and 2016, which—according to Spears—provided her the opportunity to create one of her favorite albums in her catalogue.
"It's Midnight" is a 1974 song by Elvis Presley.
"Summer Bummer" is a song by American singer and songwriter Lana Del Rey featuring American rappers ASAP Rocky and Playboi Carti featured on her fifth studio album Lust For Life. The song was released for digital download on July 12, 2017, alongside "Groupie Love" featuring ASAP Rocky, as a promotional single with the pre-order of the album. It was later sent to UK contemporary hit radio on July 28 as the album's third single. The song was written by Del Rey, Matthew Samuels, Rakim Mayers, Playboi Carti, Tyler Williams, Jahaan Sweet, and Andrew Joseph Gradwohl, Jr, with the production being handled by Boi-1da, Sweet, and Rick Nowels.