Pushin' Against a Stone

This is a great folk/soul album. I don’t think many people realize how much influence black folks have had on what we consider to be American folk music. Much of what AP Carter and Alan Lomax codified as American folk music was directly recorded from black people in the rural south. As someone who plays traditional American folk music, I care about the truth of where our music comes from and whose story is being left out. Valerie June is reclaiming that story and I’m glad she’s represented here. Thank you to whoever included her!

Something fully new to me, which is always nice. I sort of vacillated over whether I felt like the old timey vocal style was too much of an affectation. It seems like she probably came by it honestly and I ended up feeling like I generally liked it, but that it might wear thin at length. The instrumentation did the job but a lot of it felt fairly nondescript.

Dan Auberbach is the master of spending a small fortune to make something sound like it was authentically recorded badly in 1964, isn't he? Beautiful voice, lovely melodies, but the production left me very cold. I'll definitely listen to more from the artist, but I want to hear how she sounds when not forced to perform through pretentiously vintage kit!

Wow just a delightful mix of Blues, R&B, gospel, and Bluegrass. Utterly unique and utterly American.

It's an unbelievably calm album, straddling a few different genres. It's old school, but with a new world feel. Interesting listen.

Truly wonderful

Wow… this was a unique album! Sounded absolutely wonderful with that bluegrass-tinted vocal delivery. Wonderful addition to the list.

So lovely. A favorite of mine.

Super cool!!!

I just love getting an album I've never heard of that blows me away with its amazingness. This puts together so many wonderful things in its own distinctive blend. Yay Valerie June!

I love this album & would have considered it being my add! Valerie has such a unique voice

I started listening to this and loved it, got high and loved it even more. Just immaculate voice and immaculate vibes from start to finish.

I was familiar with this album before and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. It's some great music from a fantastic artist. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Slight yes. Not essential but probably could have made it on.

Absolutely stunning. Amazing voice. Wondrous production. I've never heard of her. This is my first 5 from 43 user submitted albums. Top choice.

I really liked this a lot. Very unexpected, given that the genre listed is Soul. Sounds much more traditional folk/Americana to me, and I like it. 4 stars.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Wanna be on your mind, You can’t be told, Somebody to love

I really quite dig this, nice blend of genres, Dan Auerbach production. Dumped a few songs onto some playlists

Amazing voice. Very calming music. Loved it

Her vocal style really works for me and the bluesy and soulful arrangements are enjoyable. Wanna Be On Your Mind and Pushin' Against a Stone work best for me. Though there are a few tracks that are kinda 'meh', there is enough passion and power in the style that made it an enjoyable surprise.

I like the classical soul and roots music on this album. Not very original, but splendid performances by singer and band.

Chill bluesy folk

This was a pretty lovely discovery. A very soulful kind of country album with eclectic vocals and a vintage style that never felt too over the top and still managed to sound fresh and inspired

Loved this, great example of a modern retro album, great voice. Thanks to whoever submitted this album it’s going straight into my frequent rotation and I’ll be listening to further Valerie June albums,

Beautiful soulful folk, an unexpected joy.

very pleasant, will listen again.

This is really cool. An album filled with refreshing country ballads with real feeling and soul.

Listening to Pushin’ Against a Stone is like trying to categorize a ghost—technically impossible, but you can feel it hovering. It's folk and it's soul and it's country and it's blues, but it’s none of those things if you’re a purist. June’s voice is what you'd hear if Dolly Parton was raised on Memphis street corners by Billie Holiday and sprinkled with stardust from Sun Ra’s closet. It's nasal and creaky and cosmic. It's the sound of someone who never once considered auto-tune but might use moonlight as reverb. The album opens with “Workin’ Woman Blues,” a declaration that feels like it was etched onto a train car with a switchblade. It pulses with upright bass and fluttery horns like it got lost on the way to a Stax session and decided to invent a new genre instead. It’s not just a working-class anthem—it’s a séance for the ghosts of every underpaid waitress in Tennessee. And then there’s “Somebody to Love.” This isn’t the Queen song. It’s not even the Jefferson Airplane song. It’s the Valerie June song, which means it feels like it came from an alternate universe where heartbreak sounds like banjos orbiting a dying star. And when she sings “I want somebody to love,” she’s not whining. She’s testifying, like someone who already knows the cosmos heard her and is just being fashionably late. The production (helmed by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and Kevin Augunas) is refreshingly analog in an era where even folk singers sound like they’re performing inside a MacBook. It’s messy in the right ways. It breathes. It creaks. It wears boots instead of shoes. Auerbach tries to keep the album on the tracks, but Valerie June keeps steering it toward the woods—and thank God for that. What makes Pushin’ Against a Stone remarkable isn’t just the songs (though they’re phenomenal) or the vocals (which are extraterrestrial), but the spirit of it. It sounds like the work of someone who’s been around for a thousand years, scraping stories off the walls of time. It’s the kind of album that makes you re-check the release date because it doesn’t make sense that this came out in 2013. It doesn’t even make sense that it came out on Earth. To say that Pushin’ Against a Stone is good feels like missing the point. It's not just good. It’s elemental. It's an album that resists commodification. Valerie June doesn’t want to be famous; she wants to be eternal. And albums like this? They are.

Rootsy. Don’t really warm to her slightly whiny voice.

Really enjoyable 4 3

I like the more soulful songs, but I don't like the folky ones nearly as much, especially the sparer, slower ones.

Pleasant listen.

Liked this, listened to it multiple times already. it goes a bit too country at times but overall really nice music 3.4

Soul, alternative. Ni fu ni fa.

Interesting. Pretty nice

This was a pretty cool and unique of soul, R&B with a bit of rock and folk. It had a lot of different tempos. The j instrumentals were solid and June has a very nice voice. All in all it was pretty nice to hear something new and this good while still being modern. 7.0/10

Recording feels a bit awkward at times

This was an enjoyable surprise. It has an almost timeless quality due to all of the genres Valerie June plays in. Her vocal style grated on me a little bit, both too much and not enough for what she was trying to do with it. Fave Songs: Pushin' Against a Stone; Trials, Troubles, Tribulations; Workin' Woman Blues; Tennessee Time

I enjoyed this. Its not my usual stuff but this was a fun listen. Thanks!

Quite nice.

A nice listen.

Amy Winehouse does O Brother, Where Art Thou? It’s not doing much for me.

This is a confident, genre-hopping debut that shows Valerie June’s range and charm, but also struggles a bit with coherence. There’s no denying the talent here: the songwriting is strong, the voice is distinct (if not for everyone), and there’s a heartfelt musical curiosity in every track. Produced by Dan Auerbach (the Black Keys guy), the album has that retro, lo-fi 60s sound. But now, more than a decade on, it also dates the album a little. It’s the kind of nostalgic production that can slide into kitsch, and I found myself wondering on several occasions how these songs might’ve sounded with a more modern or timeless sound. Valerie June clearly has a deep love for blues, folk, soul, country, and gospel, and she pours it all into this album. The downside is that it sometimes feels more like a tour of her influences than a fully formed style of her own.

Fine 👍

Singer/songwriter is one of my least favorite genres. She has talent, for sure, but it's not my jam. Worth a listen though.

Chilled out, soulful, pleasant. Rating: 2.5 Playlist track: Wanna Be on Your Mind Date listened: 02/12/24

Not something for me, but I see the appeal. Personally found the singer's voice kind of grating and everything too samey. I'm probably not American enough for this.

Pushin' Against A Stone doesn't land with me, it's a little haunting, a little atmospheric, but really not anything that appeals to me. Her voice works within the art but is annoying and eventually grating, some of the influences are decent but it just doesn't go anywhere and doesn't stand out. 2/5.

Kinda nice

Not bad at all

ok, bit dull

Huge potential, weak delivery

This LP had an uphill battle already as singer-songwriter is one of my least favorite genres, but it was so vapid and poorly constructed that it actually made me a little angry. June has little to offer in the way of original songwriting, with most of these being timid covers of greats gone by. Much worse, her take on these classics is the softest, most quavering vocal I’ve heard in a while - it’s almost as if she’s afraid to raise her voice above a whisper lest someone know she’s singing. I wanted to attribute this to bad mixing, but even on the very few tracks that have a tempo above a crawl her vocals barely rise above the instrumentals. Just an uninspired, insipid LP overall that brings nothing new to the table.

It bored me terribly, it's not for me. Even the stronger tracks didn't make a difference that excited me, I think it's for more niche tastes.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no...... no. End of album update: fuck, no. 1/5.