Hailey Whitters Is Tattered, Torn, Triumphant On New Album, ‘The Dream’

Hailey Whitters cashes in the last of her creative currency – at least for the moment. “I came to the point where I was like, ‘I’m gonna make this record as if it’s the last record I get to make, before I hang it up,’” she voiced in an interview this week. Such an admission is not one of resignation but rather of remarkable determination. The hill to stardom is a steep one — even steeper for women. Where men are tasked with pushing one boulder, women get 10.

Whitters’ new record, The Dream, her first since 2015’s Black Sheep, shuffles through the wreckage of her life – mostly cobbled together mosaics of a broken industry and personal heartbreak. “The dream is a paycheck at the end of the week,” she measures out her art’s worth with closer “Livin’ the Dream” (a Lori McKenna co-write). The power she uncovers with three chords and the truth, unraveling as a cat batting a ball of yarn, accentuates the strength she’s gained over five very long years.

Read the full article here: https://americansongwriter.com/hailey-whitters-the-dream-album-review/