The record I have no problem with. The sly feeding of misinformation and egocentric prima donna nuttiness I do. So let me start here..
Whilst Minnie’s press office would have us believe that Minnie was signed to Island Records by legendary record executive Denny Cordell as early as 1992 and had been writing songs since her mid-teens the truth of the matter seems to be somewhat less clear as Driver has confessed in other interviews that she started her singing career when she was drunk at dinner parties, testing out her songs on friends and family before she plucked up the confidence to perform professionally, adding that one record company executive was so worried by the drunken performances that he refused to encourage the star any further for fear of being crucified. Doubts about crucifixion aside though, does this sound like a primed and precocious talent literally waiting to burst forth onto a record-buying public? And why, at this particular juncture in time, is the multi-millionaire financier’s daughter touting the story of living in a trailer? Why? Because Driver has all but chosen to assume the blue-collar life-style and demeanour of a character right out of a Bruce Springsteen record to sell what is by and large a blue-collar, kickin’ and a hollerin’ Bruce Springsteen inspired record. Yes, the Oscar-nominated actress famous for her roles in Gross Point Blank and Good Will Hunting has been universally vilified by the press and up to a point, it’s been perfectly justified.
So how do we go about criticising an album by an artist who has already slammed resentful ‘fat bastard journalists’ and confessed to not being ‘good’ with criticism? We go about by stating the truth: that for all our reservations about its central character and its factual origins, ‘Everything I’ve Got In My Pocket’ is a surprisingly accomplished light-country record that can boast some exceptionally magic-moments – like the Dusty Springfield-meets-Lenny Kravitz-meets-Air in a weightless space camp environment title track and the soily, mournful ‘Fast As You Can’ – reminiscent of an early, Stone Poneys era Linda Ronstandt – in that it’s as pretty as it is tragic.
Produced by American Pie’s Marc Dauer and members of the Wallflowers and Pete Yorn’s band manages to doff her more than plentiful cap to a menagerie of vocal legends: Karen Carpenter on ‘Home’, Hope Sandoval on ‘Deeper Water’, Sheryl Crow on ‘Down’ – I could go on, but I won’t as I don’t want to give the impression that this mature and honest collection of self-penned songs (with the exception of Springsteen’s ‘Hungry Heart’ – which if anything, adds to the original) is anything less than genuine.