Martha Wainwright
I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too
Release Date: Jun 10, 2008
Genre(s): Rock
Record label: Zoe
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Album Review: I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too by Martha Wainwright
Excellent, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
We live in a time of strange and unprecedented musical sub-genres: who, for example, could have predicted that Enter Shikari would attract so much attention with a blend of screamo punk and epic Faithless-influenced trance? But perhaps no current music phenomenon is as odd as the sub-section of the singer-songwriter genre entirely devoted to songs about what a crap bloke Loudon Wainwright III is. His former wife and sister-in-law Kate and Anna McGarrigle kicked things off a decade ago with the title track of their album Matapédia, but it's in recent years that the concept has really blossomed. Son Rufus offered to give him a thump on Dinner at Eight, while his daughter Martha coyly alluded to her anger towards him on her debut single Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole.
Based on rating 4/5
Thankfully, Martha Wainwright’s moved on from the poor-little-rich-girl motif of her dad-bashing eponymous debut – by no means a bad album, but to revisit those themes would have made for an intolerably self-indulgent follow-up. Instead, the adulterously ?titled I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too, which certainly has its issues, comes across as more grounded, learned and confident: Wainwright isn’t fighting for a share of the family spotlight any more. Despite her recent marriage, Wainwright sounds like the chain-smoking other woman waiting by the phone on leadoff single Bleeding All Over You and the equally scornful You Cheated Me, with its voluminous and memorable chorus.
Opinion: Fantastic
It's been so long (three years) since Martha Wainwright's self-titled debut that at least one critic began to worry that her career would be subsumed by that of big brother Rufus. That worry's all for naught, thankfully, because I Know You're Married produces a scorcher. While slightly less autobiographical than her debut, full-length two still spins deeply personal and no less affecting, with reflections on war ("Tower Song") and her mother's cancer ("In the Middle of the Night").