Happy 10th: Jenny Lewis, ACID TONGUE

10 years ago this week, Jenny Lewis released her first official album as a solo artist.

Some would argue that ACID TONGUE was actually her second solo album and, in doing so, would cite RABBIT FUR COAT – released in 2006 – as her solo debut. Those individuals, while certainly not 100% wrong, are technically not right, either, in that the aforementioned 2006 album found her sharing credit with the Watson Twins. ACID TONGUE, on the other hand, is credited solely to Lewis, which is why we’re giving it the win.

Produced by Lewis with the assistance of Johnathan Rice, Dave Scher, and Jason Lader, ACID TONGUE found Lewis co-writing a number of tracks with Rice, a well-respected singer/songwriter in his own right. Their ability to work together musically was doubtlessly assisted by their ability to work together personally, as they were dating at the time. (They may still be, for all we know. We try not to pay attention to gossip.) Those are in no way the only collaborations to be found on the LP, however: among the album’s various musical contributions are such notable names as Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward, Davy Faragher, and Chris Robinson, with the most high-profile artist in the bunch being the one and only Elvis Costello, who duetted with Lewis on “The Carpetbaggers.”

Lewis’s efforts to give the album a live feel clearly served to inspire her fans to pick it up: ACID TONGUE debuted in the top 30 of the Billboard 200, earning her many critical plaudits as well as some major mainstream street cred.