Who Are You Sellin' For?

I remember the first time I saw The Pretty Reckless live in concert. In 2011, I had purchased tickets to see Evanescence live in Chicago on my birthday. My first encounter with the band, however indirect, was my friend and I standing on the sidewalk, in line, waiting for the venue to open when a group of “emo kids” would walk past us in the center of the sidewalk where everyone was lined up. My friend Kristen and I were annoyed but everyone behind us seemed rather excited.

For me, the most exciting part of standing in line was the sudden arrival of an ambulance that would show up to an unknown restaurant across the street. No, I don’t know the restaurant and for obvious reasons, if I did know, I wouldn’t put them out there like that.

This group of “emo kids” would turn out to be one of the opening acts, The Pretty Reckless, fronted by an 18-year-old Taylor Momsen.

The band, and Momsen in particular, put on one hell of a show and was instantly a band to watch for me.

I found there debut album “Light Me Up” in a Best Buy some time later and they quickly climbed my list of favorite bands.

This is not the story of that album.

Another album would follow in 2014, “Going To Hell”, and it would follow a similar rock vibe with a greater pop factor, as the band would be more popular now.

This is not the story of that album either.

This IS the story of the album that the band would release two years later, “Who Are You Selling For”, a change of pace album that reflected a maturity in their sound that leans on more of a jazz and blues influence. Music feels like the band collectively said, “Okay, that was fun. Now let’s really focus.” and that focus truly shines from track to track.

“Get your shit together!”

When you press play on the album, that’s the first thing you hear from Momsen. The track is “The Walls Are Closing In/Hangman” and begins with Momsen alone at a piano.

There's no light
Mama, I can't see at all
There's no one left to break this fall
Mama, there's no one at all

After this, the band slowing bring us into a new song, “Hangman”. Now, if you’re know anything about me, you know I’m a huge wrestling fan. A good song is a good song. A great song is a great song, but it takes a special song to work as a theme song.

“When they come to hang you, stand straight, brace your neck, be strong, daughter.”
The lyrics aren’t “strong” but it’s the energy of the song and the power in which Momsen sings it that will make you stand straight, brace your neck, and take on whatever. Nothing too heavy. Nothing too relaxed. It falls in a sweet spot where you could use it to enter a party, a board meeting, or exit from an event you’ve just hosted.

As I mentioned before, what I love about this album is the jazz/blues direction for this album and if there was any doubt of the blues influence, look no further than “Take Me Down”

The lyrics are essentially a retelling of “The Crossroads” legend attributed to the father of blues, Robert Johnson. The story is he stood at a crossroads and made a deal with the devil for his career.

Been waitin' at these crossroads
Forever and a day
On a guy to buy my soul

For what it’s worth, if you want to feel true old school blues, find some Robert Johnson and just let the music be. It likely won’t be as polished as you’re used to, but that’s why I used the word “feel” instead of “hear” or “listen”.

There’s just something different with “Take Me Down” compared to others singles they’ve released. It’s “treated differently” from the blues guitar to the control Momsen used on her voice compared to the song before this one, “Oh My God”. This song feels like the TPR rock music you’re used to is on a DNA journey, seeking its roots. With ‘grandparents’ like Jazz and Blues, they’ve found their ‘parent’ Classic Rock and are now playing music based on old stories told around the holiday dinner table.

The song closes with everyone singing “Sign with the devil”, another nod to Johnson with vocals that, if was your introduction to TPR, might lead to disappointment when listening to the earlier work as you’d find it “too heavy”.

All of their music is great, by the way. All bands change their sound eventually as they move in their musical journeys.

“You can cross your fingers, but you can't cross me”

When I think about “old-school” blues, I think of two things: Jam Sessions and that lyrical cadence where you say a line, repeat the line, and then put a cap on that line. Like this:

I’m a prisoner, won’t you set me free
I’m a prisoner, won’t you set me free
You could have my body, but you can’t have me

As far as I’m concerned, that’s a quintessential element of the blues, to the point where, if you were going to imitate it, you’d just do that with your parody lyrics and call it a blues parody, like David Alan Greer’s character on “In Living Color” (I wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? Here it goes.)
This is another, more blatant example of TPR sharing those “dinner table stories”. This is just a song with a blues lyrical cadence used in a way to make a quick or sharp point…

… which leads me to something else about the band and Taylor Momsen that I’ve always appreciated.

Quick story: When I saw them live that first time in Chicago, Momsen’s presence and performance was very sexual. Not in a way that was gross or exploitative, but in a way that seemed liberating. As if to say, “I have a body, it’s mine, and you will not police it!” - or more so - “I have a body, it’s mine, and I will not allow you to police it”. It was something that captured my attention and made me respect not just Taylor Momsen, but the band as a whole because the performance of your front-woman represents everyone in the band.

I say this because I love the point made at the end of the song.

You can have my money
Have me on my knees
You can have my body
But you can't have me
No, you can't have me

I hear that and I only thought is, “You can possess whatever you want of mine and have me in whatever position, but you can not have what makes me, me.”

I like that. It’s sharp, to the point, and powerful, like the blues should be.

I wasn’t going to originally talk about “Wild City”, but it’s one of those songs you can’t NOT talk about. The opening, with the high-hats and the funkiest guitar, feels like it’s been pulled straight off the soundtrack of a black-ploitation movie of the 70s. The “rock band” joins in and you remember that it’s a rock band’s album, but again, it doesn’t FEEL like you’re listening to the lead singer of a rock band perform.

“Wild City” is a funky song about a “motherless child, in a wild wild city”. The story of a pretty young woman unable to make her way on her own, being alone in the world, just trying to make it by any means necessary isn’t told in shame. As the second verse states:

It could happen to me, it could happen to you
It's the luck of the draw, it's the blow of the dice
There ain't nothin' that you can do.

To me, it’s a reminder, specifics aside, that “bad things” can happens to anyone at anytime and it isn’t always their fault. For me, it’s a reminder that you never know what someone is dealing or going through and we shouldn’t assume or judge.

Like other songs, there is an interlude that is clearly a rock band’s interlude, in case you forgot while you’re stuck in this song’s funky vibe.

“I’m cold, already dead”

“Already Dead” is a dark and melodic rock song that is more akin to what someone who was already familiar with TPR would recognize.

In the doldrums of my life
I was nice to the people that I meet
But inside there was hate
Can you relate to the feelings that I preach?

If you're sure I know
The way to go
I'm sure it's all in your head

As we’ve already heard with this album, the style played musically tells the story of maturity around that “dinner table”. This song conveys a sentiment all too familiar with “rock fans” - the juxtaposition of the smiling happy mask we oftentimes wear on the outside compared to the darken, often emotionless void of our core. I imagine this song could be played for a therapist to convey someone feeling empty; someone that feels as if they’re cold and already dead.

I said earlier that there are two elements that scream “blues” to me - a particular cadence and the jam session. “The Devil’s Back” is that jam session.

Envision playing a song, going for an outro and just feeling the energy and you just keep going. This is that song. The song is seven minutes long, with four minutes of that being a jam session. No lyrics beyond that point. The guitarist just plays solo and the band just follows suit. As the kids would say, they “let him cook!”. Momsen vocalizes in the background but other than that, they just… go.

This feels like it should be the way the album closes out. It isn’t, “Mad Love” is the last song, but if you’ve ever been to a live performance of any band or musician and they got caught up in a moment and just went “off-script”, that’s what this feels like. There’s an intimate energy in this closing that, despite not being the end of the album, caps off the intimate nature of this album. “Who Are You Selling For” feels personal. If the first album was made to be “an acceptable rock band album” and the second album was the “expected follow-up”, this album is the “this is who we are” album. Again, no shade to “Light Me Up” and “Going To Hell” - I love them both - but this is a different. This is something special. This album was played with their souls and it shows and that’s why it’s one of my favorite albums.