Rolling Country 2010

Recent tracks I've been liking:

Stealing Angels "He Better Be Dead": Dark doomy pickin' sets us up to expect deadly vengeance in the style of Miranda, instead we get three cutie-pies brooding in the aftermath of a love-'em-and-leave-'em one-night-stand. Tough stuff anyway, though the other tracks on their webpage smooth out too much on the harmonies. Managed and produced by Paul Worley.

Sunny Sweeney "From A Table Away": Woman in the shadows realizes she's stuck being the other woman. Good workaday sorrow, a rich voice that doesn't force things. I should check out Sweeney's album from a few years back.

Randy Montana "Ain't Much Left Of Lovin' You": Passionate sense of loss, reminds me of Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man," despite Montana's voice not really having the heft to carry it.

Jake Owen "Tell Me": More of the same, stronger voice than Montana's, solid mainstream licks, song not as distinctive.

The Randy Rogers Band "Too Late For Goodbye": Love fades, glad to see you go, etc. I could envision Sarah Buxton singing this - she'd do it better, actually, since it needs more of a girl's pout than a guy's whimper.

The Janedear Girls "Wildflower": I imagine that if the Spice Girls had ever gone country, they'd go for country that kicks like this. Would have given it more personality, too.

And these are worth a second or third listen (in potential order of preference):

Jennette McCurdy "Not That Far Away": A good Jennifer Love Hewitt kind of wail, though it gets lost in the arrangement.

Justin Moore "How I Got To Be This Way": Slack singing, but good rippin' rock-country riffs.

Lathan Moore "Beautiful Girl": Cheerful rock 'n' roll chug lite.

Darryl Worley "Keep The Change": Dumbshit full of passionate intensity.

Bridgette Tatum "That's Love Y'All": Strong soul voice, cute-free, though the song doesn't do her singing justice. Her MySpace features metal and funk riffs à la MuzikMafia, though I don't think there's any John Rich association - which is too bad 'cause she could use his songwriting.

Troy Olsen "Summer Thing": A summer's day, about ten years ago.

Boggy Creek "Boggy Creek": Southern rock w/ acoustic pickin' for the sake of pickin'; vocals surprise by going for rich alto rather than broad twang.

Hmmm, haven't heard any of those yet. Got the Randy Rogers advance CD in the mail, but haven't gotten to it yet; kind of assume I'll think it's okay but will never play it again after a couple listens, just like I didn't with his last couple (which I'd said nice things about on previous Rolling Country theads.) He's a pretty big deal around here; one of the leading lights of Central Texas red clay country rock, or something. Even had some kind of promotional deal with Tetco, where I usually refill my gas tank, which means his band's well enough known. They've just always ultimately struck me as respectable (meaning I respect their music) but ultimately, somehow, stodgy and indistinctive. Anyway, Frank, curious where you're coming across all of these, some of which sound real interesting. Doesn't sound like a CMT or radio playlist...I'll try to see which ones are up on Rhapsody, and check them out.

And Don, didn't mean to imply that Daddy B. Nice's country/soul crossover rundown was an all-time definitive list, by any means. There's lots of names on both that great From Where I Stand box, and on the two volumes I've got of Dirty Laundy: The Soul Of Black Country (Trikont Germany, 2004 and 2008) that he didn't mention. (Hadn't heard of that other comp you named.) And obviously he also doesn't even name Darius Rucker, the most popular black country star since Charlie Pride, or Rissi Palmer, who hit with "Country Girl" a few years ago (not to mention some folks I mention in the Rhapsody post below.) Still think it's cool he dealt with the topic at all, espeically on a soul blog.

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/04/walking-akon-down-the-dark-side-of-countrys-street.html

Can't say I hear much Link Wray in Lee Brice's sound (hear more in Jace Everett's actually), but do still think "Sumter County Friday Night," and maybe another song or two on his album, might be tough and rowdy enough to qualify as fight music. That song, fwiw, basically takes you through a post-football-game Friday night in a small Carolina town, all sorts of details about the trouble going on; kind of like the idea of Friday Night Lights-inspired country actually. And his band sets up a real hard, funky, incessant groove to carry you through "Sumter County," "Carolina Boys," and "Four On The Floor," right after each other. Listening more, I'm not sure if the '90s grunge grunting alluded to above (which for all I know might really be a Chad Kroeger rip) shows up anywhere else but in the blatant dance song I talked about, but I still really love a lot of what Brice does with his voice, stretching words out, turning individual vowels for several syllables -- not exactly Axl Rose in 1987, but I think he's doing something I haven't heard (at least not much) in country before. Album is uneven, but the opener "Picture Of Me" seems like a pretty good here's-how-I-am-and-here's-why-I'm that-way statement, the kind of song Eric Church might've sang on his first album (and maybe Ashlee Simpson on her first two), though I haven't decided yet if Brice is saying anything new in it. (Lee gets a co-write on all four of thse songs, though not on "Love Like Crazy" and "She Ain't Right" -- which seem to be two of the more tolerable of the album's ballads, some of which are sunk in sap.)

Both the Brice album and Houser album definitely have some funk, in the old funky boogie rock sense, in their groove. And both guys seem set on playing the bad boy, though Houser seems to want to come across a more weathered outlaw type, and Brice more the young buck. Both want to be sexy for the girls, too; Houser brags a lot about his prowess. Which might be part of why they call him Cadillac. Talks in "I'm All About It", if I'm hearing him right, about "going down all the way" with a girl who gives him "lead" (as in pencils?), but also think that song swings harder in my head than when I'm actually hearing it. Kind of wish his band had stretched it out more, its bridge is the nastiest part.

Actually, Brice's "Carolina Boys" is also about a fight, or a potential one -- Girl he's hot on walks in with her city slicker or yuppie boyfriend, "in his three piece suit and his penny loafer shoes"; "I gave him a glare and I swear he looked pretty scared to me, I saw him swallow his pride and I looked deep in his eyes, and he decided he didn't want to take it outside." Lee meanwhile has on "my white T-shirt and my cowboy hat and my baby blues." Class warfare of the asshole kind, but it works.

Listening to Bridgette Tatum's A Taste Of Sex, Church, and Chicken EP, which features the track Frank listed, on Rhapsody now; like the title, and the title of "(I Like My) Cowboys Dirty." She's got a good big husky voice, and right, she's not afraid to boogie. Reminds me of Gretchen Wilson and Lacy J. Dalton, maybe. But yeah, think I agree with Frank in that she could probably use better material.

Meanwhile, anybody heard any of these? (Are the Chesney or Jessie James ones Don Henley sequels?)

13 17 2 The Boys of Fall, Kenny Chesney
B.Cannon,K.Chesney (C.Beathard,D.Turnbull )
BNA PROMO SINGLE | 13
44 1 Stuck Like Glue, Sugarland
B.Gallimore,K.Bush,J.Nettles (J.O.Nettles,K.Bush,K.Griffin,S.Carter )
Mercury DIGITAL | 44
57 NEW 1 Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not, Thompson Square
New Voice Entertainment (J.Collins,D.L.Murphy )
Stoney Creek PROMO SINGLE | 57
58 58 2 Boys In The Summer, Jessie James
J.Fields (J.James,J.Michael )
Mercury DIGITAL | Show Dog-Universal | 58
59 57 59 3 One Thing Beautiful, Rocket Club
M.Kirkwold,J.Sayles (D.Smithmier,J.Sayles )
Feather Moon DIGITAL | Rocket Club |

Not challenging you or Daddy B., just chiming in, mainly for those who might not know (most of my stuff is for the lurkers, which I mostly am) Friday Nights Light country is a promising trendancy, hope the Music Row songwriters are studying those subplots, and not too distracted by the ratings. Yeah Frank, that first Sunny Sweeney album is pretty good, got her into the Best New slot on my Nashville Scene ballot. She was def among the young and restless, sounding like an alternate universe Natalie Maines, still spinning her wheels in backwoods Texas (think she actually mentioned the trees, anyway that's what it sounded like, with overcast brooding rather than stark desert dichotomies ect)I'll burn it for you if I can find it, but that's a fair-sized "if."

spinning her wheels in backwoods Texas (think she actually mentioned the trees

Yep, in "East Texas Pines" (about the Piney Woods -- hey, I've been there now!), easily the best song on Sweeney's '06 debut to my ears. Also liked, at the time (according to notations still inked on my CD) "Here Lately, "Slow Swinging Western Tunes," "If I Could" (written by Tim Carroll, Elizabeth Cook's hubbie) and (speaking of Lacy J Dalton, who had a hit with it once upon a time) "16th Avenue."

I'm listening again to "From A Table Away," and oddly enough Sunny's emotional tone and melody remind me a lot of Vanessa Carlton's otherwise different (and unfortunately overlooked) singer-songwriter album (on Murder Inc.!) from a couple of years ago.

And the intro to "He Better Be Dead" has the feel - not the notes, but the nervousness - I got from the opening to Warrant's excellent "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (a song that's aching for a country version), right after the instrumental diddling at the start and before Jani starts shrieking, the dread. But then the Angels go cute and punchy, rather than to Jani's anguish.

Did Akon's country move ever materialize?

Not that I know of. But it's not like I keep close tabs on Akon these days. (Assume I'd have heard, had he actually done it. Snoop tried a one-song country move a few years ago, right? Or pretended to?)

Man, Jani Lane would be a natural in Nashville, you'd think. Kind of surprised he hasn't made the move, like so many other semi-retired hair-metallers have. Same with Tom Keifer (who did show up on an Andy Griggs CD several years back, at least.)

Listening to a live (and hot) "Picture Of Me" on YouTube, not taking in the lyrics, but Lee Brice's wail also reminds me of Ashlee, his voice scooping down and yarling up. Kicking band, too. Think the production is a little too clean on the studio "Sumter County Friday Night," or maybe I'm thrown by how cheery it sounds, in its toughness. I'm meh on "She Ain't Right" from a few years ago, too much stereotype and not enough force.

Here's a live Sumter County; bet the band are fans of "Crosstown Traffic" and "Voodoo Child."

They sledgehammer that live. From the perspective of the venue and crowd, not really possible to deliver that the way it is in the record. You gotta lose the banjo, the slight rhythm change-up, all of the twang, which is a casualty of the recording. Plus the acoustic guitar -- really, has no chance in the mix.

Works anyway.

The prole cap rock thing.

Class warfare of the asshole kind, but it works.

Hah. Two cartoon stereotypes in combat. My only question, who wants to be the cartoon stereotype
more?

Don't quite know why but that also made me take a listen to Justin Moore's "I Could Kick Your Ass."

Good for about 90 seconds.

Off Frank's list of songs above:

Guitar at the beginning of Jake Owen's "Tell Me" reminds me of Metallica in quasi-spaghetti-western funereal gloom mode ("Fade To Black," maybe, or one of their interminable ballad hits from the early '90s. Except Owen's song is thankfully less interminable.)

Guitar at the beginning of Darryl Worley's dumbass opportunistic (but still unfortunately admittedly somewhat rousing) would-be Tea Party anthem "Keep The Change" reminds me of some late '70s new wave/powerpop band in hard Byrds mode (most likely "Girl Of My Dreams" by Bram Tchaikovsky.)

Favorite song I've heard so far from the list, easy: "From A Table Away," Sunny Sweeney.

Interesting that this 'homemade vid' has been up for about a month without being yanked for a
TOS copyright violation. They're not racist, oh no.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUWnl7UADYU

I had a Worley rec a couple years ago. On one of the songs he griped about not being as successful as he thought he oughta be -- the record company not getting his CDs into stores in places he was playing.

He comes up with these jingo tunes about the way he thinks life oughta be and he sings 'em good and the guitar sounds great, and he's still a left-behinder. Ted Nugent'd kill for a song like "Keep the Change."

Judging by viewer count though, Ray Stevens' "We The People" is a lot more popular.

What are the Piney Woods like, xhux?

The Singles Jukebox reviews Jerrod Niemann's "Lover, Lover":

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2588

The Singles Jukebox reviews The Band Perry's "If I Die Young":

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2580

I was too flabbergasted to review "If I Die Young" - is definitely my WTF country single of the month. The words are ridiculously, passionately bad, or passionately ridiculous, but I think I'm thumbs up on it anyway, for its audacity and commitment, and no one would accuse it of being generic. I don't know if I'd consider it country if it weren't being marketed as such; sounds like a Brit quirk-girl thing though with an American accent, and loopier and more exuberant and naive even than Tashbed. Sample lyrics:

There's a boy here in town, says he'll love me forever
Who would've thought forever would be severed
By the sharp knife of a short life

Band works with Nathan Chapman (Taylor Swift's producer) and Paul Worley, and is on one of Scott Borchetta's labels (same one as Sunny Sweeney).

(Borchetta's the guy who gave Taylor a contract after she at age 14 or 15 walked out on whatever label it was (RCA?) that wanted to keep her in "development" (or at least that's what I recall being claimed on a Taylor EPK).)

David Raposa, who awarded "If I Die Young" 9 points out of 10: "Sad but true: knowing what the male Perrys' hair looked like before blurbing might've influenced my score."

What are the Piney Woods like, xhux?

Piney? Woodsy? I dunno - My better half has an aunt and uncle out there, near Crockett and Kennard. Did some visiting time the past couple of 4th of July weekends. Was okay, but couldn't wait to get back to civilization, to be honest.

Just realized I first wrote about Lee Brice on Idolator two years ago (same column I first wrote about 3Oh!3, who I liked less):

LEE BRICE
“One day I stopped to pee, got some gas, and won the lottery,” this South Carolinan’s hit says. Now, his “trailer park’s full of Cadillacs,” and he watches “NASCAR on a 60-inch plasma screen.” The song, “Upper Middle Class White Trash,” sits at No. 15 on Hot Singles Sales after debuting at No. 7 last week; it’s also at No. 49 on Hot Country Songs after five weeks. Not as ingenious a concept as its title makes you hope–Toby Keith had an album called White Trash With Money two years ago, after all. But it’s also not the only notable number on Lee’s MySpace; “Sumter County Friday Night” and “Carolina Boys” are even sorta funky, in a swamp-rock way, and the one about the girl who follows some musician she met from Myrtle Beach to L.A. has a sweet tune. Plus, according to a YouTube commenter named Rishnai, “Upper Middle Class White Trash” is about real life: “Dang, that’s just about described my cousin! He stopped to take a leak and fill up his truck and hit a $4.5 million jackpot on the quick pick. And that’s about what the family did, ‘cept Danny keeps frogs in his pool, not a bass.” Now if only Lee didn’t insist on always wearing his baseball cap backwards.

http://idolator.com/399245/numbers-letters-exclamation-points-real-world-alums-and-the-countercultural-reclamation-of-ike

Think I've decided that Justin Moore's "How I Got To Be This Way" is the bush-league version of Brice's "Picture Of Me." Also pretty sure the rock riff in Jessie James's "Boys In The Summer" (who take their shirts off) rocks me more than Moore's riff does. Like Kenny Chesney's bittersweet (of course) "Boys Of Fall" (who play football -- more Friday Night Lights country! Though Brooks & Dunn's "Indian Summer" did it first maybe) -- more than Jessie's song though. "Stuck Like Glue" is, I guess, partly Sugarland's pop reggae move, right? Cute. But I actually like the oddball '70s AM radio novelty approximation of African skiffle shuffle at the beginning more than the actual song, I think.

And oh yeah, George's Darryl Worley youtube post reminded me that one of the quasi-libertarian nativist isolatonist Zionist-baiting tea-party-courting conspiracy theory radio shows on the Genesis Communication Network -- not Alex Jones's show; whichever one has the host who (sometimes?) broadcasts out of Honolulu -- was regularly using James McMurtry's "We Can't Make It Here" and Blind Alfred Reed's "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live" as bumper music earlier this year. Weird choices.

So now we know Worley's a liar and he's a bit desperate to get his song played. It seems to have stiffed at cmt which is maybe unsurprising. And he has to rely on the Tea Party -- with its lack of grasp of the English language -- to shove it in Youtube. Can't figure why he would have released it early without a video without knowing this would happen. Personally, I think it was a marketing strategy. Anyway, here's the news piece.

In the vein of his 2003 hit 'Have You Forgotten,' Darryl Worley has released his latest single 'Keep the Change,' about how values have pushed by the wayside. While it makes sense that the song would connect with the country audience, it seems he has been meeting with a bit of resistance in getting the song played. Some people believe 'Keep the Change' is political, but Darryl insists it's more about his love and protectiveness of America than anything else.

"I have gotten into some pretty heated debates already with this song," Darryl tells The Boot. "Before God, I swear to you, I believe this is a patriotic song. And it's a patriotic song coming from, I started to say one guy's perspective, but there were three of us. We all just happened to sit down and come from the same place for this particular song. I might go back and rethink it if I had to do it over again and change the title to something else, because they hear the song title, and they immediately think that we're ripping and tearing into Obama's campaign slogans ("Change We Can Believe In" and "Change We Need"). I've got tons of friends that voted for Obama, President Obama, and I say that respectively (sic). I went and sat with them and played them the song and asked them how they felt. And 90 percent of them said, 'The bottom line is the nation is really angry right now, and we don't think there could ever be a better time in history for your song.'"

Darryl, who co-wrote the song with Jim "Moose" Brown and Phil O'Donnell, says he hoped 'Keep the Change' would get people thinking about what was going on in the world and figure out how they could find a way to work things out.

"You can just look around and I'm not pointing a finger at anyone, we've all dropped the ball," Darryl explains. "And it's really sad, you know? It may be a hopeless case, I may be stupid to think I can write and record a song that might be a wake-up call to people and just have people reevaluate. That's where we were. I asked Moose the night we wrapped it up and we were walking out to the truck. I asked him, 'Why do you think we wrote this song.' And he said exactly what I was thinking. He said, 'I just hope that it might be a wake-up call.' To just sit for a couple of days and discuss these things, we realized that things have really changed ... Obviously, these days we sort of follow our politicians' example. it's like we have to be squared off fighting against each other, and there's not any room for discussion or that maybe, just maybe, like the men that founded this great nation, they had radically opposing, different views about things. But there was never a doubt, I don't think, in any of their minds when they sat across the table from one another that there was a really good and genuine person sitting in both of those chairs. And they knew by the end of the session, or whatever it was, that they would come up together with what was the best for the nation and the people."

The song, Darryl says, has received incredible reaction where it has been given a chance to be heard, however, he does admit that it may not surpass the success of some of his previous hits. "It's probably not going to be a huge radio hit, because of the resistance to it in some places. And sometimes that's OK. One of the things that the country-music industry and radio watches very closely is how something's selling. And this is the kind of song that will sell some product. People will go, 'I can't hear this on my radio station? I'll just go and buy it because I really believe in this song.' We've had it happen before ... all we're doing is asking people to just have a look at things, maybe take a good re-evaluation of where we are, and you might come up with something better than me to make this a better world, a better nation
to live in."

First of all, 50 percent of pay Worley's singing about in the song doesn't go to Uncle Sam. That's been pretty soundly debunked but it is a real Tea Party article of faith. He should have to do an interview where someone asks him straight out how is that he's come to have fallen in with the "hands off my pile" crowd and why he actually hasn't pulled the video that's on Youtube, the one with the standard hate comments and veiled stuff from anonymoids predicting the president won't make it to 2012.

A much nicer younger version of Ted Nugent, intentionally going inflammatory because chart-wise everything of his has been insignificant since "Have You Forgotten?"

It's like a giveaway trait of the stupid: You become a newborn hand-wringlingly sincere amateur
historian who has just discovered paintings of the founding fathers on Glenn Beck, particularly if you're from the south, were one of those guys asleep in class in high school and are now really really chapped over the guy you didn't vote for.

Sadly, Worley has a recording contract and enough money to still have some bigtime songwriters helping him out.

"This video is for every American who were doing fine without the 'change.'

Go get 'em, Darryl. This'll do it.

'And 90 percent of them said,'The bottom line is the nation is really angry right now, and we don't think there could be a better time in history for your song.' Yeah, I can just see the Life of Darryl multitudes chanting that. But he really is convincingly nice, and not in a disgusting way, when not getting so into politics per se. "Have You Forgotten", trying to wring tears of guilt from those who had any qualms at all about impending invasion of Iraq, was really the worst, but that album he released right after Bush's re-election was frankly qualmsy about everything. But he's like people I've known,correspondences I've let lapse cos never know about getting sandbagged by sudden rants (even aside from obviously titled, fwded bogus news, petitions, etc)

Singles Jukebox reviews of:

Dierks Bently "Up On The Ridge"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2601

and Luke Bryan "Rain Is A Good Thing"

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2594

Both of which did better than I figured they would (and figured they deserved to).

I dumped on Luke Bryan upstream way before:

Two songs on water, Luke Bryan's "Rain is a Good Thing" which has gotta have the worst lyrics I've heard in a long time. Cracked out the rhyming dictionary for whiskey and frisky for that slice of
retard rock. And Paisley's thing.

And this ain't aimed at xhuxk but one ought to at try to be a little less obvious in their usages since everyone's at the cocktail party is cherry-picked from this one.

Huh, Worley or his record company had YouTube yank the audio on the teabagger vid for his "Keep the
Change" tune.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4302299/behind-the-scenes-with-darryl-worley/?playlist_id=87261

Worley on a Fox News web only production -- they threw him a bone in connection with an appearance on Hannity I didn't see.

It's obvious they're trying to take "Keep the Change" to the Fox News/Tea Party crowd. However, Worley discusses his problem at about 2:40 in. Country music dropped it because it's about bashing the President, something Worley denies, not very convincingly.

Generally, though, I do agree with dow. He seems like a genuinely nice fellow. Just not very perceptive, or purposely playing thick, on how his song will be or is used/perceived.

Here he's talking about it to the Kalamazoo Express Gazette before country music stripped it. According to Lex-Nex, he was able to do only two pieces of publicity on it when it was released and while it was low in the country charts.

Songwriter concerned about country's values

Special to the Gazette

ST. JOSEPH -- When you hear Darryl Worley's latest single, "Keep The Change," at the Venetian Festival, pay attention to the lyrics.

Although Worley says he's patriotic rather than political, he appears to be making a social statement with "Keep The Change." He's concerned about the state of the nation and the overall emotional well-being of its people.

"It's scary," Worley said. "I don't think anybody knows where we're heading. We are getting further from basic principles and core values that the country seems to have been based on and founded."

Worley says the title is not intended as a jab at President Barack Obama.

"We (co-writers Jim "Moose" Brown and Phil O'Donnell) pick song titles because we know they'll stir up a stink. That's what I do as a songwriter. It's my job to figure out what will create the biggest reaction. The changes that we see in society are changes that have been in the making for 40-50 years," he said.

Worley debuted "Keep The Change" in Detroit this past spring. Its first test in front of a sizable crowd was a positive one. It relates to a blue collar core but also transcends political ties.

"A big portion of the population is fed up with the way things are going, and they don't know why," he said.

The song, he says, is the "voice of a lot of those people." Worley's songwriting skills resonated well with country music fans and the general public at large with 2003's post 9/11 anthem, "Have You Forgotten?" Several years later, Worley still remembers and honors those who serve our country.

He recently returned from a tour in Iraq where he performed and signed autographs for thousands of soldiers throughout the Middle East. Entertaining the troops, he says, is "his way of sharing a little bit in the responsibility and doing my part."

======Rest cut

He does emit the sincere whine of the wounded Tea Party types who see themselves as patriots (and therefore always necessary to point it out, too) and -- the politer ones, anyway -- who become dumbfounded when other people who outwardly look just like them point out their image isn't so pristine.

And only a hardened charlatan or stone fool could possibly insist such a song "transcends political ties" without smirking.

The changes that we see in society are changes that have been in the making for 40-50 years.

And this is rubbish, who knows where it comes from. The new right article of faith that the New Deal
and Great Society were for commie losers?

Forty to fifty years ago we had economic fairness and a social contract for the betterment of the middle class. It didn't start getting really thrown to the dogs until the early Eighties. He's just noticed ore more recently.

Something I wrote about the new Trace Adkins album:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2010/08/cowboys-back.html

Hey here's a prodi-gal prodigy (and seasoned pro) prob be in my Nash Scene Top Ten, though her beat-rushing chronicles may take some getting used to (got of a lot if it on first listening, but may be we're similarly wired, in this instance)Shitty field recordings on YouTube, but can check her
http://www.myspace.com/lydialoveless
and that of her tempestuous family New Wave band
http://www.myspace.com/carsondrew although it's sadly RIP (her dad's still drumming in her own band, though).
Here's my show preview:
Veteran Columbus,OH teen Lydia Loveless sometimes includes the Replacements’ intensely frustrated “Answering Machine” and Def Leppard’s dynamically mesmerized “Hysteria” with her punky tonk combo’s deliveries, unstoppably tumbling up, down and onto life’s thrilling, killing, chilling and flat moments. Loretta Lynn’s points of departure are extended and twisted through Loveless’ compactly epic, self-written debut,The Only Man, as desperately wired sexual power struggles zap the void in passing: “Girls suck/They suck and suck and never get enough,” wails one contender, but it’s time to ricochet off another incisive epitaph.

My more organized thoughts on the Worley thing:

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/08/11/on-pandering-country-music-style/

Great post, George. Didn't realize there were so many "Keep The Change" songs. And Worley has clearly been disconnected from reality at least since linking Bin Laden to Iraq back in "Have You Forgotten."

As for this:

the country charts have largely shied away from this type of inflammation if we don’t include the short period after 9/11 when it granted a dispensation for those who liked the idea of getting our war on. (Chuck, you can correct me if I’m way off.)

I think you're basically right, though that doesn't mean a certain kind of class resentment didn't stick with country through the '00s; just wasn't as blatant as right after 9-11. It seems to have cooled down lately, though that may as much to do with timidity on radio's part as anything else. And obviously there have been recent inflamatory exceptions, like for instance Toby Keith's "American Ride" last year. Wrote more about country's tea-party-like backlashing through the decade here:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2009/11/countryteaparty.html

In other news, Singles Jukeboxers on Uncle Kracker's "Smile":

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2625

Though on second thought, "timidity on radio's part" might be wrong. I get the idea that, in the, uh, Obama/Paisley/Taylor era, Nashville in general doesn't seem to be leaning as drastically rightward as it seemed to be just a few years ago. Not sure why that would be (maybe a business decision), or why it even strikes me that way. But it's not exactly like John Rich has been tearing up the charts lately. And I even get the feeling Toby -- whose politics were always fairly confused and/or confusing in the first place -- has been sort of shunted to the side somewhat over the past couple of years.

Though then again, maybe I'm citing country radio's timidity because country radio has struck me as really timid this year -- in a year when country albums haven't really been striking me as timid at all. (Though that could have something to do with Austin's commerical country station being more reined in than other places', or could just have something to do with me not listening to country radio as much. Real chicken-and-egg conundrum: Does country radio seem boring to me because I'm tuning into it less, or am I tuning into it less because it seems boring to me? Both, maybe.)

FOX News, 2003: "They're criticizing the President! Get them off the radio!"

FOX News, 2010: "He's criticizing the President! Get him on the radio!"

Re your Obama/Paisley/Swift observation -- I was thinking about Paisley, in particular, prior to finalizing that Worley thing because his album came out just as the economy was collapsing, succeeding despite it. And I felt he was kind of the voice of the Wall Streeter who doesn't see anything wrong, his kickoff tune being about the wonders of getting everything from everywhere else in the world but here on a Saturday night. Without questioning for a second where and why all the jobs went. But it succeeded grandly and his "Water" is still being pumped, so there's certainly an industry appetite for his genial fantasies as long as he executes them so well. Truth is I have more grudging respect for Worley's song because at least it's truying to capitalize on a very real rage in the social climate.

As for John Rich, he's either mixed up or he mixes me up. The Detroit single comes out -- and then he winds up being one of the "stars" at the profoundly inimical to labor Massey Energy and its labor day farce a year ago. And now it's back to the party scene. And didn't Brooks & Dunn -- or at least one of them -- get a bit prickly when Obama used one of their songs at his big do prior to election?

In other matters, from the sound of "Ala-Freakin'-Bama," I think I'm going to have to get the Trace Adkins thing. I listened to "Marry for Money" again and, honest to God, the guitars are doing a Status Quo thing in it.

And Worley gloms onto at least two big myths in his thing. (1) That Uncle Sam takes half his labor.
And (2), that Obama did the Wall Street bailout when it was a Henry Paulson/GWB thing and so had nothing to do with 'change.' Plus, he throws in the Tea Party thing which has to do with its perception that the president slights those who pledge allegiance and pray. Which is pretty nasty when you get right down to it.

Another thing I remain curious on is the male country-wide breast-beating thing over honoring the troops.

To be honest, Ted Nugent -- in particular, does this big time, too. And it seems to me that if a few of these guys actually felt the way they say they do, the would have thrown down their guitars on 9/11 and marched quickly down to to the local recruiting station, like Pat Tillman. But, of course, we know they all didn't -- despite being as able bodied. In fact, this seems to be a real big component of Tea Party-ism.

So all the play for the troops and advertise it work, which is fine, smacks me as overcompensation and a psychological guilt work-off over not having the stones to actually do what they publicly believed ought to be done.

There's a conspicuous absence of songs about bringing them home now after almost a decade of war,
right?

"Keep the Change" is obviously a swipe at Obama--the guys up on the hill can't see that things are going wrong? Just give me the big money I deserve and need and you guys keep the change. I bet the songwriters were real proud of themselves. As usual, this is just insubstantial to the point of disappearing, as analysis. That bad ol' liberal Paul Krugman wrote recently in the bad ol' Times about the crumbing of our infrastructure, which I myself would be more concerned about that whatever Worley seems to think is wrong. One thing country used to do well was think in practicalities that sure, were all about the individual--politics being in my book a mass phenomenon, a way for people to Pull Together, and so forth, that country has always exploited but never actually taken to heart. Because the classic country artists felt excluded, just like the blues performers.

I do think that it's a biz decision, the fading away of Toby (who left his big label, remember) and the new stuff taking over, which is a bit more apolitical. John Rich supported the nut-job candidate for Tenn. gov., Zach Wamp (who didn't win in the recent primary). I believe Nashville is scared of tapping into the Tea Party rage, all it's gonna do is erode their market share with the people they want to reach--people like me, more or less, Southerners who basically like country music but who are liberals or at least skeptical about the right wing. I know a lot of people like that.

But the big guy with the slide is cool, in the Huckabee clip, and Huck himself acquits himself nicely on bass. I mean could James K. Polk play the banjo?

I tried to like the Jerrod Neimann record, Judge Jerrod & the Hung Jury, and while I kind of noticed the rock-opera aspect of it (note the subtle Pink Floyd Dark Side guitar chord allusion in the first number, I found it kind of ridiculous. That stupid song about going to Mexico and not feeling down. Guess I'll give it another try.

Duds: Clarie Burson's Silver and Ash and Eden Brent's New Orleans piano record. Brent is skillful and there are a few moments of nice rockin' on it. She can play in that Prof. Longhair mode, but her vocals--approaches everything just the same and tries so hard to sound like she's on a riverboat in 1923...annoying.

I bring up Brent just 'cause I know that this appropriation of an idiom--the skill involved in what she does, which is undeniable--may not be preferable to what Taylor Swift does. Just to let you guys know I think about this stuff. When you're calculatin' your aesthetics and all it's very difficult to sort this stuff out. My objection to Swift is that it's not musical, the actual elements of it have nothing much to do with music in its deepest psychological sense. The voice, the stance, the pathos of being young and the lyrics, that may have some merit but I need more, myself. Far be it from me to deny the people their pleasures in this. But one thing an old fart like me, cognizant at least of the niceties of "idiom" and so forth, can say is that country music used to be at least psychologically sound it its simplicity. This is not to decry the modern but merely to make an observation. Now do I prefer Swift to Eden Brent? I dunno--I am skeptical of both roots and rootlessness, as permanent states of being.

Swift Boat: the scuttlebutt here in town for a while, which may not be true, but the people who've said this to me are credible, is that Swift has never written her own stuff without help, or maybe not at all. Has had the guidance of a well-known songwriter whose daughter is a young alt-country nymphet. Probably untrue, but interesting.

The best thing I've heard in the last week is Riley's Grandma's Roadhouse, an early Gary Stewart project done with Owen Bradley in 1970. The local label Demore put it out. This may have been mentioned upthread in the posts I still haven't gotten to. It's what you wish country-rock--Marshall Tucker--would have sounded like, or what the International Submarine Band might've been with more balls, or what Doug Sahm might've done had he come to Nashville. Really great songs about drinking, weed and the pleasures of country life in a tar-paper shack, done with rock dynamics and guitar, but with a very interesting overlay of wistful? glazed? stoned? harmonies a la the Everlys and songforms post-Beatles for sure. Stewart wrote about half the songs and sings them. It's remarkable and as a confirmed Stewart nut I love it, but the whole band is great.

and reading up thar, right, Marcus is full of it re Jesse Winchester and "rockabilly." Last year the Scene asked me to write about Winchester, who was appearing here in town and whom I'd never seen or really listened to very much in years. So I dug out all his stuff I could find and spent a few days with the man.

His first LP is a classic and it's more or less a sui generis singer-songwriter essaying the lyric, as in lyrical, side of basic rock 'n' roll and a little country, a little sentimentality. The insane balls-out of rockabilly isn't there at all. What Marcus was hooking into was the expat aspect of a Memphis/Mississippi artiste feeling lost but still horny and ready in a cold country. Winchester's later stuff is nice with particular props to Nothing but a Breeze. One sly motherfucker indeed. His last album, Love Filling Station, uses newfangled oldfangled acoustic-bluegrass tropes and is very nice too. One great song tucked away in there about how Southern women are disappointed in their men and how the money sustains it all despite said man's fecklessness, daddy got him a job at the bank. A subject I find irresistible, since I know some mighty Steely Magnolias and some mighty feckless men named things like Ferdy...but Winchester I did catch at the Nashville show, just so mellifluous and subtle and sly in the vocal approach, and "Biloxi" and "Mississippi You're on My Mind" (done to a T by Stoney Edwards) are A plus songs, man. But rockabilly... no.

I believe Nashville is scared of tapping into the Tea Party rage, all it's gonna do is erode their market share with the people they want to reach--people like me, more or less, Southerners who basically like country music but who are liberals or at least skeptical about the right wing. I know a lot of people like that.

This is an interesting observation, thanks, ed. I saw this fellow named Mudcat Saunders on the television the other day, MSNBC talking about how Jim Webb won, and he seemed to be in the same vein.

Swift Boat: the scuttlebutt here in town for a while, which may not be true, but the people who've said this to me are credible, is that Swift has never written her own stuff without help, or maybe not at all. Has had the guidance of a well-known songwriter whose daughter is a young alt-country nymphet. Probably untrue, but interesting.

To be honest, I don't give a hoot either way. Nothing is more tedious than the way that writing your own songs in isolation is held up as the mark of a TRUE ARTIST.

Anybody got any Top Ten bait? I don't think I've even heard ten 2010 release country albums (yet)Pretty sure the aforementioned Lydia Loveless and Halestorm gonna be in my TT, but otherwise...

Yeah, the results are what count, talking about Taylor Swift.

So the Jerrod Neimann record should've been called The Eclectic Spanking of Judge Jerrod. When Nashville wants to make a concept record making fun of concept records, they really do it right. This record makes Bobby Bare Jr.'s new one sound positively moribund and ranges over a lot more territory. One tune features Funkadelic guitars circa One Nation Under a Groove and backup singers and occasional wah-wah; there's one about Tiffany a.k.a. Bakersfield from Bakersfield; a Jimmy Buffett imitation with bongos in it; some very odd arrangements including one that alternates strings with some kind of weird keyboard part; a joke-ending of an ending song just like Roger McGuinn used to favor; and the clincher, a song about how he's a throwback to the days of hat acts that alludes to payola, with piano part signifying the glorious past. He sings well enough, overdoes it by my lights but that's part of the concept. Hmm. As I say, the Bare Jr. record sounds anemic by comparison, merely reshuffling some moody alt-country concepts and Bare Jr. sounding dead on his feet throughout most of it.

Wow...Rolling Country is rolling again, I guess. Need to absorb George's and Edd's posts more, but to answer Don's question, my country Top 20 albums for 2010, at this point, would look something like this (with much shuffling likely between now and the end of the year):

1. Jace Everett – Red Revelations (Western Boys/Hump Head)
2. Luther Lackey – Preacher’s Wife (Ecko)*
3. Jamey Johnson – The Guitar Song (Mercury)
4. Flynnville Train – Redemption (Evolution)
5. Laura Bell Bundy – Achin’ & Shakin’ (Mercury)
6. Chely Wright – Lifted Off The Ground (Vanguard)
7. Colt Ford – Chicken And Biscuits (Average Joe’s)
8. Tim Woods – The Blues Sessions (Earwig)*
9. Lee Brice – Love Like Crazy (Curb)
10. Jerrod Niemann – Judge Jerrod And The Hung Jury (Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville)

11. Shinyribs – Well After Awhile (Nine Mile)
12. Merle Haggard - I Am What I Am (Vanguard)
13. Trace Adkins – Cowboy’s Back In Town (Universal)
14. The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Wages (SideOneDummy)
15. Elizabeth Cook – Welder (Thirty Tigers)
16. Randy Houser – They Call Me Cadillac (Show Dog)
17. Jason Boland & The Stragglers – High In the Rockies: A Live Album (Apex Nashville/Thirty Tigers)
18. Legendary Shack Shakers – Agridustrial (Colonel Knowledge)
19. Stone River Boys – Love On The Dial (Cow Island)
20. Andy Cohen – Built Right On The Ground (Earwig)*

* -- These ones may well stretch the definition of "country." (Technically more blues or soul.)

And Edd, if you didn't notice, I linked to my own review of that Neimann record upthread, sometime in the past few weeks. Didn't even try the Bare Jr. album; have hated what I've heard before by the guy.

Shack Shakers might stretch the country definition as well, I guess.

And I find Taylor Swift's music pretty darn musical, myself.