My Private Nation | ||||
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Studio album by Train | ||||
Released | June 3, 2003 | |||
Recorded | Southern Tracks Recording, Atlanta, Georgia | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 43:07 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Producer | Brendan O'Brien | |||
Train chronology | ||||
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Singles from My Private Nation | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | |
Blender | |
Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
Chicago Sun-Times | |
The Hartford Courant | (mixed) |
Los Angeles Times | |
Newsday | (B) |
Q | |
Rolling Stone | |
The Washington Post | (favorable) |
My Private Nation is the third studio album by American rock band Train. It was released June 3, 2003. The album was reissued February 8, 2005, as a CD+DVD dual disc set. The album is now certified Platinum in the US.
Four singles were released from this album. The first, "Calling All Angels," was a top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #19, and was a huge success on the Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40 charts. Second single "When I Look to the Sky" also hit the Top 100 and was successful in Adult Top 40 and the Adult Contemporary chart as well. Third single "Get to Me" was also a successful song on the Adult Top 40 chart, and the album as a whole has been certified platinum by the RIAA.
"I'm About to Come Alive" was covered in 2008 by country music artist David Nail, who released it as a single from his debut album of the same name.
My Private Nation received positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 61, based on 6 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".Allmusic editor Thom Jurek praised the band's existential lyrics and producer Brendan O'Brien's contribution to the album, stating "O'Brien's gorgeous multi-layered production [...] chromatic shadings and the textures of contemporary psychedelia are rooted in the heart of an ambitious garage band [...] he gets the sound of how big Train actually is in a context that is as aurally beautiful musically as it is emotionally and lyrically poignant".Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker dubbed it Train's "finest effort yet", complimenting the band's "amusingly self-deprecating lyrics" and the songs' "surface attractiveness". Sean Daly of The Washington Post noted layers of "featherweight joy" and "Hallmark-deep, guitar-driven pop", and noted lead singer Pat Monahan's performance, "[he] throws his body into every lyric and sounds like a showoff cross between Live's Ed Kowalczyk and Journey's Steve Perry".E! Online commented that the band "sound[s] like a better Counting Crows (with a dreamier frontman) and less-challenging Wallflowers". Despite writing that "Pat Monahan's vocals can be a bit grating and Train's material sometimes strays into Black Crowes Lite range", Chicago Sun-Times writer Jeff Wisser called the album "a greatsounding collection of slight but irresistible little poprock confections", noting "a sure sense of songcraft and a well-honed pop sensibility" in the songwriting.