I’ve Got Me is Joanna Sternberg’s second album. On this new record, the young songwriter seems to have built on the touching if scruffy production of their 2019 debut Then I Try Some More, and has truly crystallized their formula into a purer form: clean, minimal instrumentation and a singular voice that’s so gut-wrenchingly open and honest it’s hard not to be affected. Sternberg doesn’t just wear their heart on their sleeve — their performance is sleeveless, just all raw heart.
As to what genre the album fits into, it’s been categorized as cozy folk, which is a little reductive. Not all acoustic guitar songwriters are folk, and besides Sternberg backs themself expertly with piano, Rhodes organ, electric guitar, drums and upright bass. It isn’t hard to hear Sternberg’s mastery in these songs, nor their appreciation for the classical. The fact that they have been making music since early childhood allows them to swim in these waters well. I’ve Got Me sounds like someone who sings and plays as easily and as freely as breathing.
The most accurate categorization of the album would be bluegrass. Unless we aggressively defend the Appalachian history of bluegrass, in which case Sternberg’s Manhattan roots would disqualify them. Thankfully, anyone with heart and empathy will be drawn to the connection many of these songs seem to yearn for. That kind of audience couldn’t care less about regionality.
“The Love I Give” for example is classic bluegrass, and is reminiscent almost of Mother Maybelle’s songs, which were as heartfelt as they were bluntly unvarnished, in contrast to her polished and presentable daughters in the Carter Family. Quieter pop and rock music showcases the songwriter’s honesty; emotions laid bare. This can be its Achilles heel, as it can become too saccharine in heavy doses.
For example, as good as Kimya Dawson’s music can be, we look back with a cringe at how performatively quirky it all was. Sternberg, on the other hand, has the sincerity of Heather Lewis from Beat Happening, and a heart-breaking inability to hide themselves, like the best work of Daniel Johnston. The time honored (some might say time worn) subjects of lost and unrequited love are difficult to make fresh, but the perfect imperfection of Sternberg’s talented vocals almost always wins the battle of making it new. Her best work is, like the title song “I’ve Got Me,” more concerned with the struggle to love yourself.
Though most work on I’ve Got Me is quite striking on its own, the album suffers as many do of repetitiveness. “The Human Magnet Song” surprises by really breaking open into full rock mode but that’s too close to the end of the album to be truly dynamic. Sternberg has an abundance of a couple of commodities that are hard to find: a truly gifted voice chock full of sincerity and painful, wistful emotion, and the ability to craft songs that showcase it well. I’d be hanging on their every breath if listening to a live performance. And as individual songs, most are great. But for I’ve Got Me, the album format is unsatisfying in its alchemy. Too much sugar in the tea, even though we love sugar.
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