It is a city that loves itself, that loves the history of its music. When it wakes up in the morning, it sings the songs of itself. It’s kind of like Paris but it’s more about the music. Everywhere you go in this town, you hear the music or you see someone carrying their instrument. Music is this town’s flavor. That’s significant because it was in danger of becoming a Disneyland replica of itself. But they didn’t let that happen. They keep teaching it in schools. It’s authentic… although I hate that word. It emanates from the people who live here. I can’t think of another city so closely identified with its music. Maybe Seville in Spain? There aren’t very many cities made of music.
—Jones on New Orleans, the recording location of Kicks[1]
Kicks is a 2019 studio album by American singer–songwriter Rickie Lee Jones. The collection of cover versions received positive reviews from critics. The collection of songs incorporates jazz, pop, and rock music influences and was Jones' second album recorded with a group of New Orleans–based musicians.[2]
Reception
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Kicks received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 70 out of 100 from our critic scores.[3] Editors at AllMusic rated this album 3.5 out of 5 stars, with critic Mark Deming writing that "even when the material is familiar, Jones inarguably finds something very much her own in this material" and that the music "feels richly Southern in its comfortably laid back but impassioned tone and in the loose precision of the arrangements".[4] In Glide Magazine, Matthew Barton writing that this album synthesizes Jones' previous covers releases and "Kicks seem to take its lead from all of these records, but perhaps more than any of them it seems to sit more snugly alongside Jones’ own material".[5]Will Hodgkinson of The Times rated this album 4 out of 5 stars, calling it an "appealingly lived-in set of covers" where "she sounds more effortlessly cool than ever".[6]
