Music Review Elle King “Love Stuff” By Dana Saravia – Life-long rock & roller, current music critic and Girl From Baltimore I didn’t know much about Elle King when I purchased this album. I’d only heard a snippet of one of her songs that caught my ear, but it was interesting enough that I thought “what the hell” and bought a copy of “Love Stuff” when it was on sale. It turned out to be one of the smartest impulse purchases I ever made. Elle is a rockabilly singer/songwriter with wit and maturity beyond her years who brings modern female smarts to traditional musical style.
The album’s kicks off with “Where The Devil Don’t Go”, a driving bit of rockabilly stomp that introduces the listener to Elle’s distinctive voice and
144 | Steel Notes Magazine
does a great job setting the scene for the songs that follow. Next is “Ex’s & Oh’s”, a spirited, clever kiss-off song that might sound familiar due to its use in various film and television previews. With good reason—the song is memorable and distinctive and is, in fact, the song that initially caught my ear. It’s a great single that represents the rest of the songs found on the album nicely. While “Under the Influence” uses a common theme of love as addiction, Elle’s raw emotion makes this song a fine addition to that canon. The bassy, bluesy stomp “Last Damn Night” follows. The opening lyrics “I’ve got one hand on the bottle/And one foot in the grave” and the chorus’ “So I wanna live my life/ Like it’s my last damn night/When the clock strikes 12/We’re all gonna go to hell” combine with the atmospheric music to help make this one of the strongest songs of the LP. The perfectly sequenced “Kokaine Karolina”, an acoustic, contemplative song about the ravages of hard living immediately follows and closes out the album’s first side.
Side two starts with the strongest-and my favourite-song on the LP, “America’s Sweetheart”. A loud, proud song that celebrates boldly being yourself, it also contains some of the album’s best lines. The lyrics “They said I’ll never be the poster type, but/They don’t make posters of my kind of life” alone stand
steelnotesmagazine.com