Faith Hill Gets a C+

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

EW review: Generic Faith Hill

This one has been bugging me for a couple of weeks now, but EW's review of her album a chance to get it off my chest.

Note to Faith Hill:

**You're not a Mississippi Girl any more**

The rank hypocrisy of this song actually bothers me every time it comes on, which is a shame because it's otherwise a good country melody, but...

Let's start with the irony: she claims not to have a big head, yet takes the time to write, compose, arrange, record, make a video, promote and perform an entire song about herself. And it's not *a* song on the album, a B-side throwaway: it's the first and featured release of her new album. Not because you asked, but in her narcissism she thinks you need to know that she hardly thinks about herself at all. Umm, Faith...

If you listen to the lyrics, you hear Faith protesting that she's just a regular girl because she likes wearing her ballcap and playing with her kids. Huh? Does she think that other incredibly wealthy and famous people (who happen to be married to another incredibly wealthy and famous person) wear diamonds and sequins all day and hate their kids? Just because you dress down once in a while and love your kids, doesn't make you a regular work-a-day person like the vast majority of us.

Here's a hint: What makes a person regular is a product of dealing with the emotional strain of getting up every day to go to work, probably at a job that they don't love, of paying today's bills while wondering where college tuition is going to come from; of getting groceries on the way home through rush hour traffic; and of cleaning the house after the kids go to bed before collapsing in exhaustion at the end of the day. Then you get up tomorrow to do it all over again. No one applauds -- ever, and pretty much no one else even cares what you think -- about pretty much anything. Does any of that sound like a part of Faith Hill's life to you?

She and her family jet all over the world at their leisure: flying over Mississippi to places like the Nobel ceremonies in Oslo, Norway. I bet you couldn't find more than a handful of people currently living in Mississippi who've even taken one trip to Europe in their lifetime, let alone have the means to do it whenever they want.

I've heard that both Faith, and her husband Tim McGraw, are wonderful down-to-earth people, and nothing I'm saying here should be construed to mean otherwise. But there are simply some realities that can't be denied: her life isn't like ours, and pretending that things are otherwise doesn't make it so...