Rhett Miller

Certain Songs #1914: Rhett Miller – “I Used to Write in Notebooks”

September 15, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Messenger
Year: 2018

. . .

And so it went, Rhett Miller continue to intersperse solo albums — both 2012’s The Dreamer and 2015’s The Traveler are recommended, though if you’re reading this, you probably know that — in between Old 97’s albums, his songwriting craft absolutely undeterred by the age that refused to show on his face.

His most recent one, 2018’s The Messenger, had an absolutely stunning song dealing with that aging. Over a low-key bass-and-piano lope that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Wilco album, he details all of the ways that technology has changed his life. And my life. And maybe even yours.

Certain Songs #1913: Rhett Miller – “Happy Birthday Don’t Die”

September 14, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Rhett Miller
Year: 2009

For whatever reason, after calling his first two solo albums The Instigator and The Believer, Rhett Miller decided to self-title his third one, released in 2009. This is and of itself wouldn’t be anything, except he almost immediately started titling his next solo albums things like The Interpreter and The Messenger, making Rhett Miller really stick out in his solo discography.

So it’s possible that he conceived of Rhett Miller as being different from all of his other solo albums or maybe he decided he liked the previous naming convention, or something else entirely.

Certain Songs #1912: Rhett Miller – “The Believer”

September 12, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Believer
Year: 2006

. . .

Rhett Miller’s second solo album of the 21st century, 2006’s The Believer, was a record that I think I underrated at the time. And I think that was because the two best songs on it were songs that he’d already done with the Old 97s, the loping “Singular Girl” and the heartfelt “Question.”

One thing I know for sure: I totally missed the title track, which was inspired by Elliott Smith, who had recently killed himself.

Certain Songs #1911: Rhett Miller – “Things That Disappear”

September 11, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Instigator
Year: 2002

. . .

Since the turn of the century, Stuart Ransom Miller has been supplementing his main gig of being the front-person of the still-mighty Old 97’s with a series of solo albums that — with one exception — are entitled “The ________.”

For the most part, these albums let Miller explore song styles — quieter or poppier — that wouldn’t quite fit with the more meat-and-potatoes rock that the Old 97’s specialize in. And because Miller is such a great songwriter in any vernacular, twenty years into the 2000’s, Miller has produced one of the greatest and most rewarding discographies in the century.