Ex-Blake Baby Juliana Hatfield might whine, "Singing stupid songs/ I'm going blonde," but she hasn't gone nearly blonde enough: Angsty tinny-voiced colleague Liz Phair probably kicks more ass as a sellout than overgrown college rocker Hatfield does covering well-trodden ground on her latest self-released album-- make note of the pictorial entreaty to navel gaze. Still, everything's not lost: Made in China will find its audience-- moody high school girls with jerk boyfriends will listen to this album while scrawling lyrics on their Chucks in multi-colored ball points (probably pink).
The album's main setback is its schizo-"love in the 90s is paranoid" philosophy--scuffed-up "Sex in the City" mindset, lusting after problems of girls 10 or 15 years your junior. Hatfield's going on 40 but still stuck in adolescene, complaining, "I don't want to go to school today/ I just wanna play guitar all day" on "Stay Awake". During "Digital Penetration"-- is this an 'N Sync cover?-- she protests "shiny girls with no opinions," and parties where everybody knows the words except her; "Send Money" has to break some record for most unimpassioned petition for allowance money (albeit from God).
But what's she so pissed off about anyway? School hasn't been the root of her problems for years, and while retro stunts do well to remind us of comparatively jaded pseudo-punk femme fatales of yesteryear, what's past is past: "New Waif" might portend potentially catchy bulimia-rock (a 90s Bettie Serveert and Velocity Girl vomitfest, at best) but gets old quick: Hatfield has nothing new to say besides "You don't know what it's like to be perfect," and it might explain her perfect-person tendency toward carelessness-- guitar solos, grating vocals (remember that time she picked up smoking to make her voice edgier?), overdone crabbiness-- all signs that point to thinly veiled midlife crisis rock.
But Hatfield doesn't care what we think-- doesn't care if we buy her records-- and the half-assedness shows. At best, the inattention doubles up as deeply felt passion; at worst-- and it's mostly always at worst-- it's self-inflicted cuts doused in lemon juice. On "What Do I Care", she's shocked when we don't sing her praises-- "I'm amazed you don't find me delicious/ Look at me, I'm a rock star!"-- and we're shocked she can't see why not.
