Rolling Country 2009 Thread

xhuxk, recommend some good Little Big Town songs to me with more shameless pep? I love shameless pep and I don't really know LBT that well.

"Boondocks," "Bones," "Mean Streak," "Welcome To The Family," "Fine Line," "Evangeline," "Novacaine," "Fury." (Well, those are some of my favorites, anyway. Thing is, that Gloriana song doesn't strike me as all that shameless or peppy in the first place -- just kinda average.)

Singles Jukebox roundtable reviews of current country singles by:

Brooks & Dunn

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1048

Lady Antebellum

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1041

and, uh, Ben Kweller

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1031

Chuck, Little Big Town is amazing. Thanks so much for the recommendation. I really need to spend more time in this thread.

(that said, I'm not sure I buy that any of these songs are more "peppy" than the Gloriana song.)

Couple more Singles Jukebox reviews...

Lost Trailers

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1072

Sarah Jarosz

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1069

Upcoming alt-countrified albums I didn't make it all the way through and probably won't but didn't hate: Bottle Rockets, Delbert McLinton, the Pines, Rev. Horton Heat, James Hand, Chris Knight (old demos I guess), Guy Clark, Patty Loveless, Robert Earl Keen, Steve Azar. Of those, Keen and Azar seemed the most promising, probably; might get back to them.

Upcoming alt-countrified albums I sort of like so far (though I'm not sure how much): Drivin N Cryin, Tim Carrol (the latter a former member of Indiana punk rock greats the Gizmos now married to alt-country singer Elizabeth Cook -- how weird is that?)

Song I like a lot on an album which came out this year and has inspired basically no talk on this thread though it's honestly not a bad album: "Wild Rebel Rose" by Martina McBride (sort of her version of "Janie's Got a Gun" by Aerosmith, only better.)

Martina McBride song from three years ago I didn't know I liked until this year even though it hit Number Five on Billboard's country chart: "Anyway."

Btw, the Gloriana EP is solid throughout. All four songs are good, and "Wild at Heart" might actually be the weakest of the bunch.

Was watching Appaloosa for the first time on HBO last night. Ed Harris doing a Boxmasters' gig over the closing credit, "You'll Never Leave My Heart" made me laugh. He really nailed the earnest lunkhead marshal stuck with the loose woman theme that was half the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-0X0eBV7o

Jon Caramanica on Nashville's post-Taylor Swift young blondes and brunettes in yesterday's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/arts/music/02cara.html

And elsewhere in the same paper, he reports that the new Walmart-exclusive Sugarland DVD/CD features covers of songs by Beyonce', R.E.M. (twice), Pearl Jam, B-52s, and Kings of Leon. (I like Sugarland, so I'll try not to hold their taste against them):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/arts/music/02play.html

See, here's the problem with trying to telegraph on a network TV media event which is essentially an advertising vehicle, the Sugarland thing. You present, in the New York Times, something that's not much of a glimpse of reality.

"Nightswimming" was ninety seconds of about nothing, if you want to draw attention to it as a REM cover. "Love Shack" has been on Youtube for awhile. Anyway, the biggest thing about "Nightswimming" was Nettles in an old lady's swim cap and the white bumbershoot shtick, which won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't already seen it.

The only mildly interesting part of the network performance was the rather obvious (if you know late-Sixties/early Seventies hard rock) of the instro backing from Grand Funk's "Footstompin' Music" during the segment when Nettles and Bush go into the audience in big plastic beachballs. Aside from the opening number, that was the only thing that rocked, which underplays their live show by a bit, I imagine. Guitar mix was set low and Nettles has that notch in her voice common to crying babies and cats in the kitchen when you're opening their cans of tuna. It's a frequency that gets right into the cerebellum -- evolution must have hard-coded it into mammalian ears -- and she has it in spades in her her vocal cords. So when she sings "Stay," even if you're, mentally, a wooden table, it gets a reaction. Not an insult, really, she was born with the power. Like Michael Phelps was born to beat the hell out of everyone in the swimming pool and erupt from the water in the primate's reflex dance of victory. It's all hardwired.

Y'know, Pete Frampton didn't get on network TV and "Frampton Comes Alive" became the mostest of the mostest in sales of all live classic rock albums. It's a shame a band so unashamedly as milchtoast, although in a somewhat different way, as Frampton can't aspire to the same thing even when their live record, which is a natural, is pitched right in the venue where the record execs think all classic rock fans shop. You can't go back in time and recreate an era, sadly.

Why the comparison to "Frampton Comes Alive"? Because Sugarland's live show is just as pandering as his was, kind of -- but not quite at the right time for the right audience as Frampton. Really, stuff was optimistic when "Frampton Comes Alive" was in its prime. Now, everyone with even a shred of commone sense knows this country is just a bad joke, one repeated too often and way past overstaying its welcome.

Anyway, Frampton looked gorgeous in the same way Nettles does and his shtick was the drawn out soppy tunes with talking box guitar. Sugarland's thing is not as drawn out soppy tunes with Nettles' voice as the eye-and-ear-popping guitar talk box stuff.

That's my theory. And enough with the chem-lights, already. Between the US military dropping them worldwide like candy on every TV show you see and Sugarland, desist. They're probably made by the same conglomerate that makes landmines and cluster bombs.

And strangely, I actually compared sometimes Nettles collaborator Jon Bon Jovi to Peter Frampton in Stairway To Hell -- what come around goes around.

Fwiw, I'd actually never given much thought before to the commercial decline of the live album in general. Presumably the late '70s -- when live LPs helped nationally break acts like Frampton, Seger, Cheap Trick, and REO -- was the form's peak, never to matched again; I guess a couple superstars like Springsteen and U2 have had major live releases since (Bruce with a box set), and there was that "unplugged" vogue for a while back in the '90s, I suppose. But unless I'm totally blanking out on obvious exceptions, the emergence of MTV and home video seemed to have put a damper on the live album concept. So now (in the wake of Garth?) they wind up real stop-gaps between studio albums, often exclusive to big box stores. Which means a band like Sugarland having its own Frampton Comes Alive is fairly impossible. And even when a concert-draw colossus like Kenny Chesney puts out a live album, as he did a couple years ago, nobody much notices.

In other news, there's this:

Jennifer Aniston is landing role after role! ... she's inked a deal to headline Goree Girls, the true story of an all-female country band in a Texas prison in the 1940s.

http://www.starmagazine.com/jennifer_aniston_goree_girls_prisoner/news/15919

The live album has become the cheapie pinch hit for oldy hard rock acts. Cf., Ted Nugent, Foghat*, Blue Oyster Cult, oddly -- also Peter Frampton, even ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd*, the Who, etc. In the prime years, it was an opp to get good material back in front of an audience for a second chance which also explains some of the impetus behind them tending to be doctored. Now, it's the opposite, an excuse to give long in the tooth fans a keepsake of the 'greatest hits' live.

Perhaps of interest: Chad Kroeger from Nickelback wrote Tim McGraw's new single 'It's a Business Doing Pleasure With You.' It sounds more like something Trace Adkins should have recorded.

Interesting. The lyrics are very brand-name-oriented, almost like a hip-hop song or something. Wonder of Kroeger wrote it for Nickelback and realized it wasn't humorless enough, or he's just looking for a lucrative side career, or what.

Some new tracks bubbling up the country chart that I hope to check out (besides the Strait, which I've heard -- a Spanish language cover of a ranchero standard. I like his current top ten "Living For The Night," too -- not far from the sort of music Alan Jackson was crooning on Like Red On A Rose.)

41 RE-ENTRY 2 I'm Alive, Kenny Chesney With Dave Matthews
B.Cannon,K.Chesney (K.Chesney,D.Dillon,M.Tamburino ) BNA DIGITAL | 41

43 47 48 4 Radio Waves, Eli Young Band
M.Wrucke (B.Sanders,M.Eli ) Republic DIGITAL | Universal South | 43

45 46 54 4 That Thang, Fast Ryde
J.Stevens,J.Stevens,J.Harrison (J.Harrison,J.Stevens ) Republic Nashivlle DIGITAL

54 60 2 Skinny Dippin', Whitney Duncan
M.Bright (W.Duncan,C.Tompkins ) Warner Bros. DIGITAL | WRN | 54

58 NEW 1 El Rey, George Strait
G.Strait,T.Brown (J.A.Jimenez Sandoval ) MCA Nashville PROMO SINGLE | 58

60 NEW 1 Honky Tonk Stomp, Brooks & Dunn Featuring Billy Gibbons
R.Dunn,T.McBride (R.Dunn,T.McBride,B.Pinson ) Arista Nashville PROMO SINGLE | 60

And speaking of Alan Jackson, "I Still Like Bologna" --one of the better tracks from Good Time, I always thought -- is now a country-chart-climbing single in its own right.

Like the new/imminent Miranda Lambert album less than I'd hoped (though lots of it is still really good), and the new Reba McEntire way more than I expected to, and the new Mac McAnally (on Toby's Show Dog label) more than either -- has a shot at my year end top 10, and as soul-country it's probably not that far from my still-'09-favorite Collin Raye.

And, wow. Didn't expect this. Brooks And Done:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090810/ap_en_ot/us_music_brooks___dunn

Well, they're my age. Maybe they wanted to go back to college, take some philosophy courses, etc.

Idolator posted their link of B&D's end with a Youtube of "Neon Moon", my fave B&D song. If they are really through, where do they stand in the Country history canon.
Any thoughts?

Wrong thread before. New George Strait album Twang. The First single "Living For The Night" is so classic. Any thoughts?

I like that Strait ballad, as I said a few posts up (and I'm usually not a huge fan of his, fwiw). Here's my review of the album for Rhapsody (scroll down):

http://www.rhapsody.com/george-strait/twang

And while I'm at it, my review of the new Reba:

http://www.rhapsody.com/reba-mcentire/keep-on-loving-you

And Steve Azar:

http://www.rhapsody.com/steve-azar/slide-on-over-here

Great review Chuck. I've lurk on the rolling country threads of too long. Why don't you usually like George Strait?

Dierks Bentley has a new album soon to be released?

Chuck, I can't tell from your review... do you like the new Reba? Is it worth listening to?

Definitely worth hearing. Which I didn't expect.

And some of my reservations about George Strait (and Randy Travis too) are here:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/08/george-strait-randy-travis-not-john-anderson-but-not-bad.html

I think I get meaner about their bland goody-goodiness on a couple of the earlier Rolling Country threads, but I've softened to both guys since. (Rebought a copy of Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind for $1 last month. It's pretty great.)

Strait does a cover of the ranchera song "El Rey" in Spanish on his new album. I hear it's getting some airplay on Spanish radio stations in Texas at least.

x-post Dierks released an album about 4 months ago.

I actually really like Reba (mostly because of her television show which I thought was pretty charming guilty pleasure).

What I haven't really decided yet about the new album is how much she pulls off the more boogie-rock stuff. Part of me thinks she doesn't have the personality or vocal oomph for it. (She has oomph, but she might not have the right kind.) But I do like that it's there, and it took me by surprise. Definitely love "Maggie Creek Road," and it's cool that she covers Shelly Fairchild's "Eight Crazy Hours (In The Story Of Love)." The songs she puts over best tend to be the midlife crisis ones.

Still, I'm skeptical about her; always have been. More on what I think of her, in general, at the link below (which I've linked to before, but what the heck; also, I compare her to Strait and Travis):

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=694

9513 piece on country/regional-Mexican crossover and George Strait's "El Rey":

http://www.the9513.com/george-strait-el-rey/

I've just been browsing through this thread, so apologies if it's been mentioned before: I like country music, but I'm just at the outset of being a country listener and I'd like a decent introduction to cover ground a little quicker. Have any of you got a suggested tracklist for a sort of 'all-purpose' intro to (contemporary) country music? Just a decent selection of various styles. I love Miranda Lambert and like the Ashley Monroe album (and I think Swift's "Fearless" might be one of the best albums of the decade, but I definitely want to check out more country-ish country than hers), but really I just want some good tracks to get me going.

I've been enjoying these songs.
A Little More Country Than That-Easton Corbin
The Day We Changed The Rules-Christopher Michael Johnson
Seven Vern Gosdins Ago-Darren Kozelsky
Gravity-Dean Brody
Feels Just Like A Love Song-Sara Evans

I believe these are all newish songs

I think there was a similar request upthread that xhuxk and Frank Kogan (and others maybe) responded to.

As for tracks by female singers with a country-ish or more trad or whatever vibe I really like Sara Evans' "Real Fine Place to Start" and the rest of that album, Sugarland's "Already Gone," "Want To," & "Baby Girl." (Not all that trad, I guess.)

Some albums that have been popular around here over the years: Deanna Carter "Story of My Life", Gary Allan "Tough All Over", Jamey Johnson "That Lonesome Song", Brooks & Dunn "Red Dirt Road", Blake Shelton "Pure BS", the Toby Keith singles collection and of course both of Miranda Lambert's albums.

Other acclaimed albums: Lee Ann Womack "There's More Where That Came From," Josh Turner "Everything is Fine" Tricia Yearwood "Heaven, Heartache & the Power of Love."

Lots more good stuff that I can't remember now.

Like Little Big Town for instance.

Hey abcfsk - Welcome to the thread. What you're asking for, though, seems pretty wide-ranging. What you might consider, though, is tracking back through the ILM Rolling Country threads -- they go back five or six years, I think -- and skimming over the best-of-the-year lists that tend to be clustered toward the beginning (January/February) and end (November/ December) every year -- that should give you plenty of songs to start with, I'd think. But if there's something more specific you're looking for (or stuff you're liking or disliking), by all means say so...

Thanks guys! Just what I was looking for. Will go on a heavy listening binge now. The greatest part of getting into a new scene, when you realize there's quality all around you.

Kind of mortifying at first, all the directions you can choose, but then just delicious. I'm sure queries will pop up when I become attached to certain stuff.

Given that you seem so far to be gravitating toward mostly younger, female artists, here are some songs along those lines I've liked this year (well, the last couple on the list are less young, but still):

Sarah Buxton – “Space”
Caitlin & Will – “Even Now”
The Love Willows – “Falling Faster”
Krista Marie – “Jeep Jeep”
Jessica Harp – “Boy Like Me”
Sarah Borges And The Broken Singles – “Do It For Free,” "I'll Show You How," "Yesterday's Love"
Megan Munroe - “Moonshine,” "Leavin' Memphis"
Miranda Lambert - "White Liar," "Only Prettier," "Me And Your Cigarettes," "The The Way The World Goes 'Round," "Time To Get A Gun"
Those Darlins - "Red Light Love," "Hung Up On Me," "The Whole Damn Thing," "Snaggletooth Mama," "DUI Or Die"
Martina McBride - "Wild Rebel Rose"
Reba McEntire - "Maggie Creek Road"

Meanwhile, I am now several weeks if not months behind on keeping up on checking out potentially good new songs that enter the country chart. Maybe somebody should do it for me, and save me the work. Anyway, here are this week's entries -- possibly great, possibly not, most likely somewhere between:

50 1
Need You Now, Lady Antebellum
P.Worley,Lady Antebellum (D.Haywood,C.Kelley,H.Scott,J.Kear ) Capitol Nashville DIGITAL | 50
56 NEW 1 My Way To You, Jamey Johnson
The Kent Hardly Playboys (J.Johnson,C.Midnight ) Mercury DIGITAL | 56
57 NEW 1 Long After I'm Gone, Big Kenny
B.Kenny,C.Stone (W.K.Alphin,M.Beeson,R.Supa ) Love Everybody DIGITAL | Bigger Picture | 57
58 NEW 1 Keep On Lovin' You, Steel Magnolia
D.Huff (C.Stapleton,T.Willmon ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 58
59 NEW 1 It Did, Blaine Larsen
J.Ritchey (M.Green,J.Collins ) Treehouse PROMO SINGLE | 59

So, top (which top isn't all that great) to bottom (which bottom really isn't all that bad), here's how I'd tentatively rank the county charting singles from recent weeks that I didn't listen to until binging on youtube (albeit mostly not actual "videos" per se') tonight:

--Jamey Johnson - "My Way To You" (though I gotta say, this is a total retread for him after his great last album, spooky spare production touches and all -- he's clearly got a niche now, knows where his bread is buttered, but he does his schtick well.)
--Brooks & Dunn feat. Billy Gibbons - "Honky Tonky Stomp" (great guitar)
--Brad Paisley - "American Saturday Night" (pretty darn good guitar + sound effects + good humor)
-- Sarah Buxton - "Outside My Window" (sound effects + good humor)
-- Whitney Duncan - "Skinny Dippin'" (uses the Billy Gibbons word "tush," which is presumably naked)
-- Lady Antebellum - "Need You Now" (drunk dialing duet at 1 a.m.)
-- Blaine Larsen "It Did" (gettin' hitched power ballad; will take a few more listens to really be able to tell how good or bleh it is. He often turns out to be less generic than he sounds at first.)
-- Fast Ryde - "That Thang" (honky tonk badonkadonk hackwork, but not a Lauryn Hill cover)
-- Kenny Chesney feat. Dave Matthews - "I'm Alive" (Dave adds variety, but is that a good thing?)
-- Big Kenny - "Long After I'm Gone" (saw John Rich referred to as a "former member of Big & Rich" somewhwere; when did they break up, exactly?)
-- Steel Magonola - "Keep On Lovin' You" (boy/girl duet, and the girl wails like Taylor Dayne just about, but the song ain't nothin' far as I can tell)

I don't think Big & Rich have disbanded. They're playing in Atlantic City next month.

--Brad Paisley - "American Saturday Night" (pretty darn good guitar + sound effects + good humor)

The Paisley album is probably my favorite country album of the year so far, and my favorite album of his. The move away from his variety-show shtick to a more thematic structure for the album works for me, and I like how the 'concept' of it ties together national 'hope' with personal. And his more "heart-felt", less smart-ass persona still has a decent amount of humor in it. Nice guitar-playing all over too.

I like the Paisley album too. Here's my favorite review, by Ben Ratliff in NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/arts/music/29choice.html

The review's funny and sort of odd, but I like that it's just about the only review to:

1. focus on Paisley's cleverness rather than his funniness, and
2. not mention Barack Obama.

The cleverness seems more operative than the funniness on this album. I can't remember if I laughed out loud at all, but like Ratliff, I'm amazed at the guy's ability to make songs out of anything. He should cover "Death May Be Your Santa Claus."

I also like that Ratliff, like Paisley, didn't mention Obama. All the other reviews find ways to connect verse 3 of "Welcome to the Future" to Obama. (I don't mean to insult anyone's review!) I'm sure Paisley has Obama and Election Day in mind when he thinks about his friend the football player and all the racial progress we've made, but that verse has a couple problems, even if it does make me cry.

For one thing, it's clumsy. Paisley wants to wake up Martin Luther instead of MLK. Maybe it's just that I'm Lutheran, but isn't the original Martin Luther still a well-known enough personality that this imagery seems incongruous to people? There's nothing in the 95 Theses about racial equality.

Also, the verse seems to participate in the fallacy that "all our racial problems are solved now that a black man is president." I mean, I might've cried on Election Day too, but I'm not sure writing this verse qualifies Paisley as a progressive, which was the claim of at least one review I saw. If anything, such a claim could play into the hands of the less-progressive elements of Paisley's audience. So maybe my problem is more with Paisley's press. Even so, he never specifically makes the claim that we're now living in "the future" because Obama got elected. But if he's NOT thinking of Obama, it's even more troubling, because that means he's just looking around at the country and seeing a panacea of racial justice. Is anyone else troubled by this song, maybe in a more articulate way?

Though I guess I'm the only one claiming that "progress" has to = "panacea." It doesn't have to be all or nothing. We've definitely made racial progress, insofar as most black high school quarterbacks can date whomever they'd like, though I'm sure there are exceptions. Still troubled.

What I like about that verse is mostly the way it comes as a surprise the first time you hear the song. I don't think it makes him politically progressive, but I think it's a cleverly written song, the way the awe at little things like 'now I can play a video game on my phone' is tied together with a sense of awe that there's a black president (and, later in the album, tied to his own awe about having kids, etc). I know what you're saying about the 'all our racial problems are solved' fallacy, but the tone of the song to me is more surprise. I like the uncertainty of the line "wherever we were going / well we're here". That sounds like stumbling into the future more than everything's perfect now. As far as critics relating that verse to Obama, I don't know, that's how I heard it right away (before reading that Paisley wrote it on Election Night after seeing how excited people were, and before seeing the music video where he has a black kid saying "when I grow up I want to be president" right before that verse). I definitely mentioned Obama in my review, right at the start, though noting that the song doesn't mention him or the election (http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/108697-brad-paisley-american-saturday-night/). Part of what I like about the song is the way it evokes that election-night feeling of anticipation without getting too specific. But at the same time, how will this song come across in a few years, outside of that recent memory of election-night, is a good question.

The interesting thing for me about WTTF is that Paisley (being 36) must have been in high school in about the 1986-1990 years--which places this cross burning well after the height of the Civil Rights movement and at a point in time when "The New South" was already a major concept. At that point people were already speaking of overt racism as a thing of the past--nice to see an acknowledgment from a white southern artist that things weren't so clear cut.

And Paisley has been pushing the Obama election night thing in interviews. I've even heard them mention it on the radio when introducing the song.

The verse definitely confused me the first time I heard it -- seemed to sort of be about Obama, except the famous guy with a "dream" was MLK; I guess I figured Brad was implying Obama, but too chicken to get more specific (and right, "Martin Luther" just seemed like a ignorant mistake.) Still like the song, though; like how it runs against the current country grain by explicitly arguing that a changing world is a good, not bad, thing.

I also like how the Future is musically represented by a synth riff that could have come off of an ELP song from 1971.

Singles Jukebox review roundups of recent singles by:

Toby Keith

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1196

Wilco (who were considered "alt-country" back in the old days, remember?)

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1217

Heartland

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=1241

I think Matos and Miccio are probably right about that one Heartland riff being more "Jessie's Girl" than "Summer Of 69." If so, my bad I guess...

Of course "Welcome to the Future" isn't the first Paisley-related song about Obama:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lV1mIggoqE

Speaking of jokes, you really have to see "Blazing Saddles" with all the uses of the word 'nigger' in the dialog bleeped out on Country Music Television.

Was watching the CMA arena fest last night and Miranda Lambert's version of The Faces' "Stay With Me" was the pits. Plus, about half the arrangement was left out. And her band of hacks -- two guitarists -- in now way got down like Ron Wood, who really isn't known for being much of a commanding presence, anyway. (Although the song is one in which the guitar is just about as important as Rod Stewart's vocal.)

And Taylor Swift was her usual self -- pop rock or Def Leppard-real lite for those who found "Hysteria" a really heavy sound.

Jason Aldean did his Bad Company imitation and there were a lot of girls in the front row. For such a cock rock style song, he is really the total square.

And I guess Darius Rucker is now officially the Cleavon-Little-in-Blazing-Saddles of country music.

There -- four slurs in a row.