Ingrid Michaelson

Ingrid Michaelson’s new release, Everybody, exchanges some of the indie flavor that made her 2007 album Girls and Boys so enjoyable for something a bit more accessible in the pop realm. By Michaelson’s own admission, Everybody is completely autobiographical: “It’s direct slices of my life over the past year and a half, but it’s nothing that everybody else hasn’t gone through.” If that is the case, then Michaelson has had one hell of a year and a half – and it wouldn’t hurt if someone got her a Band-Aid for that constant broken heart of hers.

But Michaelson knows this, and she seems to enjoy applying makeshift patches for her relationship wounds by adding more fuel to the fire. In the opener “Soldier” she declares, “The battle with the heart isn’t easily won, but it can be” over light acoustic guitar strumming, ukelele and strings (which are the standard instruments on this album). On the title track, she continues the optimism: “Everybody wants to love/Everybody wants to be loved/Just let the love, love, love begin…” but she wanes just as quickly on the next song, “Are We There Yet”: “They say you’re really not somebody until somebody else loves you/Well I am waiting to make somebody somebody soon.”

“Incredible Love” is a beautiful song; its bluesy feel and quiet instrumentation demonstrates Michaelson’s growth as an artist more so than any other song on this album. From this point on, she realizes how frustrating this crusade of hers is. “Locked Up” is a bit edgier in sound as she pounds on ivory keys over sparse electric guitar (which she offsets with handclaps). The lyrics are exasperated here as well: “If I was 17 I could find it in a dream/A dime a dozen kind of love/…But I’m not 17 and I lost it in between/The birthday cakes and fast mistakes.”

“Maybe,” the lead single, is the last song. After the war she puts herself through, “Maybe” is a welcome break, but the outcome is – of course – still uncertain on this thing called love. Then again, if Everybody’s doing it, why can’t she?