Juliana Hatfield - God's Foot (1997)

In 1996 Juliana Hatfield had released two acclaimed albums, and was looking to start work on her third. Working largely on her own, playing all the instruments apart from the drums, and producing herself, she set about recording a batch of songs that she'd recently written. When the album was more or less complete she took it to her record label Atlantic, who promptly rejected it out of hand. This was a major blow for Hatfield, who went into a period of depression, culminating in her begging to leave the label, which Atlantic eventually agreed to. Once again, the general public can see what the record company couldn't, and the consensus of opinion is that this would have been one of Hatfield's best albums, so it's fortunate that the songs have leaked online and we can hear for ourselves. In 2014 Hatfield herself released demos of some of the 'God's Foot' songs as part of a Pledgemusic campaign, but not all of these songs were included. However, I've used that track listing for this album, as it's probably the closest we'll get to how Hatfield wanted it to sound, never getting as far as the mixing and sequencing stage in 1997. The rejection of 'God's Foot' hit her hard, sending her to bed in a state of depression, only rousing out of it in 1998 when she released the raw and emotive 'Bed', named after that experience. Perhaps she needed that catharsis to come out the other side and continue her career, releasing a dozen more excellent albums since then.

Track listing

01 How Would You Know
02 Mountains Of Love
03 Fade Away
04 Eye To Eye
05 What Have I Done To You
06 Don't Need A Reason
07 You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Melody
08 Chance Is Waiting
09 Charity
10 Jake's
11 Takin' It Easy
12 Perfection
13 Losing Your Looks