Ye Olde Records
2005
Made In China
About This Album
Around the summer 2005 release of Made in China, Juliana Hatfield posted a gutsy, revealing letter on her website. In it she writes proudly of the album's ragged feel, of her role as producer, of having released it through her own Ye Olde imprint. But there's also a weird, rambling defensiveness to the note. "People can buy this record or not," she writes. "I don't care. Or at least I pretend not to care. But I do care." She goes on to condemn artistic greed, industrial pollution, and the pressure on female artists to market themselves sexually. And then in her usual cynical fashion Hatfield winks at the whole notion, putting a photo of herself in a bathtub into the album's booklet. Made in China is as honest and unadorned as that letter. It unmasks her empty feelings on love (the slithery, dispassionate breakup song "On Video") and hate for a poisoned world ("Rats in the Attic," which musically is this record's closest amalgam to her past work), and in its strikingly direct recording quality it reacts to 2004's In Exile Deo, which despite being her strongest album in a long time was a little over-produced. For all these things China is terrifically rewarding.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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