Josh Rouse: Nashville
Chris Roberts, Uncut, March 2005
Fifth album from soft-rock maestro: a bittersweet farewell to his hometown.
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO Josh Rouse, born in 1972, released a sunbaked album named after that year. It turned out to be prescient nostalgia. Since that mellow, much-acclaimed record, similar blue-eyed soul and knowing-but-never-smart-ass West Coast soft rock has gone from chronically unhip to only-slightly-ironically in vogue. The '70s singer-songwriter thing has been refracted through everything from Dionysian dance samples to the Scissor Sisters' treacly retreads, from the Guilty Pleasures compilations to the re-imaginings of newcomers The Magic Numbers.
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