KURATED NO. 258
NEW EP RELEASE
The Golden Heart Protector by Margaret Glaspy
CONTENTS
- PLAYLIST
– The Golden Heart Protector: 7 songs on YouTube and Spotify - VIDEOS
NPR Tiny Desk Concert – this one has 1.4 million views so far. August 29, 2016 (13.05 mins)
These Days (Jackson Browne cover) – feat. James Bay (3.14 mins)
Jesus, Etc. (Wilco cover) – feat. Norah Jones (4.12 mins) - SEE ALSO: Kurated No. 250 – Glaspy at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival
- TRACKLIST – see below
Glaspy’s 7-song EP is a mostly acoustic gem featuring covers by interesting writers plus duets with favourite singers and musicians
MARGARET GLASPY
A pleasant ramble playing cover songs with friends
Today Kurated features a couple of New Yorkers you may want to know – if you don’t already. Thirty six year-old Margaret Glaspy has been recording music since 2012. And at 83, Robert Christgau has been writing music criticism since 1967. With his always keen ear, he recognized Glaspy’s talent from the start.
Known for his leftist viewpoints – and with a penchant for feminism – he offers a succinct summary of her work in his infamous Consumer Guide which is where I learned about Glaspy’s latest seven-song covers EP released in October. Here’s what he wrote:
Margaret Glaspy: The Golden Heart Protector (AT0) Maybe if I was a singer-songwriter guy—a folkie, to resurrect the somewhat condescending old term—I’d recognize all her collaborators on these seven cover versions, which include Creedence and Jackson Browne: Madison Cunningham, Julian Lage, Andrew Bird, Alam Khan, and James Bay. But as it stands I’m pretty sure that between Berklee-trained Glaspy’s crystalline soprano and her deft guitar and piano, these are almost certainly the renditions I’d rather hear. “Beautiful” is seldom a praiseword I’m comfortable resorting to. But for nearly half an hour it applies. A MINUS
That’s Christgau. The self-declared Dean of American Rock Critics is always succinct, sometimes personable and to the point. Further down you can read about his take on Glaspy’s earlier work as well as his idiosyncratic rating system. For the record, I’m keen on pointing Kurated readers to his erudite and knowledgeable work at least once a year. He’s got deep history and engaging opinions.
Glaspy’s last two EPs – The Sun Doesn’t Think and The Golden Heart Protector – both demonstrate her renewed interest in playing acoustic guitar
A burgeoning indie artist who knows her folk
Glaspy made a splash at her Vancouver Folk Music Festival main stage debut in July. With band in tow, her intriguing voice – melodious with an occasional raspy edge – and tell-it-like-it-is lyrics caught on fast with the audience.
With three albums to her credit plus a handful of EPs since 2012 the New York-based artist isn’t new. Her third and most recent long player – 2023’s Echo the Diamond – won wide acclaim for its stripped down variety combining punch and contemplation. Pitchfork writer Marc Hogan wrote: “For anyone who enjoys a thoughtful singer-songwriter record with adept, minimalist instrumental backing and a powerhouse vocalist, Echo the Diamond is a worthy listen. For people who recognize themselves when Glaspy sings about being “back up in my head/Like a needle just passing thread,” it could become an essential companion.”
However, as a part-time student at Berklee College of Music she also roamed in classical and acoustic realms. On her 2024 five-song EP, The Sun Doesn’t Think, she turned in a mellow and all acoustic set.
“… in exploring the acoustic guitar onstage, there’s a reminder of how acoustic functions apart from electric,” she explained to Acoustic Guitar magazine. “You would think that electric would be the most volatile instrument you could find. But really, acoustic guitar has all these wild and woolly aspects that are challenging and fun to play with.”
The seven tunes on The Golden Heart Protector reprise the mellow feeling of the previous EP with the added benefit of presenting familiar songs with friends from her musical community.
“The songs were really just songs that were on my mind at that time,” Glaspy told Culture Cabinet magazine. “I’m a big fan of all these artists, Rufus Wainwright, Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Creedence Clearwater Revival, all of these are a lot of my favourite bands and artists, and I’ve loved these songs for a long time.”
Glaspy fans will be happy to hear that, even as she tours this fall and into the new year, she aims to release new work in April.
Robert Christgau
Glaspy according to Christgau
- If & When [Storysound, 2013] *
- Emotions and Math [ATO, 2016] A-
- Echo the Diamond [ATO, 2023] A-
If & When [Storysound, 2013]
In 2013 still a work in progress, especially as regards her low end (“Cynthia,” “You’re Smiling [But I Don’t Believe You”) *
Emotions and Math [ATO, 2016]
The title song is about what it says it’s about–“Counting the days till you’re back,” to be precise. But it also announces Glaspy’s aesthetic strategy. Nominally she’s a singer-songwriter, applying a voice labeled both lilting and gravelly but that I’d just peg as adult to songs that always make room for feelings we needn’t assume are always hers. But she’s even more striking as a guitarist, running a thick, rockish sound through a harmonic palette that suits both a Berklee dropout who audited master classes after she couldn’t afford tuition and a Texan who got hip to passing chords playing backup fiddle with her musical family. Although her music is cleaner and clearer, she sounds like Speedy Ortiz’s Sadie Dupuis if she sounds like anybody. But with Glaspy you have a clearer bead on whatever love the song is about–just not whether it’s hers. A-
Echo the Diamond [ATO, 2023]
A calm, declarative California-to-NYC singer-songwriter who kept auditing guitar classes after her Berklee grant ran out is determined not to give up on this love thing either. “Between a rock and a hard place/I’ll be your lily pad,” she vows, and if you personally are the beneficiary of that promise don’t let the chance pass. There’s sweetness here, but also thought and the kind of intelligence that values the lubricious without getting swamped by it. Thirty-five she may be; jaded she’s not. A-
Key to Christgau’s rating system
An A+ is a record of sustained beauty, power, insight, groove, and/or googlefritz that has invited and repaid repeated listenings in the daily life of someone with 500 other CDs to get to.
An A is a record that rarely flags for more than two or three tracks. Not every listener will feel what it’s trying to do, but anyone with ears will agree that it’s doing it.
An A- is the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction. Anyone open to its aesthetic will enjoy more than half its tracks.
A B+ is remarkable one way or another, yet also flirts with the humdrum or the half-assed.
A *** Honorable Mention is an enjoyable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well treasure.
A ** Honorable Mention is an likable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well enjoy.
A * Honorable Mention is a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like.
A Neither () may impress once or twice with consistent craft or an arresting track or two. Then it won’t.
A Choice Cut () is a good song on an album that isn’t worth your time or money–sometimes a
, more often a
. Some (
)s are arbitrarily personal, others inescapably social. Sometimes one is so wondrous you’ll be tempted to spring for the high-priced package anyway. More often it would fit sweetly onto a compilation you can only pray will include it.
A Dud () is a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought. At the upper level it may merely be overrated, disappointing, or dull. Down below it may be contemptible.
A Turkey ({Turkey}) is a bad record of some general import, although no artist should be saddled with more than two in a decade. What distinguishes a {Turkey} from a is that it’s reviewed and graded. I’m aware of no {Turkey} lower than D, and a few even get a B, a grade reserved for Voice Dud of the Month, whereas the annual Turkey Shoot works down from B-. But such distinctions are, as the saying goes, academic. In this age of grade inflation, all of ’em flunk.
Track List
1 The Book Of Love (feat. Madison Cunningham) Margaret Glaspy 3:41
2 Fruits Of My Labor Margaret Glaspy & Julian Lage 4:38
3 Sometimes You Need Margaret Glaspy & Andrew Bird 3:11
4 Jesus, Etc. (feat. Norah Jones) Margaret Glaspy 4:12
5 Curable Disease (feat. Alam Khan) Margaret Glaspy 4:14
6 Have You Ever Seen The Rain Margaret Glaspy 3:18
7 These Days (feat. James Bay) Margaret Glaspy 3:12
14 November 2025
