OUTSIDE CHILD NAMED #2 BEST ALBUM OF 2021 BY NEW YORK TIMES
Congrats to Allison and the whole Outside Child family on making the New York Times Best of 2021 list!
From Allison:
I had to sit down when I saw this.
I am particularly thankful for Jon Pareles seeing and hearing me, for being the first music journalist to write in depth not just about my debut solo record , Outside Child, but about my entire career and arc and evolution as a writer and an artist. Jon ennobled #outsidechild and me with close, careful, empathetic, astonishingly well researched listening. He even listened to my back catalogue with Po’Girl, Birds of Chicago Our Native Daughters and found the threads and links between. We spoke for a long while over Zoom before the record came out in May. It was a connected, deep conversation. It’s easy to be open when someone has done such extensive research and therefore starts the interview from a place of respect, knowledge and genuine interest. The article was originally slated to run on a Tuesday – after reading it the editor made the decision to run it in the Arts & Leisure section of the Sunday Times instead. A full page spread with exquisite photographs by the wondrous #BethanyMollenkof – the one in the first image was an outtake from that session. There is a link to that pivotal article in this best albums of 2021 piece.
I’ve never experienced anything like the momentum and expanding reach of the response to this record. It is a wave unprecedented in my 22 year career. I am more than grateful to be lifted by it as long as it lasts. That first NYT feature on May 13th, 2021 (May 16th in print ) set the tone and the bar so high for all that came after. That continues to come. It is joyful and affirming beyond reckoning. I don’t make art for accolades or recognition or nominations or awards but it does feel like a gift when they come.
x
Allison
#lifechanging #2 The New York Times #bestalbumsof2021 #allisonrussell #outsidechild ( producer @danknobler / co-writer #jtnero aka Jeremy Thomas Lindsay/ label Fantasy Records Concord Universal Music Group / manager Carissa Stolting Left Bank Artists / publisher Concord Music Publishing / publicist Meg Helsel at Grandstand Media / literary agent Meg Thompson / booking agency Wasserman ) 
Photos by Bethany Mollenkof