Big Time cover

Big Time

Released

At some point, if you’re good enough, you pull into view of your heroes and start overtaking them. Olsen is shoulder-to-shoulder with Dusty Springfield and Tammy Wynette here, with lots of Seventies horns and pedal steel. She has a whiplash vibrato that she turns on and off, and can be both withering and completely vulnerable in the same line reading. Country breaks into a dozen American pieces and Angel Olsen is one of them.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Recommended by

Suggestions
Balsams cover

Balsams

Chuck Johnson
Murder Ballads cover

Murder Ballads

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Almanac Behind cover

Almanac Behind

Daniel Bachman
Ruins cover

Ruins

First Aid Kit
All Hail West Texas cover

All Hail West Texas

The Mountain Goats
What of Our Nature cover

What of Our Nature

Haley Heynderickx, Max García Conover
Fred Neil cover

Fred Neil

Fred Neil
Solo Performance At Belgium 1983 cover

Solo Performance At Belgium 1983

John Cale, TH Twente Band