"Jill Sobule can claim her place among the stellar New York singer-songwriters of the last decade.Topical, funny and more than a little poignant ...grown-up music for an adolescent age.” - Jon Pareles, New York Times
“Vocally gifted and lyrically witty ... a peerless satirist.” - People Magazine
“A feisty post-punk feminist whose work brings to mind a cross between Liz Phair and Gertrude Stein.” - The New Yorker
“Where other 'quirky' musicians stagnate or flameout, Sobule only gets stronger... In the gets-better-with-every-album race, she's the rare real deal.” - Amazon.com
“Songwriting skills that transcend her one-novelty-hit wonder status.” - Village Voice
“One of pop's best satirists.” - New York Daily News
“Sobule possesses the uncommon ability to combine lilting, infectious melodies with personal and socially relevant lyrics, and then couch them in artfully crafted arrangements ... A top pop tunesmith.” - CMJ New Music Report
“A deft ironist. She is smart and original, a treasure undervalued by inevitable association with countless lessers who also happen to be singing about going to the laundromat in Brooklyn.” - The New Republic
“On songs that act as many self-contained vignettes, she captures life's little miseries and epiphanies with economy and understated humor.” - Amazon.com
“Sobule shows a great eye for satire... [but she] lends her tales an extra layer of tenderness through her deadpan vocal delivery. Her Bacharach-like lounge-pop tunes also keep things light. But underneath the froth lies Sobule's need to speak honestly about what it's like to live mainly inside your head." (Underdog Victorious listed as one of the "Magnificent 7 ... terrific recent CDs that slipped under the mainstream radar") - Jim Farber, New York Daily News
"Each record [Jill Sobule has] released ... has been better than the last... Her lyrics are always catchy and funny and smart; her hooks and choruses are always fine-tuned and elusive... There's a truth to her stories; it's impossible to avoid. Not that anyone except a total sourpuss would want to." - Will Hermes, All Things Considered, National Public Radio
Jill Sobule belongs to a rare breed of artists. Her work is at once deeply personal and socially conscious, seriously funny and derisively tragic. Over five albums and a decade of recording, the Denver-born songwriter/guitarist/singer has tackled such topics as the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, reproduction, the French resistance movement, adolescence, and the Christian right. Did we mention love? Love found, love lost, love wished for and love taken away.
While her songs cover a huge amount of ground, they all have benefit greatly from Jill’s subtle intelligence and skillful light-handedness. No sloganeering flag-and-fist waving here, but rather story songs about human beings, real and imagined, which allow us to step back from the issue, be it personal or social, and relate to it as we would a close friend.
To see Jill live and in concert is a rare treat. It is on stage that she is most comfortable, most powerful, and where the delicacy and range of her work can be best appreciated. She entertains, amuses, provokes, and more often then not, takes her audiences on an emotional roller coaster, from comedy to pathos in a few bars of music.
Jill began playing guitar when she joined the Junior High School band. She never learned to read music though and faked her way through rehearsals and performances by playing by ear. As she began writing songs, it was very clear to Jill this was becoming more than a teenage hobby. Music was serious stuff. She played in a variety of funk and rock bands in Colorado, and eventually made her first, Todd Rundgren-produced, album for MCA, Things Are Different.
But success did not knock on her door until three years later, when Atlantic Records released her MTV staple and national top 20 hit I Kissed A Girl. “That song was a double-edged sword for me,” Jill Says. “It was perceived as a novelty hit, but on the other hand it was the first song with an overtly gay topic to be aired on Top 40 radio. I am quite proud of that.” The self-titled album also yielded another hit song, Supermodel, included in the Clueless soundtrack.
The song also jumpstarted her live music career in a big way, and since then she’s had the honor to induct Neil Diamond in the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, to share the stage with the likes of Neil Young (at his yearly Bridge School benefit concerts), fellow activists Billy Bragg & Steve Earle, and Waren Zevon. Quite the serious guitar player, she even toured the world as lead guitarist in Lloyd Cole’s band a couple of years back.
Since then, she has made three more critically acclaimed albums, Happy Town, Pink Pearl, and 2004’s Underdog Victorious. She has played the role of political troubadour for NPR stations across the country and for Air America Radio.
A veritable gypsy, Jill divides her time between a her busy touring schedule and, since last year, her responsibilities as songwriter/composer for the Nickelodeon network hit show, Unfabulous. She composed the music for the off-Broadway show Prozak and the Platypus and co-starred in the Eric Schaeffer film Mind the Gap.
In the words of New York Times pop music critic Jon Pareles, “Jill Sobule can claim her place among the stellar New York singer-songwriters of the last decade. Topical, funny and more than a little poignant...grown-up music for an adolescent age.”
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Prozak and the Platypus is the only albumn which can make me laugh and cry at the same time, it's helped me deal with my dad's sucide so much better then the theapry and the drugs. thank you, i love you.
Hey Jill! Thank you so much for the add. Hope the new album suggestions were a help. The best of, and continued, luck to you always. And I'll keep kissin' the girls!
Jill, will you please please come to Salt Lake? Everyone in this town loves you and we want to see you live soo bad!! You're welcome to stay on my couch if you want :D
Hey, just wanted to say I enjoyed the Performing Songwriter article about opening acts...and if I ever meet you in person I will try my best to find out who that person in the article is, haha.
Thanks for letting me in to your circle of friends at MySpace! It's some years since I've heard you live and I would love to hear you again, please come to some of the Nordic countries! Have a great summer!!!
hey Jill, i just wanted to say thank you for adding the song bitter i've been waiting and thank you for the add me and my little sister love your music Your amazing :D
I just saw that you were in NYC tonight for a show! I was in the recording studio with Nick from Moishe, so couldn't have made it anyway. But I hope you're really well!
Hi Jill, I hope you're doing fine. I just wanted to tell you that "Bitter" is one of my all-time favorite songs. "I don't want to get bitter either..." :) Nick
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