Mickey Guyton is finally getting her (long-deserved) turn in the spotlight, after years of grafting in Nashville. A pioneering voice in Nashville, Guyton has a unique ability to craft songs about very real, powerful themes that touch everything from race to feminism to what it means to be American. Today, Mickey Guyton releases her hotly-anticipated debut album Remember Her Name that is an absolute tour de force, showcasing her as one of the brightest shining vocalists in country music right now.
Mickey Guyton is finally getting her turn in the spotlight. After years of grafting in Nashville, today she finally releases her debut album Remember Her Name that charts her journey chasing a dream in a city that has remained largely closed to black voices for centuries, beginning with false starts, obstacles and disappointments. Finally, finally it seems that Guyton’s voice is getting the recognition that it deserves, after the phenomenal success of her song ‘Black Like Me,’ released following Guyton’s personal turmoil in the wake of the murder of Breana Taylor and George Floyd. Remember Her Name is a tour de force of an album that will not only change Guyton’s career, but arguably the face of country music itself – moving away from the tropes of small towns and trucks to social justice and empowerment. Of the record, Guyton shares, ‘Remember Her Name is a culmination of the last ten years of my life in Nashville… This album is the closing of a chapter. All those years ago, I set out to create music that would make people feel self-empowered, loved, and comfortable with being themselves and this album holds true to all of that. I hope everyone who listens finds something that connects and speaks to them.’
Remember Her Name does all that and more, offering a mirror and light for those who feel side-lined in the narrow country music landscape – a source of hope exploring themes of racial and social justice interweaved with love, understanding and joy. Sonically, the record is a gem, allowing Guyton to showcase a simply extraordinary vocal, full of raw emotion that she handles delicately. The record opens with the powerful title track, an anthem about finding strength through hard times. ‘Remember the fire / Remember her face / She felt the storm and danced out in the pouring a rain / Remember her laughing / Through all the pain / Remember the girl that didn’t let anything get in her way / Remember her name.’ It’s a mammoth track about the importance of self-worth and perseverance, a glorious opener. Not to be out done, on ‘All American,’ Guyton provides an inclusive anthem celebrating all the things that make America ‘America.’ ‘We’re the stars in a Texas sky / And the jukebox vinyl… We’re different in a million ways / But at the end of the day / Ain’t we all … all American.’ It’s a moving love letter to her country, yet also a yearning cry for universal inclusivity.
‘Different’ is a catchy, driving and fun track, celebrating being different, couched in a 90s-tinged funky production. It’s a stonking beat that showcases another side to Guyton’s artistry, as does later track ‘Rose,’ that brings levity to the project, along with the spicier track ‘Smoke’ – a woozily moving track, building off the idea of where there’s smoke there’s fire.
Guyton is not one to shy away from hard topics. Nowhere is this more evident than in ‘Love My Hair,’ that should be a necessary listen for all as one of the most powerful tracks on the record, an acknowledgement of something that has been historically incredibly difficult for Black women. It’s incredibly tender, a love letter to her own body that is immensely moving. ‘I’m tired of trying to justify my skin / I used to think that what God gave me wasn’t fair / I’d braid it all, just to hide the curls up there / I found my freedom, but I learned not to care / Now I’m not scared to love who I am.’ It’s so delicately done, shining a light on a vital topic, whilst still being delivered as a flawless track. Of course, ‘Black Like Me’ will inevitably be the defining track on Remember Her Name, a muted and stripped back piano ballad about life growing up as a black kid in America, with the enduring line ‘If you think we live in the land of the free / you should try to be black like me.’ It’s incredibly vulnerable and real, which makes it one of the most compelling tracks we have heard in country music of recent years. Proof of Guyton as an artist of incredible lyrical depth is only hammered home further on ‘What Are You Gonna Tell Her?’ about life as a black woman in America. ‘She thinks life is fair and / God hears every prayer / And everyone gets their ever after / She thinks love is love and if / You work hard, that’s enough / Skin’s just skin and it doesn’t matter.’ The track is devastating in its ability to get straight to the heart of the matter – a gut-wrenching call for change.
In the central part of the record, Guyton lays her heart bare in a collection of love songs, beginning with ‘Lay It On Me.’ This track offers a palpably sharp reminder – if you needed one – of the staggering immensity of Guyton’s vocal as she sings about wanting to know everything about her lover. ‘I want to show you that you’re worth it / Lay it on me tonight.’ A stunning strings part elevates the track, before moving into the gospel-infused, passionate ‘Higher’ that is as uplifting as they come, a driving anthem about love bringing her ‘higher.’ ‘Dancing in the Living Room’ offers a more sultry and romantic slow-coasting track as Guyton sings ‘Turn the lights down low, we can take it slow, dancing in the living room.’
‘Do You Really Wanna Know’ on the other hand shows Guyton questioning if people really want to know how she is. Everyone can relate to this track. ‘If I tell you the truth / Will your heart be big enough to hold it… Will you believe it or see it as weakness?’ Lyrically, the track is genius and again shows Guyton step into ideas and concepts that so many people feel, yet do not put into verse, making it yet the more compelling and positing Guyton as a unique artist. The ideas of this track are hammered home on later track ‘Words’ that offers a searing indictment on the power of words and the impossibility of just brushing them off. ‘Sometimes I ain’t bulletproof / Sticks and stones will never break your bones, but words still hurt me.’
From one listen to Remember Her Name by Mickey Guyton, you are just left with the question – why have we not heard this sooner? It’s a phenomenal, thoughtfully-created and more than anything else, important, record that has long deserved to be heard. Let us hope that the second is as long in coming as the first. Guyton is an artist in full possession of herself as an artist and voice of a generation.
