Amilia K Spicer’s new song “Harlan”

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhanyjBr0W4

Country music has never been known for its conceptual music videos, but Amilia K Spicer’s new song “Harlan” challenges her peers to get into the 21st century and embrace visual aesthetics as much as they celebrate sonic ones. Spicer has become my favorite new country singer over the past year, and I’ve followed her career developments as she’s come out of relative obscurity and managed to stake a pretty hefty claim in the American country music underground; a claim that has now matured and made way for her official primetime debut. It can sometimes be controversial when an artist makes so many professional gains in such a short frame of time, but to those who would suggest that her place in the modern country movement hasn’t been earned like everyone else’s has, I point you to “Harlan” and the majestic radiant glow that it adds to an otherwise stagnant and dying culture within pop music.

Spicer could have made a music video that consisted of just a black screen with her vocals dubbed over it and it likely would have been a hit thanks to her insatiable lust for harmonious melodies that bounce off of the walls and reverberate deep within our souls. Her lyrics are so imagistic that making a video could seem to some as altogether redundant, as when she sings we’re able to visualize with great detail everything that she describes in such plain speak. I’m a big believer in first impressions, and the first time that I heard Amilia K Spicer sing, I knew that I was listening to a future legend in her medium. Her music rocks but it doesn’t swing, and just when the depth of her consciousness becomes so severe and overwhelming that it feels like we won’t be able to take anymore, she’s able to reel us back in and fan away the flames. A comforting composer in the way of Paul Simon? Yes, I do find her to be more than worthy of the comparison. The difference is that her style of prose is much more literal, as is required to suit the parlance of our modern times.

In the cutthroat market of independent musicians, you’ve got to have a whole lot of skill and a whole lot of luck to make a serious impact even on the indie level – which, to be fair, has become a lot more accessible in the wake of social networking and the internationalization of DIY music. Lucky enough for Amilia K Spicer though, she’s got talent in spades and bad luck has yet to infect her fortunate path. There’s a major void that was left when country music’s great transition into crossover pop officially came to a halt at the beginning of the 2000s, leaving only the remnants of a once thriving scene. It might have taken a little longer than any of us may have hoped, but it looks like we’ve finally found someone who can pick up the pieces and get country music back on track. That someone is Amilia K Spicer.

PLEDGE MUSIC: https://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/amiliakspicer

Michael Rand