Sophie B. Hawkins Returns With An Acoustic Re-imagining
- R.A.G.
- Oct 7
- 4 min read
Gorgeous new LP from Sophie B. Hawkins just released, and the record is fully acoustic, taking songs that have a wonderfully pop underbelly and turning them into a sort of lush singer-songwriter approach. This works amazingly because the songs come through with such a unique warmth, and it feels completely inviting.
The record showcases a lot of honesty, and that is something that pulled me in very quickly. Lyrics can be quite descriptive; they come with a lot of inner thought and some emotional backbone, but there are very few walls built around this. It is a record that speaks volumes for the artist simply because she's able to give little pieces of herself with these songs.
The album is called Whaler Re-Emerging, and it starts with the track called "Right Beside You", which jumps straight into some of that personal attribute. Her lyrics can be very descriptive, and again, that inner thought just comes spilling out everywhere for everyone to take in.
What's cool about this track is that it starts giving you some of the staples that you end up feeding into throughout the remainder of the release. You have lush acoustic guitars that are usually double-tracked, so you have a thick tonality because of that, and it comes with keys that perform this hook, which is something that I've always loved in pop music and in rock music, for that matter.
Having musical hooks is a classic move. It's something that has sort of been lost in today's musical platform, and I'm not sure why, but again, I've missed that for a long time, so right off the bat, in this very first track, you start getting some musical hooks from those keys, and I fell right in love with that
The lyrics are embracing and descriptive, again, letting her walls down and speaking her mind unafraid, and this is part of what makes it feel so authentic.
Songs like "Don't Tell Me No" give off a powerful and soulful performance vocally because she really ends up belting out, and she absolutely has that robust powerhouse style approach when she wants to go there.
This is an aspect of the record that she brings out on certain songs, and it raises the level of intensity and gets you connected even more.
This one is clean with those acoustic guitars but also a piano, which serves as the base of the track, and her vocals are doubled up a lot of the time, which ends up creating this gorgeous texture, and it feels almost like her vocals are instruments themselves in the song.
Don't get me wrong, you really get sucked into the lyrics and you're getting more of that personality and inner thought process, but the way that she sings and how they're double-tracked, it all adds a unique texture, and the first time around, you end up remembering the melodies more than the lyrics. Or, at least I do. Maybe that's just how my brain works.
A lot of the songs are based on love, relationships, and emotion. They are super relatable, and a lot of the time lyrics are articulated in a way that we wish we could express ourselves.
"True Romance" is a damn near perfect example of exactly that. So much wonderful self-expression comes through, and you can really tell she's not holding a lot back. It's almost like the record was likely very cathartic for her to write and release.
One of the most prominent tracks on the record, which seems to show up in various forms throughout her entire catalog, is a track called. "As I Lay Me Down".
This one is very piano-based, and it's got a single vocal a lot of the time so you're really honed in on those lyrics and her gorgeous vocal approach, spinning it into a sort of cinematic tonality, and that is something I let sort of just swallow me up.
It feels good to get engulfed by a record like this. This is because it's so genuine that the songs can be incredibly relatable a lot of the time. The performances across the board are outstanding and really push the sentiment of the songs and enforce more of that genuine approach.
Just to be clear, this entire album is a reimagined and acoustic version of a record called Whaler, released in 1994.
I found this super enticing because all it did was make me want to go back and listen to the original versions after I went through this record.
I loved the original album, but for me, the acoustic versions bring something a little warmer to the table and showcase more clarity on the lyrics, so I delved into the new version a little bit deeper.
In case you're not super familiar with the artist, she is probably most well-known for her biggest radio hit, "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover", from back in the early '90s.
She has released a number of albums, singles, and more. She's got a massive catalog as she's been doing it for decades, and it's beautiful to see that she's still at it and really amazing at performing.
Listening to Whaler Re-Emerging, I can see that she wanted to breathe a different life into songs that had a lot of meaning for her.
I suggest listening to this record with headphones on so you can soak in everything the way it was meant to be heard, and take a deep dive through her catalog of outstanding songs.
You can spend an entire day listening to her music.
Take a deep dive into this record now and see what it does for you.
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