In the late 1960’s, Joni Mitchell practically invented the female singer-songwriter genre, and for the next 40 years the rest of us have put up with the pretenders that have tried to follow in her footsteps. She has a lot to answer for. Sure, Mitchell herself is extremely talented, but she gave a lot of tortured young girls the idea that people might actually be interested in their melancholy and introspection. Julie Doiron is one of the better artists to have followed in Mitchell’s footsteps, but there is only so much of this sort of heart-on-sleeve music I can take in one sitting.  Her new album , Woke Myself Up, is one of those ‘epiphany-per-song’ deals. On the first track its: “Maybe this coffee is a bad idea,” by the last it’s: “this life is a lie”. Yet every time I’m about to dismiss her, Doiron wins me over with her sincerity. How can you not like somebody who writes in the liner notes of her album, “Thanks so much to everyone for being alive”? 

Woke Myself Up is the sort of music that insecure 21 year old girls all around the world are always going to love, sitting on torn couches contemplating their love lives, consumed by their neuroses. Doiron sings, “I open my eyes in horror/To see what I’ve done/It was the wrong guy”. “Yes!” they think. “What was I doing with that guy?…He just had such a cool leather jacket, and he was so dark and brooding. But I was just another notch on his studded belt.” Doiron’s music comes complete with meowing cats; all that is missing is the A-Frame house to complete the Laurel Canyon Singer-Songwriter aesthetic.  Yet scorn and superiority aside, she is sincere and heartfelt and should be commended for that. Her lyrics are extremely homespun and concerned with domesticity, and Doiron does not seem to be interested too much with anything beyond the scope of her county limits – its interior politics. 

If you are sitting at home feeling vaguely subdued, you’ll probably find Julie Doiron to be a suitable musical companion – never intruding too far, unless you give her music the undivided attention that is only possible in a contemplative mood. A gentle strummer, Doiron often sounds more like she is stroking her guitar than actually playing it. On most songs she self-harmonises, producing a slightly dazed effect – notably on ‘No More’. For the most part it’s a pretty stripped back sound – minimalism is never going to go completely out of fashion, so while Woke Myself Up sounds like it could have come out in 1995, it does not sound out of date. If anything, it’s retro-chic. Seven years into a new decade, there is enough distance from the ‘90’s for people to pick up on the musical trends and devices that were most effective from that period. I don’t think we are going to see a grunge resurgence, but the ironic detachment (not necessarily in lyrical content but in sound) that was such a feature of ‘90’s indie music is one that will continue to have currency.

Doiron has the gift of being able to produce emotionally compelling music without much strain – maybe that is because she was playing music all through the ‘90’s. ‘I Left Town’ is a striking example of Doiron’s ability. Its melody is not forceful, but subtly eases into your subconscious, so even though you may not have listened that closely, you find yourself humming it the next day. Lazy chords from Doiron’s guitar frame her lyrics in a certain early-morning haze. She sings, “Although, I was tired/I stayed pretty calm cause I knew/soon I would be in your arms”

‘The Wrong Guy’ finds Doiron at her most effective. Structured impeccably, it would have fit in very well on a Dawson’s Creek episode. I don’t mean that as a criticism – I love that show. The song builds slowly to the best piece of production on the album, distorted and delayed guitars create a sonic atmosphere of self-loathing, as Doiron laments her mistake in choosing ‘the wrong guy’. Jen Lindley would have loved it for sure. This is chick-rock, but it does not stray into the over-earnestness that so often plagues that genre.  Yet this trait also sometimes cripples her. On the heavier numbers, such as ‘Don’t Ever Wanna Be/Liked By You’ , the guitars are muffled, and Doiron voice is always the most prominent feature in the mix. This tends to negate the heaviness, and these songs never quite take off in the way that the rest of her material does.  

Woke Myself Up is an album of quiet introspection, and while I usually find this sort of music fairly trying, Doiron does it better than most. One day I’ll probably be sitting on my very own torn couch, and I’ll feel compelled to put this album on, lamenting my own choice of the wrong girl. Stranger things have happened.