Why Everyone Should Worship Amy Pickard

Well I admit it, I am a diehard fan boy for country music extraordinaire Amy Pickard and that is why I was so excited that she contributed a piece to the Genetic Music Project. It only made sense to send a country singer the genetic code for Bitter Taste Perception, and check out the gorgeous result of her work “Where Are the Roses,” built around a hook she found in the code and the theme of bitter.

It’s hard for me to gush sufficiently about Amy’s work. I met her in Philadelphia and thought she was an incredibly funny, sweet, soft-spoken person. Little did I know that she’s also a musical powerhouse. I cannot recommend her (and her band The Cradlers) album Cut from the Hopeless enough (go out and buy it, now!). It is seriously one of my all-time favorite albums. Note I do not mean it is one of my all-time favorite albums from someone I know; I mean, seriously, it’s one of my all-time favorite albums. I feel extremely lucky to have been there on the night she premiered the album and watch the first couple lines of her song “Ring Your Bells” reduce even some harder-nosed audience members to tears.

Also, check out her earlier album by her former band She-Haw, Not About Love. Her song Awful is one of the prettiest most heartbreaking poems I have ever heard. Again, note the period at the end of that sentence.