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Life Is Messy is the seventh studio album released by American country music artist Rodney Crowell, released in 1992 by Columbia Records. It peaked at number 30 on the Top Country Albums chart. The songs, "Lovin' All Night", "What Kind of Love", "It's Not for Me to Judge", and "Let's Make Trouble" were released as singles.

Life Is Messy
Studio album by Rodney Crowell
Released	May 19, 1992[1]
Genre	Country pop[2]
Length	42:27
Label	Columbia
Producer	Bobby Colomby Rodney Crowell Larry Klein John Leventhal C. J. Vanston
Rodney Crowell chronology
Keys to the Highway (1989) Life Is Messy (1992) Greatest Hits (1993)
Alternative cover
2000 reissue cover

Content

The album's first two singles, "Lovin' All Night" and "What Kind of Love", were both released as singles. They respectively reached No. 10 and No. 11 on the Hot Country Songs charts in 1992.[3]

"The Answer Is Yes" was covered by Michelle Wright on her 1996 album For Me It's You, while "Lovin' All Night" was covered by Patty Loveless on her 2003 album On Your Way Home.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
Chicago Tribune	[4]
Entertainment Weekly	C+[5]

William Ruhlmann of Allmusic rated the album 4.5 out of 5 stars, concluding his review with, "Taken together, the songs on Life Is Messy made for a fascinating portrait of an artist at a personal and professional crossroad -- but it didn't have much to do with commercial country music circa 1992, which is what it was primarily marketed as."[2] He compared the songs' sounds primarily to "a pastiche of late-'50s/early-'60s pop".[2] A review by Jack Hurst in the Chicago Tribune rated the album 3.5 out of 4, saying that the album had "a throbbing sound that is out on the pop-ish progressive end of the country spectrum, it treats life in all its surreal hurtfulness without neglecting its epic joys."[4] A less positive review came from Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly, who thought that the album showed emotional influence from Crowell's then-recent divorce from fellow musician Rosanne Cash, and highlighted the song "I Hardly Know How to Be Myself", which the two wrote, as the best song on the album. She also compared Crowell's voice favorably to Roy Orbison but added that "too many of his songs splinter into nebulousness with the occasional joltingly bad line".[5]

Track listing

Personnel

From Life Is Messy liner notes.[6]

Musicians

Technical

• Michael Brauer - mixing (tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10)
• Bobby Colomby - production
• Rodney Crowell - production
• Jim Dineen - engineering (tracks 1, 6, 10)
• Larry Klein - production
• John Leventhal - production
• Dan Marnien - engineering and mixing (tracks 2, 7, 8)
• Roger Nichols - engineering (tracks 3, 4, 5, 9)
• C. J. Vanston - production
• Michael Verdick - engineering (track 1)

Chart performance

Album

Chart (1992)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Top Country Albums	30
U.S. Billboard 200	155
Canadian RPM Country Albums	9

Singles

Year	Single	Peak chart positions
		US Country	US AC	CAN Country	CAN	CAN AC
1992	"Lovin' All Night"	10	—	9	—	—
	"What Kind of Love"	11	9	2	47	5
	"It's Not for Me to Judge"	—	—	—	—	—
	"Let's Make Trouble"	—	—	78	—	—

Sources

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