Margo Price That's How Rumors Get Started LP

Consequence of Sound's Top 50 Albums Of 2020 - Rated 35/50!

That's How Rumors Get Started sees Nashville icon and 2019 Best New Artist Grammy nominee Margo Price commit her genre-bending rock-and-roll show to record for the first time, stretching out her emotive twang over sky-high soft-rock, burning psychedelic rock ballads, stomping road songs, and sprinkles of pop. With production from her friend and longtime collaborator Sturgill Simpson, it shows both of them pushing into unexpected directions.

Since her autobiographical 2016 debut Midwestern Farmer's Daughter and 2017's explicitly political follow-up All American Made, Price's life has been a whirlwind, perhaps best summarized through two of her more recent major life milestones: her 2019 nomination for Best New Artist at the Grammys, and a few months later, the birth of her second child. Appropriately, her third full-length, and first for Loma Vista Recording Co., brims with poignant reflections on motherhood and sharp prose debunking the mythology of rock-and-roll success. "This album is about relationships," she says. "It's about growing pains."

That's How Rumors Get Started was largely recorded in less than a week at East West in Los Angeles, in the tiny room where Pet Sounds and Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" were recorded. The band then headed back to Nashville to record overdubs at David Ferguson's studio, the Butchershop, where Johnny Cash posters hang on the walls and cigarette smoke lingers in the air. While Prince's first two full-lengths were recorded with her road band, the Price Tags, for That's How Rumors Get Started she worked with a group that Simpson helped her put together: guitarist Matt Sweeney, bassist Pino Palladino, drummer James Gadson, keyboardist Benmont Tench.

Margo Price has zero intention of entertaining any limitations on her either music or her mind. Her genre often demands conformity from its artists as the price of success. Margo Price, however, is living nobody's dream but her own.

'Twinkle, Twinkle' is a scuzzy rocker wrapped in leopard print; the song struts with distorted glam, as Margo lays down the price of success.

The clipped vocal rhythm and deliciously snarly riff that drive 'Twinkle Twinkle' wouldn't be out of place on, say, Petty's Wildflowers.

A rock-heavy tune that features distorted guitars and a colorful, surreal music video, [Twinkle Twinkle] marks a shift for the Americana singer-songwriter towards '70s-infected rock 'n' roll.

That's How Rumors Get Started is Price taking the leap she's threatened traditionalists with the entire time. With Sturgill Simpson, himself a country star who stands outside the norms, behind the boards and a move from Tennessee studios to one in Los Angeles, Price makes no bones about her desire to push once more. The album makes a strong case for itself as a rock country effort as opposed to vice versa: 'Heartless Mind' lights up with '80s riffs, 'Twinkle Twinkle' burns with modern blues, and 'What Happened to Our Love?' spirals out of the psychedelic pop of long-haired bands from the '70s. There's plenty for classic country fans to hang their hats on, as well, and it's Price's clear knack for twisting country to fit her view without ostracizing others that makes her such a force in the genre.