Julie Miller: Broken Things, HighTone, 1999
Broken Things is Julie Miller’s sixth album, and second release on HighTone, following the well received Blue Pony (1997). The title track, originally on He Walks Through Walls (1991), was subsequently recorded by the Williams Brothers, and more recently Lucy Kaplansky. ‘All My Tears,’ from Orphans And Angels (1993), later covered by Emmylou Harris and Little Jimmy Scott, is reprised with Steve Earle sitting in on mandolin. Apart from a cover of the traditional standard ‘Two Soldiers,’ the disc is made up of nine new original tracks that show her to be in top form.
Before moving into the mainstream, Miller released four discs into the CCM market. Years ago she described her frustrations to CCM Magazine: “I’m not for everyone; I’m sort of funky and messy. I think Myrrh [her label] wanted to make me a poppier pop artist than I already was.”
It’s not so much the earlier albums were bad – each includes a few excellent tracks – as the way she was packaged by the label, attempting to sell her as just another off-the-rack happy Christian, in the process cheapening a fully-realized artist.
One track she recorded, ‘S.O.S. (Sick of Sex)’ was rejected by the company as offensive, but finally saw release on her third album after much finagling. ‘Strange Lover,’ a song on the new album dealing with cocaine abuse, which would also likely have been rejected back then, stands as just one facet of a remarkable writer’s vision on Broken Things.