{"id":4343,"date":"2011-11-13T23:30:09","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T06:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4343"},"modified":"2011-11-28T15:20:32","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T22:20:32","slug":"michelle-branch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/michelle-branch\/","title":{"rendered":"MICHELLE BRANCH"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>MICHELLE BRANCH
\nCountry turned to pop when Nashville frustration gave way to London inspiration<\/h2>\n

Michelle Branch is hanging up\u00a0her cowboy hat for now. Even after she stormed the country charts in 2006 as half of hit duo the Wreckers, Branch\u2019s own planned solo country effort was met with years of record-label delays. The frustration motivated Branch to return to her roots with West Coast Time<\/em>, her first pop record in eight years. \u201cIt was kind of sucking the life out of me,\u201d says Branch of the unreleased country album, Everything Comes and Goes<\/em>, from which an EP was finally released digitally last year. \u201cI needed to get as far away as possible from it to spark some creativity again. I packed my bags and was like, \u2018Get me to London, get me with people I\u2019ve never met or worked with. I want a clean slate.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

An essential part of Branch\u2019s fresh start came in the form of British songwriting team Jim Irvin and Julian Emery. Branch tracked them down after hearing their work with\u00a0folk-pop singer Lissie. \u201cEvery time I turned on the TV in Europe I would hear her song, \u2018When I\u2019m Alone,\u2019 and I was just like, \u2018Who produced this? Who wrote this?\u2019\u201d she recalls. Branch, Irvin and Emery wrote the majority of West Coast Time<\/em> together in London late last year.<\/p>\n

Branch credits her Nashville stint with a newfound focus on lyric writing\u2014although growing up has something to do with it, too. She was a teenager when she first found success with 2001\u2019s multiplatinum The Spirit Room<\/em> and won a Grammy for her Santana collaboration \u201cThe Game of Love.\u201d \u201cSome of the songs on my first record I originally wrote when I was 14,\u201d says Branch, now 28. \u201cIt was just me daydreaming, writing fictional ideals about what I thought life and love were about. Ten years have passed, and now I\u2019m a wife and mother and\u00a0have seen the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

If her outlook has changed, her methods haven\u2019t\u2014she still finds that inspiration strikes when she least expects it. \u201cI\u2019m the laziest songwriter in the world,\u201d Branch says with a laugh. \u201cMy favorite way to write is when it falls in my lap. When I\u2019m just cleaning the house, a melody will pop in my head and change into a lyric. Before you know it I\u2019m writing verses down on whatever piece of paper is around. Songs that fall from the sky like that are the songs people connect to, the songs that end up being\u00a0people\u2019s favorites.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Amanda Farah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MICHELLE BRANCH Country turned to pop when Nashville frustration gave way to London inspiration Michelle Branch is hanging up\u00a0her cowboy hat for now. Even after she stormed the country charts in 2006 as half of hit duo the Wreckers, Branch\u2019s own planned solo country effort was met with years of record-label delays. The frustration motivated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2826,2615,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4343"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4346,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions\/4346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}