| What About Regret | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1995 | |||
| Genre | Folk, pop | |||
| Label | Bar/None [1] | |||
| Producer | Kate Jacobs, Dave Schramm, James MacMillan, Charlie Shaw, Gary Arnold | |||
| Kate Jacobs chronology | ||||
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What About Regret, stylized as (What About Regret), is an album by the American musician Kate Jacobs, released in 1995. [2] [3] Jacobs promoted the album with two tours, one with a full band and one with just a bass player. [4]
After an editor at Hyperion Books heard Jacobs perform "A Sister" on the radio, the song was adapted for an illustrated children's book. [5]
The album was produced by Jacobs, Dave Schramm, James MacMillan, Charlie Shaw, and Gary Arnold. [6] As on Jacobs's first album, Schramm played guitar and many other instruments. [7] "3 Years in Nebraska" is about a Vietnam vet who turns to growing marijuana. [8]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | |
| The Indianapolis Star | |
| MusicHound Folk: The Essential Album Guide | |
Stereo Review considered that, "while there's great warmth in Jacobs's songs, and a nice homemade quality, many of her offerings have an off-putting vagueness and an eccentricity-for-eccentricity's-sake quality about them." [12] The Indianapolis Star opined that "Jacobs' voice is light and lilting, but unwavering... Musically, she's akin to Nanci Griffith and Iris DeMent, but she's no clone." [10] The Philadelphia Inquirer determined that Schramm "decorates each tune beautifully with whatever acoustic or electric touches the songs demand." [13]
The Chicago Tribune concluded that the "brilliant lyrics continue to detonate long after these lovely, sometimes meandering, folk-pop tunes have finished." [14] Trouser Press wrote: "A moderately demanding emotional experience, (What About Regret) rewards careful listening with details and empathy, like a series of personal letters from close friends." [15] The Chicago Reader thought that "Jacobs sings her airy country-tinged folk rock with a slippery warble, sliding over clearly defined melodies with a palpable shyness." [16]
Will Hermes, in City Pages , listed the album as his fifth favorite of 1995, writing that "of all the country-rock sets this year, Jacobs's moved me the most... In a word, it was her stories—tales not of vague ennui, but of people I knew intimately"; The Star-Ledger also listed What About Regret among 1995's best albums. [17] [18] MusicHound Folk: The Essential Album Guide praised "some of the richest, most complex songs written during the [1990s]." [11]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "George Says" | |
| 2. | "See the Moon" | |
| 3. | "Be Brave" | |
| 4. | "No Question" | |
| 5. | "My Old Haunts" | |
| 6. | "Oh Vagabond" | |
| 7. | "Indiana" | |
| 8. | "Love Comes and Goes" | |
| 9. | "In the Country" | |
| 10. | "3 Years in Nebraska" | |
| 11. | "Don't Watch Me Sleep" | |
| 12. | "A Sister" | |
| 13. | "Made My Bed" |