New Music 2015 - Part 80 - Rainey Qualley - Turn Down The Lights

This mini-album has been bubbling under the surface since its US release back in early June. It is finally getting some exposure this side of the pond thanks to the recent release of 'Me and Johnny Cash' as a single and to promote that Rainey was live on RTÉ in Ireland to kick things off.

The track list is:

• Turn Me On Like The Radio
• Dead and Gone
• Watered Down
• Never Mine
• Me and Johnny Cash
• Kiss Me Drunk
• Cool, Wild, Whatever

At the risk of seeming to damn it with faint praise, which if I wanted to do I would have achieved by not writing about it at all, it is country inflected pop. Qualley is a co-writer on all tracks, usually with John Ramey. It is not needlessly ornamented or overproduced. Furthermore it has no obviously weak tracks but also bear in mind that this is not an up-tempo affair by any means.
Not all music needs to be a challenge. I like this for that reason and also for its lack of pretence, or indeed pretentiousness. The whistling at the end of opening track 'Turn Me On Like The Radio' is worth a mention in that respect.
I'd rather like to think that she will be playing live in the UK next year. I can think of several festivals at which she would fit in well. I intend to be at one of them.
Another strange thing about this release is that when I bought it some months ago I could have paid about £7 to download it from Amazon UK but instead I paid only very slightly more than half of that, including shipping, to have the original (Cingle label) CD delivered from the US!