“Sit Here and Cry”
Aubrie Sellers
Written by Aubrie Sellers and Adam Wright
Aubrie Sellers released her stellar debut album, New City Blues, all the way back in January, but she landed a contract with Warner Nashville this fall, and that major label muscle has resulted in an increased promotional push for the project. The album’s lead single, “Sit Here and Cry,” has been reissued for radio, and, to date, more than 20 stations with exceedingly good taste have been spinning the track.
With its heavily distorted, multi-tracked electric guitars and prominent percussion line, the single is immediately distinctive for its production. Sellers has often called her aesthetic “garage country,” and it’s an apt descriptor: The instrumentation on “Sit Here and Cry” is a throwback to the wave of trendy “garage” acts like The Strokes and The Libertines who were popular at the turn of the century. Considering that modern country too often looks to 80s-era arena rock tropes that were tacky even at the time when drawing inspiration from rock acts, it’s at least refreshing to hear an artist with influences that were far more hip.
Her chosen style allows Sellers to make herself recognizable right from the get-go: There’s simply no one else going for any degree of mainstream success– give or take Eric Church at his rowdiest– who sounds anything like Sellers. That radio programmers prefer “sameness” above most everything else, then, makes it unlikely that “Sit Here and Cry” will make substantial inroads on the charts, but that’s in no way a referendum on the single’s quality. Instead, it makes Sellers all the more compelling and unique.
That works in Sellers’ favor, because there’s no getting around an obvious point: Sellers’ voice sounds like that of her mother, Lee Ann Womack, to the point of distraction. Indeed, the single sounds not unlike Womack covering The Hives, but it’s to Sellers’ credit that her feisty performance sells it. There’s a natural sweetness to her vocal timbre that plays against the rough-hewn arrangement, and that contrast accounts for a good deal of the appeal here.
The song itself is serviceable enough. The economy of its language is noteworthy for how Sellers and co-writer Adam Wright stay out of the way of the straightforward narrative: “I was standing in the yard, watching you go / You’d only been gone about an hour or so / I’m already wondering what I’ll do / All by myself, without you / Then it hit me like a lightning crack / I’m gonna sit here and cry ’til you come back.”
Though it wants for originality, the song makes up for it in its clarity and brevity. Ultimately, it’s Sellers’ likable performance and her distinctive aesthetic choices that make “Sit Here and Cry” such a solid first offering.
Grade: B
I first heard Aubrie Sellers when she was backup singer on David Nail’s Brand New Day. Not knowing Aubrie, I assumed with delight that it was Lee Ann Womack. Sure sounded like her. And looks like her, too. Once I learned otherwise, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how talented Aubrie is. She may have great country family between and amongst the wonderful Lee Ann Womack, her father and also Lee Ann’s husband who is a successful and talented producer, yet she brings a distinctive style and energy and adds it to her very pleasing voice. I have been enjoying her album. If I am not mistaken, she opens for Miranda Lambert in her upcoming tour. (Liar, Liar is my favorite on the album!)
Eh, I’ll pass on this one. I’ve always liked Lee Ann Womack, and Aubrie certainly has her mother’s crystal clear tone and range, but…man, this doesn’t DO anything. Definitely not lyrically, not really melodically, even the production just has one setting and doesn’t do much with it. And while I understand how the dissonance between her voice and the arrangement might be compelling, for me it’s just kind of off. I’ll likely forget about this by tomorrow…