The Fat Angel Sings

Lydia Loveless grew up in a New Wave band with her siblings and father. But her own goals were a little different: “I always daydreamed of being in an awesome band that looked really sweaty and punk-rock onstage,” she says. On this year’s breakthrough, Real, the 26-year-old singer-guitarist often sounds like Loretta Lynn fronting the Replacements. Loveless, who started writing as a teenager, used to be too shy to play live. Now, she has the guts to turn down major-label offers: “This Maroon 5 manager or something rolled in and asked, ‘Would you be willing to do what it takes?’ And I was like, ‘Probably not for you.'”

From Lydia Loveless’s 2016 Bloodshot album ‘Real’
Lydia Loveless, “Same to You”
Tough Ohio roots rocker offers a kick-ass existential shrug from inside a brutal relationship – it’s the kind of song that’ll get you side-eyeing the liquor shelf at 9 a.m.

From Lydia Loveless’s 2016 Bloodshot album ‘Real’:

Lydia Loveless latest album is called Real, and that’s perhaps the best descriptor for her live show too. Loveless brings an authenticity to all of her performances, and with this new album under her belt, she’s expanded her musical arsenal as well. “I really like pop music and I always have, When I was younger, I wasn’t musically as adept and people described it as country punk. I just wanted to open things up a bit more and get away from talking about my childhood on the farm. I wanted to be talked about as a songwriter and a talented musician. I definitely improved so I wanted to move behind three-chord country ditties. This one, it’s cohesive and more advanced musically. Stylistically, it’s the most me.”

Like Ryan Adams with something to actually say, this native Ohioan writes songs full of barbed humor and tough truths, none more barbed or tougher than this inverted country tune about the reality of any relationship. “Paradise is only for the weak,” she sings. “Man, no one goes to heaven.” There’s something about the way she spits out that syllable, that “man,” with its slight Buckeye drawl, that sounds like a shrug of the shoulders, a roll of the eyes.