Beautiful Creature

Beautiful Creature
Studio album by
ReleasedMay 16, 2000
StudioFort Apache Studios, Cambridge, Massachusetts
GenreAlternative rock
Length48:11
LabelZoë/Island
ProducerJuliana Hatfield, Wally Gagel, Davíd Garza, Andy Kravitz, Scott Litt
Juliana Hatfield chronology
Bed
(1998)
Beautiful Creature
(2000)
Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure
(2000)
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic66/100[1]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Entertainment WeeklyB−[3]
Spin6/10[4]
The Village Voice[5]

Beautiful Creature is the fourth solo album by American singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield, released on May 16, 2000. It was released simultaneously with Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure.[6]

Release

A collectors' edition of both Beautiful Creature and Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure was also simultaneously released.[7] It contained a third enhanced CD that included a Juliana Hatfield screensaver, a photo gallery consisting of six pictures, a web link to Hatfield's webpage at Zoë Records, a cover of The Police's "Every Breath You Take", "When You Loved Me" (Mex Mix) and an open letter from Hatfield to her fans.[8] The letter read as follows:

I was living in Los Angeles. I seemed to have fallen for an image (deep down, I'm really shallow). It was so beautiful. His eyes were black. But as I walked down my street, all the neighborhood dogs seemed trained to attack. And the sun was like a deathray.

This is a dangerous business. People aren't always what they seem, even when they think they are telling the truth. All motivations are hidden.

I had planned on staying a year, but after six months, I became restless enough to leave. Always wanting to be somewhere I'm not, content only when en route. Music sounds better in a moving car.

Where am I now? I'm still here. In between. Thank you for asking. Without you, I may have ceased to exist.

Juliana Hatfield

"Every Breath You Take" and "When You Loved Me" (Mex Mix) (instead referred to as the "US Mix") appear as bonus tracks on the Japanese edition.[9]

Critical reception

Beautiful Creature received far more favorable reviews from critics than Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure.[1][10] It was described as a "Stripped down, intimate work that harkened back to Hatfield's early 90s material."[11]

Scripp's Howard News Service's Mark Brown ranked both Beautiful Creature and Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure as #5 on his list of the top 10 albums of 2000.[12]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Juliana Hatfield, except where noted.

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Daniel" 4:31
2."Close Your Eyes" 3:21
3."Choose Drugs" 3:41
4."Cool Rock Boy"Wally Gagel, Hatfield4:00
5."Don't Rush Me"Gagel, Hatfield4:01
6."Slow Motion" 2:53
7."Might Be in Love" 2:45
8."Somebody Is Waiting for Me" 3:24
9."Until Tomorrow" 4:44
10."The Easy Way Out" 3:23
11."Hotels" 4:28
12."When You Loved Me" 3:30
13."Cry in the Dark" 3:43
Total length:48:14
Japanese edition
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
14."Every Breath You Take"Sting3:49
15."When You Loved Me" (US Mix) 3:34
Total length:55:37

Personnel

References

  1. ^ a b "Beautiful Creature by Juliana Hatfield". Metacritic. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  2. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Beautiful Creature - Juliana Hatfield". AllMusic. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  3. ^ Tucker, Ken (May 19, 2000). "Beautiful Creature and Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved April 10, 2018.
  4. ^ Clover, Joshua (July 2000). "Juliana Hatfield: Beautiful Creature". Spin. Spin Media LLC. p. 162.
  5. ^ Christgau, Robert (June 26, 2001). "Consumer Guide". The Village Voice.
  6. ^ Barclay, Michael (June 1, 2000). "Beautiful Creature". Exclaim!. Archived from the original on February 21, 2019. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  7. ^ Hatfield, Juliana (May 16, 2000). "Beautiful Creature / Juliana's Pony: Total System Failure". Discogs.
  8. ^ "Pearl Jam Simply Keeps On Grunging". Lakeland Ledger. June 9, 2000.
  9. ^ Hatfield, Juliana (May 16, 2000). "Juliana Hatfield – Beautiful Creature". Discogs.
  10. ^ Takiff, Johathan (May 8, 2000). "May Floods Stores With New Releases". Lakeland Ledger. p. D5.
  11. ^ Harmon, Rod (October 9, 2000). "Singer Becomes Study in Contrast". Lawrence Journal-World. p. 2A.
  12. ^ Brown, Mark (December 28, 2000). "Tunes From the Barrel's Bottom". The Vindicator. p. D1.