| Life Is Messy | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Rodney Crowell |
| Cover: | Life is Messy Alt..jpg |
| Released: | May 19, 1992[1] |
| Genre: | Country, Rock and Roll |
| Length: | 42:27 |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Prev Title: | Keys to the Highway |
| Prev Year: | 1989 |
| Next Title: | Greatest Hits |
| Next Year: | 1993 |
Life Is Messy is the seventh studio album by American country music artist Rodney Crowell, released in 1992 by Columbia Records. It peaked at number 30 on the Top Country Albums chart. The songs, "Lovin' All Night", "What Kind of Love", "It's Not for Me to Judge", and "Let's Make Trouble" were released as singles.
The album's first two singles, "Lovin' All Night" and "What Kind of Love", were both released as singles. They respectively reached No. 10 and No. 11 on the Hot Country Songs charts in 1992.[2]
"The Answer Is Yes" was covered by Michelle Wright on her 1996 album For Me It's You, while "Lovin' All Night" was covered by Patty Loveless on her 2003 album On Your Way Home.
William Ruhlmann of Allmusic rated the album 4.5 out of 5 stars, concluding his review with, "Taken together, the songs on Life Is Messy made for a fascinating portrait of an artist at a personal and professional crossroad -- but it didn't have much to do with commercial country music circa 1992, which is what it was primarily marketed as." He compared the songs' sounds primarily to "a pastiche of late-'50s/early-'60s pop". A review by Jack Hurst in the Chicago Tribune rated the album 3.5 out of 4, saying that the album had "a throbbing sound that is out on the pop-ish progressive end of the country spectrum, it treats life in all its surreal hurtfulness without neglecting its epic joys." A less positive review came from Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly, who thought that the album showed emotional influence from Crowell's then-recent divorce from fellow musician Rosanne Cash, and highlighted the song "I Hardly Know How to Be Myself", which the two wrote, as the best song on the album. She also compared Crowell's voice favorably to Roy Orbison but added that "too many of his songs splinter into nebulousness with the occasional joltingly bad line".
From Life Is Messy liner notes.
Musicians
Technical
| Chart (1992) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Billboard Top Country Albums | 30 | |
| U.S. Billboard 200 | 155 | |
| Canadian RPM Country Albums | 9 |
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country | US AC | CAN Country | CAN | CAN AC | ||
| 1992 | "Lovin' All Night" | 10 | — | 9 | — | — |
| "What Kind of Love" | 11 | 9 | 2 | 47 | 5 | |
| "It's Not for Me to Judge" | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Let's Make Trouble" | — | — | 78 | — | — | |