''Rabbits on the Run'' is the fourth studio album from

Vanessa Carlton Vanessa Lee Carlton (born August 16, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Upon completion of her education at the School of American Ballet, Carlton chose to pursue singing instead, performing in New York City bars and clubs while ...

, released on July 26, 2011, through

Razor & Tie Razor & Tie was an American entertainment company that consisted of a record label and a music publishing company. It was established in 1990 by Craig Balsam and Cliff Chenfeld. Based in New York City (with additional offices in Los Angeles an ...

Background

On October 2, 2010, Vanessa Carlton tweeted that she had completed her fourth studio album. In February 2011, a video was posted to Carlton's official website. In the video, she explained the process for producing her album, and stated that she questioned whether or not she would make another record, as she had been experimenting with writing film scores. She further explained that after deciding to produce another record, Carlton felt she needed to create the ideal environment in order to produce what she felt was the perfect album.Vanessa Carlton, 'Rabbits on the Run' – 2011 New Album Preview – AOL Radio Blog
/ref> She said that she wanted to capture a creepy, honest, dreamy, fantastical sound with 'Rabbits on the Run', a title and concept inspired by books like Stephen Hawking's ''

A Brief History of Time ''A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes'' is a book on theoretical cosmology by English physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for readers who had no prior knowledge of physics. I ...

'', and

Richard Adams Richard George Adams (9 May 1920 – 24 December 2016) was an English novelist and writer of the books ''Watership Down'', ''Maia'', ''Shardik'' and ''The Plague Dogs''. He studied modern history at university before serving in the British Army ...

's ''

Watership Down ''Watership Down'' is an adventure novel by English author Richard Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in Berkshire in southern England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural ...

''. In order to achieve that sound, Carlton recorded the album direct to tape and recruited a tight-knit team of collaborators, which included producer Steve Osborne, The Upwelling guitarist Ari Ingber, and

My Morning Jacket My Morning Jacket is an American rock band formed in Louisville, Kentucky in 1998. The band consists of vocalist/guitarist Jim James, bassist Tom Blankenship, drummer Patrick Hallahan, guitarist Carl Broemel, and keyboardist Bo Koster. The ba ...

drummer Patrick Hallahan. She also enlisted the help of a children's choir, namely the Capital Children's Choir, saying that some of her melodies were "just built" for choral arrangements. It was also mentioned in the video that the recording for the album took place in

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

Real World Studios Real World Studios is a residential recording studio complex founded by Peter Gabriel and situated in the village of Box, Wiltshire, England, near to the city of Bath. It is closely associated with the Real World Records record label, Real Wor ...

in Box, England, which Carlton considered as the secret "fifth element she needed" to complete the album. The line "rabbits on the run" is from the lyrics of the first single "Carousel". On March 1, 2011, it was announced that Carlton had signed with

. On November 10, 2011, it was announced that an EP would be released, titled ''Hear the Bells''. It contains the songs " Do You Hear What I Hear?", " Happy Xmas (War is Over)," as well as acoustic versions of her 2002 single "

A Thousand Miles "A Thousand Miles" (originally titled "Interlude") is the debut single by American pop singer Vanessa Carlton. Produced by Curtis Schweitzer and Ron Fair, the song was released as the lead single for Carlton's album '' Be Not Nobody'' (2002). ...

" and "Hear the Bells," the latter of which is featured on ''Rabbits on the Run.''

Promotion

Carlton performed the lead single "Carousel" on ''

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno that first aired from May 25, 1992, to May 29, 2009. It resumed production on March 1, 2010 and ended on February 6, 2014. The fourth incarnation of the ...

'', and '' The Today Show'', and was interviewed on '' Chelsea Lately''. She also performed "I Don't Want to Be a Bride" on '' Conan''. Carlton recorded a "Master Class" for VH1, teaching viewers how to play "Carousel." Carlton also conducted an interview with ABC News in June 2011, discussing the meaning behind the album's title. As part of promoting the album, Vanessa recorded a cover of

Mumford and Sons Mumford may refer to: *Amazing Mumford, a Muppet character on ''Sesame Street'' * ''Mumford'' (film), a 1999 American comedy-drama film *Mumford procedure, also called distal clavicle excision or distal clavicle resection, an orthopedic surgical pro ...

' " The Cave" for Billboard.com. Carlton also covered a Brian Jonestown Massacre track, "David Bowie I Love You Since I Was Six" to promote the change in sound of her new material.

Singles

The lead single from the album, "Carousel", was released on May 3, 2011. Its music video was released online May 16, 2011. A duet version of "I Don't Want to Be a Bride" with

KT Tunstall Kate Victoria "KT" Tunstall (born 23 June 1975) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. She first gained attention with a 2004 live solo performance of her song " Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on '' Later... with Jools Holland''. Th ...

was performed in London in late 2011. The song was rumored to be the second single from the album, but with the exception of a reference from her management in September 2011, confirmation on the single never surfaced. On February 8, 2012, Carlton tweeted that her record label, Razor & Tie, was unable to "do Bride," and that "Hear The Bells" will be the second single instead, accompanied with a music video directed by Jake Davis. The music video for "Hear The Bells," which Carlton described as her most revealing to date, was released on June 7, 2012.

Critical reception

''Rabbits on the Run'' received positive reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 72, based on 6 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

rated the album three out of five stars and claims: "This is music made with no audience in mind: it is strikingly personal." In August 2011, Amazon rated the album at No. 51 on their list of "Best Albums of 2011 So Far."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from

: *

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

, harmonium,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Additional musicians * Richard Ashton –

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

* Ian Burdge –

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

* Capital Children's Choir –

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which ...

, chorus * Patrick Hallahan –

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 ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

* Richard Henry – tuba * Ari Ingber –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

* Damian Johnson – drums, percussion * Isaac Jones – drums (snare),

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

* Trevor Mires –

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

* Everton Nelson –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

* Steve Osborne –

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

, guitar,

hammond B3 Hammond may refer to: People * Hammond Innes (1913–1998), English novelist * Hammond (surname) * Justice Hammond (disambiguation) Places Antarctica * Hammond Glacier, Antarctica Australia *Hammond, South Australia, a small settlement in South ...

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 ...

, percussion, piano * Bruce White –

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

* Warren Zielinski – violin Technical personnel * Vanessa Carlton – string arrangement * Steve Osborne –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, mixing,

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

* Dan Austin – engineer * Robin Baynton – transcription, engineer * Andrew Dudman – engineer * Jordan Feldstein – management * Pete Giberga – A&R * Beka Tischker – A&R * Joe Jones – assistant engineer * Rachel Santesso – choir director * Brian Manning – booking * Mitch Rose – booking *

Jo Ratcliffe Jo Ratcliffe is a London based artist known for her kaleidoscopic animations, strange hand-drawn characters, and spindly scenes sometimes overlain atop live action footage. She is frequently commissioned by fashion labels and magazines to crea ...

– art direction, artwork * Sean Sullivan – photography

Chart performance

;Album

Release history

References

{{Authority control 2011 albums Vanessa Carlton albums Concept albums Razor & Tie albums Albums produced by Steve Osborne Indie pop albums by American artists