Album Review – Kristina Murray’s “Little Blue”

#510.1 (Classic Country) on the Country DDS.

Aren’t we all like little refugees, living in the rubble of our once lofty dreams and aspirations, trying to reconstruct our lives from the circumstances we find ourselves in, making the best of often bad situations. Even those among us who achieved our goals often still remain unfulfilled, looking to the left and the right and asking, “Is this it?” while others gripped with fear fail to even pursue their dreams, instead leaving possibilities perpetually in the offing as opposed to trying to fulfill them and facing abject failure.

There might be nothing more fickle in the universe than who makes it and who doesn’t in music. Timing and opportunity, but sometimes entirely arbitrary circumstances play such a tantamount role. Some with infinite talent and appeal might doggedly pursue a musical occupation their entire lives, and still end up scandalously overlooked. Then some amateur without even a notion of launching a music career inadvertently finds themselves the beneficiary of incredible virality, cashing $350 million checks.

Kristina Murray moved to Nashville, believing the people who heard her sing and heard her songs, and told her she had something singular that the world was waiting to hear. While working day jobs to support herself, her nights were filled with hopping bars to perform her songs and the songs of others, while also singing harmonies with whoever needed them, and hoping for that moment when the big discovery would happen. She quickly became a mainstay in East Nashville, strongly respected by her peers.

But as often is the case, 10 years went by, and for whatever reason, that big opportunity never really presented itself, even though to those paying attention to the doings of East Nashville, the legacy of Kristina Murray loomed as large as any, and her small but strong fandom spread international. Her songs, her rich and emotive voice, the way her sad eyes seemed to carry infinite sorrows to sing about stoked notions of the second coming of Emmylou Harris.

Murray’s debut album on Normaltown/New West Little Blue isn’t a “Best Of” from her time in Nashville. It’s very much a thematic, cohesive work about her experience and struggles trying to reckon with getting overlooked and passed over in music with no rhyme or reason, and the erosion of feelings of self-worth this can manifest—and how at some point, you simply have to insist for the world to turn your way as opposed to waiting for that fate to materialize.

Little Blue is a country album, though it starts off with some interesting textures, like the Grateful Dead notions of the opening song’s guitar tones. The song “Has Been” takes on almost an ’80s yacht rock aspect to it, with country notions interwoven into it. But it’s how producers Misa Arriaga and Rachel Moore really bring out the character of Kristina’s voice, and then deftly center it as music’s focal point that makes it easy to lose yourself in the immersive moments of Little Blue, and then use them to reflect on your own perspectives and pursuits.

The album might lack that banger, or that big, robust chorus that could break out into the bigger musical consciousness. Murray’s a great cover song singer, and you wonder if she couldn’t have recorded a big cover song for the 10th spot on the track list, though this might have risked destroying some of the mood. This album is very moody and brooding, but this also what makes the listening experience so enveloping and intoxicating. Kristina Murray’s music and story prey on your musical empathy, and suck you in.

The good news is there’s a happy ending to all of this, manifested by the release of Little Blue itself. Will this be the catalyst for the little blue ball we’re all spinning on to finally wake up to the talent that it has in its midst with Kristina Murray? One can only hope. But it’s also important to recognize that sometimes the most powerful muse is pain, and we must be put to the test, and our resolve challenged before we’re ready to find the resolution of our dreams. Because only then will those dreams confer fulfillment since it wasn’t chance or luck that allowed them to manifest. It was earned.

Kristina Murray has most certainly earned every ounce of whatever she has coming to her from Little Blue.

8.2/10

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Stream/Purchase Little Blue