Amy Rigby - Middlescence (1998)

Amy Rigby's debut Diary of a Mod Housewife was so perfect that its follow-up, Middlescence, is seemingly predestined to come up short in comparison; it does, but not by much, and what it lacks in immediacy it gains over repeated listens as its subtle, even sneaky charms begin to surface. Where Mod Housewife captured the dissolution of Rigby's marriage with you-are-there immediacy, the new album surveys the post-divorce fallout with the same poignancy and intimacy -- "What I Need" portrays the difficulties of dating as a single mother, while "Raising the Bar" confronts the impossibility of making a decent living in a world where all the good jobs go to younger, more attractive women; there's even a mid-life crisis song, "The Summer of My Wasted Youth," which finds solace in the sweet nostalgia of cheap beer, good drugs and Patsy Cline records. If the subjects of Rigby's songs aren't revelatory, the insights she brings to her material frequently are, with a dignity and maturity that are the ultimate rewards of surviving the daily grind Middlescence so vividly details; perhaps her greatest accomplishment is that rarest of pop music feats -- growing old gracefully.