Only Everything was Juliana Hatfield’s third album after leaving Boston’s Blake Babies and with it she seemed on the verge of stardom. “My Sister” and “Spin the Bottle” were modest hits and she appeared on the covers of Sassy and Spin. When Only Everything came out, however, it received mixed reviews and was only moderately successful. Even today it remains overshadowed by the album that it proceeded; the more fondly remembered Become What You Are.
Only Everything, however, is my favorite Juliana Hatfield record. Part of the reason might be because it was the first of her albums I heard, but there are less personal reasons too. The guitars are big and loud, the songs are melodic and tight, and the production is top notch. Some of the awkward lyric rhymes of Juliana’s previous albums are completely avoided here and her voice has never sounded better. Like Elliott Smith, Juliana’s small, soft voice sounded incredible when multi-tracked and on Only Everything layer after layer of overdubbing has made her vocals strong and rich and never in danger of getting overpowered by the wall of guitar fuzz. That’s quite an accomplishment considering how much the guitars dominate the mix. Hatfield has often cited J Mascis as an influence and on this record it shows.
The album opens with what sounds like Juliana coughing up some phlegm as the buzzsaw guitars of “What a Life” hit you in the face. “Greasy, dirty, smelly, wretched…grungy…” she sings and this is clearly the sound she wants for the album, albeit with high production values. The mix of clean and dirty, Juliana’s “pretty” voice and the fuzzed out guitars works perfectly. It’s not lo-fi but it never sounds too glossy. One of my complaints about her earlier albums is they seemed sonically thin, especially on the harder rocking songs. Here, the production is beefed up and Juliana finally sounds like she’s really rocking out. There are still plenty of softer songs though and they too benefit immensely from the top notch production, filled out with piano, organ and Juliana’s vocal harmonies.
My favorite song on the album might be “Outsider”, with its guitars sounding like they’re being played underwater and Juliana’s vocals thick and sweet. For the first two minutes of the song the only percussion is what sounds like hands tapping on the back of an acoustic guitar. Combined with the muted electric guitars and Juliana’s multi-tracked vocals, the song has an effervescent, spacey mood. The track may seem slight at first but it rewards with repeated listens.
Only Everything still conjures up good memories whenever I listen to it. Perhaps the album’s inability to take Hatfield to the next level of mainstream success was indication that the public had already tired of the alternative rock explosion of the early ’90s. Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears were lurking just around the corner, like vampires, ready to suck the blood out of the music industry. Hatfield’s next record, entitled God’s Foot, never got released. Atlantic, her record company, felt it wasn’t commercial sounding enough, so Juliana asked to be dropped. Atlantic agreed to release her, but not her album. “God’s Foot, the master tapes, languishes still in a vault somewhere, gathering dust” wrote Juliana in her recently published memoir, When I Grow Up. After returning to the indies she put out four solo albums on Rounder Records before starting her own label, Ye Olde, in 2005. Her latest record was last year’s How to Walk Away. I haven’t heard it yet but I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy it, as I have everything else she’s done, but this one goes out to the one I love: Only Everything.