''Something More Than Free'' is the fifth studio album by Jason Isbell, released on July 17, 2015. It was produced by Dave Cobb, who had produced Isbell's previous record, '' Southeastern'' (2013). At the

58th Annual Grammy Awards The 58th Annual Grammy Awards was held on February 15, 2016, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony recognizes the best recordings, compositions and artists of the eligibility year, which was from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 20 ...

, the album won the award for

Best Americana Album The Grammy Award for Best Americana Album is an honor presented to recording artists for quality albums in the Americana music genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors ...

, and the song "24 Frames" won the award for Best American Roots Song.

Reception

The album received mostly positive reviews. On Metacritic, it has a score of 87 out of 100 based on 25 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim." Jon Freeman of '' Nash Country Weekly'' gave the album a grade of "A" and wrote that "Jason Isbell has a reporter's eye for detail and a poet's gift for a beautifully crafted turn of phrase". He went on to say that "Jason's throaty rasp, not unlike Tyler Farr's, is the ideal vehicle for those stories ..It may not be all pretty, but ''Something More Than Free'' is as real as it gets."Freeman, Jon
Something More Than Free - Jason Isbell
countryweekly.com. 13 July 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016. Craig Manning of

AbsolutePunk ''AbsolutePunk'' was a website, online community, and alternative music news source founded by Jason Tate (the most recent CEO). The website mainly focused on artists who are relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, but it was known to fea ...

praised the album, writing: "Like ''Southeastern'', ''Something More Than Free'' is a masterwork, and while I'm not sure if I quite agree with Isbell that it's better than ''Southeastern'', it certainly offers a different (but equally satisfying) experience." In another positive review that compared the album to its predecessor, Eric Swedlund of '' The A.V. Club'' wrote that, "though ''Something More Than Free'' may not repeat Isbell's album-of-the-year accolades, it continues the magic of that breakthrough LP". Jeremy Winograd of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...

'' wrote, in an otherwise positive review, that ''Something More Than Free'' "retains ''Southeasterns intimate acoustic-based feel and heavyhearted lyrical matter, but it's even more smooth-edged and lacks the emotional gut-punches of its predecessor."Winograd, Jeremy
Jason Isbell: Something More Than Free
Slant. 8 July 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016. In a mixed review,

Stephen Deusner Stephen M. Deusner is an American music critic and part-time record store clerk who lives in Bloomington, Indiana. A native of Tennessee, he has contributed to Pitchfork Media (including ''the Pitchfork 500''), ''Salon'', '' CMT'', ''American Songwr ...

of '' Pitchfork'' described ''Something More Than Free'' as "an album that contains too few surprises", and said that "the music does little to distinguish these characters or enliven the lyrics".

Accolades

Commercial performance

In the United States, the album debuted at number 6 on the ''Billboard'' 200, and at number 1 on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

s Top Rock Albums, Folk Albums, and Top Country Albums charts, with 46,000 units sold. Although he had previously had critical success in the Americana genre, this was the first time one of Isbell's albums had performed so well on the charts across several genres. As of July 2016, the album had sold 143,000 copies in the U.S. The single "24 Frames" peaked at number 8 on the ''Billboard'' Triple A Airplay chart, and at number 42 on the Rock Airplay chart.

Track listing

Personnel

* Jason Isbell – vocals, electric guitar,

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...

, acoustic guitar, hi-string acoustic guitar, nylon string guitar, resonator guitar * Dave Cobb – percussion,

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

* Derry Deborja – piano,

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, Wurlitzer * Chad Gamble –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

* Jimbo Hart – bass guitar *

Amanda Shires Amanda Rose Shires (born March 5, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter and fiddle player. Shires has released seven solo albums starting in 2005, her most recent being '' Take It Like a Man'' in 2022. In 2019, she founded a country music super ...

–

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

, strings, harmony vocals * Sadler Vaden – electric guitar, background vocals

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

External links

Jason Isbell official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Something More Than Free Jason Isbell albums 2015 albums Albums produced by Dave Cobb Grammy Award for Best Americana Album