Consumer Guide Album

Lori McKenna: 1988 [CN/Thirty Tigers, 2023]
At 55, McKenna takes her maturity seriously by leading with a typically striking commonplace that understands how far she still has to go: "The Old Woman in Me," who's "peace in a house dress" where McKenna herself remains a mere "work in progress." Not that this is a departure. Honoring the commonplace has been McKenna's lifework, with the youth audience welcome aboard but by no means a target, although note that the two songs her sons Chris and Brian cowrote are markedly adult-appropriate: "Happy Children" ("I hope you have happy children," who are welcome to try their hand at the family business) and "1988" ("I've been your biggest fan since 1988," which is when she and her husband Gene plighted their troth--a troth that's nothing less than the light at the end of a closer called "The Tunnel"). A