Description
Singer-songwriter Katie Melua was coming to terms with a divorce on 2020’s Album No. 8. Her latest long-player, Love & Money, finds her in a completely different place. Now with a new partner and a newborn son (she was pregnant when making the album), she’s found a new contentedness that’s reflected in these breezy Laurel Canyon folk songs.
Love & Money is her ninth album. Each of the first eight reached the top 10 in the U.K. albums chart; something accomplished by just two female British artists—Kate Bush (12 times) and Melua. This album differs from her past work, though. There’s less complexity in the final product. The arrangements (the album was again produced by long-time collaborator Leo Abrahams, who’s worked with Brian Eno and Regina Spektor) are less tightly wound.
There’s fewer jazzy intonations; there are no songs like “Voices in the Night” or “Maybe I Dreamt It.” She’s said she lightened her approach to music-making for this album to reflect where she was in life, underneath a “blue sky.” That’s a thematic element to which she keeps returning in several of the songs.
