Sarah Sample: Someday, Someday

Sarah Sample joins the ranks of so many other Sarahs in music history, right alongside stellar performers like Sarah Slean, Sarah Harmer, Sarah McLachlan and Sara Bareilles (ok, some less stellar than others). Yet with the release of her third full-length disc, Someday, Someday, Sample fails to distinguish herself from the other Sarahs of the music world.

Someday, Someday was clearly intended to be a folk record, but you wouldn’t know that from hearing it. You most likely would mistake it for a wannabe pop album, without any of the gusto or catchiness a pop record should have. The banal arrangements and flat vocal production keep this one relatively lackluster, except for the very first track, “I’m Ready”. It really is quite a shame how boring this record is, because listening to Sarah’s solo acoustic performances, you get a sense of how these songs were intended to sound. Perhaps Sample should stop trying to insert herself into the ranks of the other Sarahs, most of whom know what to do with their musical production, and strive more for the minimalist production techniques that made Patty Griffin’s debut so wonderfully haunting.