Album Review – Caitlin Cannon’s “Love Addict”

#510.1 (Classic Country) and #570 (Americana) on the Country DDS.


Few if any songwriters exhibit the fearlessness towards the art form that country music’s Caitlin Cannon does. Unfiltered, and in certain cases, uninhibited, she’s willing to go to the places that all of our minds do—as do many of our personal histories—but that delve into subjects often banished to the shadows of polite society since they’re considered taboo or verboten. Caitlin Cannon though, she dives right in.

Far beyond the bawdy spinster that the title track of her latest album portrays, this fearlessness extends to the full range of human emotions, even if it’s primarily centered on the pleasure and pain receptors in her latest work. Love Addict is a deep exploration into the roiled body chemistry of the human experience, where the feelings of love and lust are often nebulous, chemical inductions derived from pharmaceuticals or interpersonal interactions can feel like one in the same, and where self-loathing looms ever-present.

Caitlin definitely makes a strong impression with the opening song with it’s f-bombs and references to erectile dysfunction. But as some clutch their pearls, others think, “Wow. Someone’s actually singing about what I experience.” When Cannon sang the song acapella on the massive comedy podcast Kill Tony, it killed.

When you pair “Love Addict” with the racy second single from the album “Jesus Is My Lover,” you might take the work as a sex album from cover to cover. But that’s judging the cover, not the book. Inside the subsequent chapters, Cannon delves into some serious moments of heartbreak, from the experience of being slowly ignored in “You’re Losing Me,” the fear of long-term commitment found in “I Wouldn’t Say I Love You,” and how sometimes the fear of the fall is worse than the fall itself in “The Impact.”

If anything, the first half of the album unfolds a little slowly. But this changes when you get to “Dr. Dealer,” which works both as personal psychological evaluation as it does a social commentary on the silly contours of the pharmaceutical industry. “Room 309” is a perfect specimen of classic country storytelling that’s timeless in its sentiments, and intrigues you to its real-world inspirations. The next-to-last song “My Own Company” is a master stroke of songwriting, speaking how its really ourselves who we often have the most contentious relationship with.

The fearlessness Caitlin Cannon brings to Love Addict extends to the real world. Along with her music career, she regularly engages in teaching songwriting courses to Veterans and convicted felons to help in their rehabilitation through processing their emotions and experiences in song. This in part is what Cannon does herself in the final track “Waiting,” inspired by her brother who is incarcerated. The song won the Songwriting Serenade competition in Texas in 2023, and speaks to Caitlin’s award-winning approach to the craft.

Love Addict is produced by Misa Arriaga who’s best known as the mother brain behind Kacey Musgraves and her original sound. With an all-star band of East Nashville hot shots fleshing out the vision, the album is mostly country, but unencumbered by genre when looking to give each song the attention and mood it deserves. That could be the Countrypolitan sound of “Let It Hurt Some,” the horns deployed on “Dr. Dealer,” or stripping it all back for the heartbreaking moments of “Waiting.”

Though some might surmise that Caitlin Cannon is pandering for attention by centering the racy elements of her songwriting on Love Addict, attention is exactly the ingredient that’s frankly lacking in her career. Though her champions include the legendary Pam Tillis, who appeared in Cannon’s video for “Love Addict,” and Lucinda Williams has also extended her friendship and blessings, like so many of the best songwriters of our generation, Caitlin remains scandalously under-the-radar.

Will Love Addict reset that fate? It probably should. But Caitlin Cannon is not going to dilute, filter, or candy coat her songwriting to achieve that outcome. Under the belief that songwriting is an act of mercilessly unburdening your soul and engaging in brutal honesty, she’s going to say what her heart feels, and hope the world comprehends.

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8.2/10

Stream/purchase Love Addict