Melissa Ferrick
The Other Side
(Right On)
First Appeared in The Music Box, January 2005, Volume 12, #1
Written by John Metzger
Over the course of the past 15 years, Melissa Ferrick has seen the upside and
downside of the music business. Signed to Atlantic Records at the age of 20, she
was dropped from the label after releasing only two albums. A stint with the indie outfit What Are Records? ended just as poorly when Ferrick descended into
a haze of drugs and alcohol, eventually losing everything she owned. By 2000,
however, she had made significant strides towards putting her life back
together, and taking control of her own career may have been the best decision
that she ever made. Her seventh studio effort The Other Side is an all-Ferrick
endeavor — save for the guitar accompaniment on Streetlight, she wrote,
performed, engineered, produced, and mixed all of the songs — and the end result
is a deeply personal and powerfully moving affair. True, the collection is, at
times, a little uneven, and tunes like the weak-chorused Beijing, the
droning dirge of Bad Bad Girl, and the rhythmic repetition of Fearless
waltz their way toward mediocrity. Yet, the nimble, acoustic guitar-driven
patterns of the title track; the soul-inflected folk of Nebraska; the
haunted, personal evocations of I Give Up and Anything Anywhere;
and the escapism of Westbound offer prime examples of why the size of her
audience has grown at a phenomenal pace in recent years. Part Ani DiFranco, part
Melissa Etheridge, part Indigo Girls, and part Alanis Morissette, Ferrick fills
The Other Side with passionate explorations of her emotions, and taken in
total, her ruminations paint a portrait that stands as a testament to her
perseverance, her strength, and her will to survive. 
Of Further Interest...
Out of the Cage: An Interview with Ferron
Indigo Girls - Come On Now Social
The Other Side is available
from Barnes & Noble. To order, Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2005 The Music Box