- Record Label: Drag City / Domino
- Release Date: Jan 28, 2003
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Oldham concentrates on crafting unremittingly introspective and confessional material in a spare, old-timey format. As sometimes happens on the recordings of his kindred spirit Cat Power, such unstinting uniformity can be a curse as well as a blessing.
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It is perhaps Oldhams best work yet, and somewhat ironically, his most accessible as well.
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Entertainment WeeklyIf you can find 30 minutes in your day for a Friends rerun, surely you can carve out time to give this gentle sigh of a record the attention it deserves. [14 Feb 2003, p.73]
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A good album that finds Oldham retreating from the layered solemnity of his most recent releases in favor of a mood that is as intimate and delicate as it is bittersweet and biting.
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MojoIt doesn't matter whether we're spying through his windows when he's so clearly spying through ours, his peculiarly stilted narratives and ageless music fusing into universal images of loneliness. [Feb 2003, p.94]
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Filled with both a clarity of instrumentation and thought, this is an album of undeniably mature work. And one which knows how to effect a large emotional impact without unsightly flexing of the muscles.
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Master and Everyone is a solid collection of rather thin songs that never quite sound intimate; songs that meant something profound to someone-- but always, it seems, someone else.
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Q MagazineHis most poignant and accessible work to date. [Feb 2003, p.96]
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There's nothing aggressive or urgent about the record, and oddly, that works in its favor.
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The WireEvery knot has been planed away. It's hushed, wistful, 'cool,' acoustic, sweetly dolorous and subtly well crafted... and dull as corrective footnotes in a treatise on ditchwater. [#228, p.54]
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UncutIn just over 35 minutes, the Bonnie Prince's mastery of form, blend of gentle awe and trembling sweetness are distilled to their essence. [Album of the Month, Feb 2003, p.74]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 14
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Mixed: 1 out of 14
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Negative: 2 out of 14
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WaltMAug 4, 2006
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MathieuCMay 12, 2006
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brettaApr 21, 2005Esential listening