Renmin Park

Cowboy Junkies
Razor & Tie Music
General | Jun 2010

Reviews

Gabe
Reviewed 2010-11-22
First of several travel-based albums to be released by Cowboy Junkies, this album has flavors of southern China, where M. Timmins’ family spent a few months. The general tone is slow and languid, as most CJ albums are, but there are some unexpectedly lively, noisy, and grinding tracks and sections of songs. A nice step forward for a long-lived band.

1. Park bandstand brass band in the (titular, “People’s”) park, children singing
2. Slow folk song that you would expect from Cowboy Junkies
3. Slow, driving, noisy, churning dirge that you would hardly expect
4. Catchy pop song with a helping of rock ‘n’ noise
5. Plodding
6. Slow but swinging, nice textures
7. Mysterious, beautiful
8. Creepy echo effects that have no set temporal relationship to the vocals being echoed, they just drift before, after, around, over …
9. Distorted Chinese-flavored pop music
10. Run-of-the-mill mid-tempo
11. Slow country twang
12. Slowly slumping forward, Chinese vocals and instruments give this track the most “flavor” of any of these travel-influenced tracks
13. Limp musically but evocative lyrically
14. Teensy phone dial tune followed by “Sorry, no answer” message

Recent airplay

Stranger Here
Everyday CommotionFeb 04, 2011
Stranger Here
Daydream DisasterJan 27, 2011
Stranger Here
Music CasseroleJan 15, 2011
Stranger Here, Intro
Daydream DisasterJan 13, 2011
Stranger Here
A Walk In The Park
Music CasseroleJan 01, 2011

Charting

2010-11-28 — 2011-01-30
Week EndingAirplays
Jan 30 1
Jan 16 2
Jan 9 1
Jan 2 5
Dec 26 1
Dec 19 2
Dec 12 3

Track listing

1. Intro
2. Renmin Park
3. Sir Francis Bacon At The Net
4. Stranger Here
5. A Few Bags Of Grain
6. I Cannot Sid Sadly By Your Side
7. (You've Got To Get) A Good Heart
8. Cicadas
9. Interlude
10. My Fail
11. Little Dark Heart
12. A Walk In The Park
13. Renmin Park (Revisited)
14. Coda