Album Review – Morgan Wade’s “Obsessed”

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#570.15 (Singer/Songwriter-inspired Americana) on the Country DDS


Just when you thought Morgan Wade had ventured just out of your reach as a country fan, she releases an album where every song features steel guitar. Just when you thought she’d all but abandoned her singer/songwriter roots for more pop rock sensibilities, she releases an album that centers her songs above everything else, and strips her sound back. Right as you worried she was using personal health issues and some indefinable relationship with a reality TV star to nab headlines, she releases an album that proves she’s still an artist first.

Good luck pigeon holing Morgan Wade. Her career has been marked by shirking expectations placed upon her by others, often injudiciously. When she first appeared with her thick Floyd, Virginia accent, some wanted her to be the female version of Tyler Childers. After signing with RCA Nashville, they tried to make her into a mainstream radio star. On her new album Obsessed, it feels like Morgan Wade just trying to be Morgan Wade.

Don’t expect any third-person storytelling or involved allegorical commentary on Obsessed. Each of the 14 tracks feels like a straight recitation of a real moment of emotional vulnerability culled directly from the itinerant life of a touring musician interfacing with loneliness and leaving, sharing beds in intimate moments, and missing lovers under the covers of cold hotel rooms.

Morgan comes across as one who is susceptible to the whims of the heart more than most. But this also gives way to a gifted and passionate perspective on love that makes for compelling and sincere music. There is little or no latency between Wade’s actual feelings and the writing in these songs. You can feel the fighting back of tears to get words on paper or voice memos recorded during the wee hours of the morning when the feelings are raw and in the moment.


Guitarist Sadler Vaden of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit was the producer for Morgan’s first two albums, which came about when a sound guy gave Vaden a Morgan Wade album while performing at Floydfest in Wade’s hometown. Though Sadler’s name recognition certainly helped open doors for her, it also felt like the music was made more in Sadler’s vision than in hers. It also got Wade signed to a major label and a Top 30 song on country radio, so perhaps it was effective.

But as we’ve been seeing across the board in music, chasing a hot sound often puts a ceiling over the prospects for artists, while it’s songwriters like Zach Bryan and Wyatt Flores who are seeing wild reception for being more personal and honest. Where Morgan Wade’s debut Reckless (2021) saw Sadler Vaden receive multiple writing credits, and Wade’s sophomore album Psychopath (2023) included songs co-written by Nashville names like Ashley Monroe and Natalie Hemby, Obsessed is written all by Wade herself.

The album is also produced by Clint Wells who is simply known best as Morgan Wade’s guitarist and bandleader. Absolutely no pretentiousness or trend chasing makes it onto this album. But as much as you appreciate the organic sound and sincere approach, Obsessed also feels a little bit “one note” by the end. It could have used some more spice and separation of mood between the tracks to keep it engaging throughout. It’s also fair to warn country fans that this is not a country album as much as a singer/songwriter Americana album.

But most importantly, Obsessed is also a Morgan Wade album. It’s the most Morgan Wade album yet. As she navigates a romantic world that may also include dalliances with other women (as heard in songs like “Juliet”) your feel the stark wash of her emotional chemistry that we’re all susceptible to as we roam the earth looking for the right balance, sometimes only finding it in fleeting moments that are only good for haunting us later in obsessive thoughts about lovers who proved to be beyond our reach.

8/10

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