Charleston singer/songwriter Lauren Hall’s new album …To Love You, which debuted Oct. 27, will delight fans of local and country music alike. It’s Hall’s second project recorded in Nashville, with a host of Music City studio session pros as well as producer Dan Frizsell behind the boards.
The seven-track “mini-album” shines the spotlight on Hall’s bright, confident voice and her skillful songwriting; she’s equally at home on a pure polished country-pop song aimed directly at the radio on “Girl To Love You” as she is delivering a sassy kiss-off on “Knock Off Love.”
…To Love You is strong enough musically to get attention on its own merit, but for the album’s release, Hall decided to take a page from popular artists like Taylor Swift or Beyonce and make the album a surprise, announcing its release on her social media pages at the end of September.
“It’s really interesting to figure out release strategies these days because of social media and TikTok,” Hall said. “And I think that it’s changed over the years. They used to call it ‘the rollout,’ where they would have the look of the album and do all this promotion. You can do it that way or the way I’m doing it.
“I think it’s hard to keep people’s attention these days,” she added. “If you wait, if you announce it too soon, sometimes people forget about it. So I think doing it at the right time is really important.”
Finding her own sound
It’s interesting that Hall is emulating the professional strategy of an artist like Swift, because Swift’s music is what originally hooked Hall on country music.
“I didn’t grow up on country music,” she said, “and my parents didn’t listen to it. I just had no one around me that exposed me to country music, and then I got into the genre when I was 12 years old, and the reason I did is that Taylor Swift came on the scene. She was writing these songs from the perspective of a teenage girl. I really connected with that, and that introduced me to the greats like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. I just fell in love with the songwriting and the storytelling of country music at a young age. Once I heard it, it set a model of how I wanted to write music.”
Hall’s musical style across her discography is a fascinating tour through modern and traditional country styles, from ’90s new traditionalism to modern-day polished twang-pop. And she said that Friszell’s input as a producer has been invaluable.
“Obviously, producers are steering the ship for the music,” Hall said, “but they also are like your therapist a little bit, especially when you’re doing final vocals. There was definitely a level of comfort in knowing that I’ve worked with him before, and I trust his work. Dan’s really good at talking to me about what my vision is and the sound I want. We come up with how we want the album to sound, and then he communicates that to the musicians we have. I love working with him.”
It’s fortunate that Hall had that level of comfort with her producer, because …To Love You takes on some sensitive subject matter, lyrically speaking.
“The album itself is recapping for me this one relationship [I had] in my life,” she said. “It’s about the good, the bad, all the emotions in between. It’s my way of saying, ‘Here are all the stories and emotions that came with falling in love with this person.’ ”
Hall added that she is typically an autobiographical songwriter, but even still, these songs exposed a lot about her life.
“It’s definitely a vulnerable position,” she said. “I tend to write from personal experiences, and I don’t usually hold anything back. If I’m writing a song, it’s something I’ve lived, and it seemed very real to me. It’s hard to be vulnerable and write what you’re feeling, but it’s also really healing. Because then it becomes bigger than yourself. You start to see people sing along to the song or connect with it, and it becomes their story. So it’s no longer just about what I went through. It’s about what they went through, and what it means to them.”
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