Josh Rouse

Rouse backs rich narratives about confused stoners and male flight attendants with various AM radio styles from (you guessed it) 1972. The mystery is how he can recall the era of sad sack station wagon sing-alongs like "So Far Away," "Operator" and "Loves Me Like a Rock" without sacrificing his own voice. A great album.

A literate folky who never fit in with the western-shirt crowd, Josh Rouse indulges a Dusty
in Memphis fetish on his fifth album, 1972, a collection of white soul nuggets that yearn for a
return to AM radio days in the year of his birth. Digging such a strip-mined era is, at best,
dicey. Paisley-drenched pop nuggets like "Love Vibration," find Rouse floating above "I
Love the Seventies" corniness with the help of a solid backing band and alluringl... More >