Sweet Old World
| Sweet Old World | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by Lucinda Williams | ||||
| Released | August 25, 1992 | |||
| Genre | Roots rock | |||
| Length | 45:27 | |||
| Label | Chameleon | |||
| Producer | Gurf Morlix, Dusty Wakeman, Lucinda Williams | |||
| Lucinda Williams chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Christgau's Consumer Guide | A |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
| Q |  |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
| Spin Alternative Record Guide | 8/10 |
Sweet Old World is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. It was released on August 25, 1992. Williams re-recorded the album for release in 2017 to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
Sweet Old World was voted the 11th best album of 1992 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent music critics.Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it 6th on his own year-end list, later writing that the album was "gorgeous, flawless, brilliant [with] short-story details ('chess pieces,' 'dresses that zip up the side') packing a textural thrill akin to ". In a contemporary review, Audio magazine said Sweet Old World proves Williams is "a riveting writer and performer whose apparent simplicity is merely the entranceway to a rewarding artist of depth", while Stereo Review wrote "She delivers her searing lines without artificial sentiment or extraneous embellishment, just a wrenching directness that nourishes the spirit and knows no detour to the heart."
In a retrospective review for The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Dave Marsh later wrote Williams was a "damned determined artist" on Sweet Old World, in which the perspectives of her previous work--"adult, Southern, female, sensual but neurotic"--were stronger and more focused.AllMusic's Steve Huey said it was just as good as her 1988 self-titled album, calling it "a gorgeous, elegiac record that not only consolidates but expands Williams' ample talents." Like her self-titled album, Bill Friskics-Warren wrote in The Washington Post, Sweet Old World showcased Williams' "sharply drawn odes to desire and loss", sung with a "grainy drawl" and backed against a "lean, bluesy roots-rock" sound.
All songs written by Lucinda Williams except where noted.
Billboard Music Charts (North America) – Sweet Old World
...
Wikipedia