Rolling Country 2008 Thread

My '08 c&w list so far (I wrote about some of these toward the bottom of Rolling Country '07; the '07 albums below are ones I connected with after sending in my '07 Idolator/Pazz&Jop/Nashville scene ballots, which hereby makes them eligible for the new year):

Mechanical Bull – A Million Yesterdays (Woodstock Musicworks ‘07)
Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
Finn and the Sharks – Breakfast Special (UpSouth reissue)
Horror Pops – Kiss Kiss Kill Kill (Hellcat)
Chris Cagle – This Is Chris Cagle (Capitol promo ’07)
Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (New West)
Kim Richey – Chinese Boxes (Vanguard ’07)
Terri Clark - My Next Life (BNA unreleased promo '07)
Chuck Wicks – Starting Now (RCA)

Of those, Horror Pops -- who call themselves a psychobilly band -- stretch the "country" definition the most.

Terri Clark's album took me forever to get around to, partly because it starts out really slow and kind of meh (even despite an okay opener where Terri says that in her next life she'll do some things different, for instance she'll leave her shirt on at Mardi Gras.) But it picks up by the fourth or fifth track. Favorite songs are "Dirty Girl" (self-explanatory), "Nashville Girls" with Sara Evans, Martina McBride, and Reba McEntire (which claims there's a reason Nashville girls have big hair -- apparently because it doesn't go out of style or something), and "Live From America (It's Saturday Night)" (which sounds like a cross between Zevon/ Rondstadt's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" and Kenny Loggins's "Whenever I Call You Friend," and which contains a reference to the title of Chris Cagle's "Wal-Mart Parking Lot.") Also like "Happy Yet" (post-breakup song where she's not going to call her ex back until she's not happy anymore, with a cool '80s AOR-pop synth beat percolating beneath) and "Gypsy Boots" (hard kinda funky blues); best slow one is probably "The Only Time You Call" (is when you're drunk). Doesn't seem any less consistent than several albums Nashville put out last year; not sure why it was shelved, except that Nashville really likes shelving stuff (Bomshel, Phil Vassar, Ahsley Monroe) and sending it back to the drawing board, often indefinitely, these days. (Maybe that's not a new development; just weird how often labels send advance promos out then change their minds.)

I'm still batting around 2007, as always won't send my Nashville Scene ballot in and until the last second. Albums are a quandary, not as good at the top but way deeper than my list last year, singles almost as good at the top but not nearly as deep, possibly having nothing to do with the year but just that I waited until the last second to go searching out the heaps and heaps of singles I hadn't listened to earlier in the year. But also the record companies and I diverged even further than usual on the subject of what album track deserved to be a single.

So, I decided to disqualify Ashley Monroe since her album still hasn't been released and she was mainly on my list to prevent it from being shitty. And eliminated 2007's Bettye LaVette on account of the album being mostly a gigantic bore. Good soulful voice doing standard soulful things, most interesting fact about it was the admirable insertion of psychobabble that hadn't previously made its way into classic soul. A few tracks started off gripping but lasted long enough to lose their grip. One or two that I'll describe as "minor-key blues" (which is a wrong description, I know, since the blues are neither major nor minor, but these feel minor-key for finding their way to the doleful side of the chords) (or something) hung on for me, so I'll return sometime.

Anyhow, my 6 through 10 slots are wide open with about 14 contenders, but I'll eliminate the Sarah Buxton EP, which has one great track (her version of "Stupid Boy"), one quirkily good ("That Kind Of Day"), a couple more not bad, and one that I haven't heard. Also eliminating Richard Thompson, though his album was way better than I was expecting. I described him over on poptimists as the man with the deep gargly masculine manly voice, with a dramatic delivery that always seems slightly comic (or maybe that's my projecting the idea that such drama should be comic). In the past I've had trouble hearing the deep gargly voice as all that musical, which is why I liked him best with Sandy Denny singing lead or harmony. I still have that block against the those rocks in his throat, but he came up with a load of nice melodies, and his voice connects to them fairly well. Van Zant's My Kind Of Country puts a great ringing guitar sheen on Southern rock going Cougar-Springsteen, and I'm mostly willing to put aside my antipathy to the dull and boring and uninteresting and tedious and tiring and dull and boring audience pandering of their lyrics, but the singing's not quite good enough. John Waite, high-voiced Babys pop 'n' all, was way more penetrating in a blues-soul way than Bettye, not enough good songs. The Carrie Underwood has more good songs than I thought at first but her big brassy voice is actually too much for a lot of them. I kept wishing that Ashley Monroe were singing (I read somewhere that Monroe co-wrote the album opener on Carnival Ride, but I never checked).

So that leaves Little Big Town, Jack Ingram, Toby Keith, Black Angel, Schultze Gets The Blues, Taylor Swift (for her Xmas EP), Blake Shelton, and John Anderson all scrapping for the final five spots. (I arbitrarily decided that the Kid Rock alb wasn't country enough, though I just as easily could've said the same about Black Angel, but I'd spent more time on the latter so kept them in the running.) So which three will get voted off the island? Stay tuned.

I'm still puzzled that Chris couldn't hear Miley Cyrus's "See You Again" as rockabilly. Maybe "rockabilly" is the wrong word, since I'm not referring to the "Mystery Train" blues-based styles but more the heavily reverbed, menacing half-ballads that I associate with someone like Johnny Cash. Except I'm not that well-listened in Johnny Cash, and the style doesn't come from Cash alone, by any means. The song I keep citing is Jace Everett's "Bad Things" from last year, but when I heard that song I felt there were hundreds of previous songs like it. (Could someone here point me to one of them?) Whether it's called "rockabilly," it's somewhere from the old intersection c. 1960 of rock 'n' roll and country. But as for "See You Again" (second song down on her MySpace), the reverb, the biting guitar, the melody, the chords, the delivery all place it here in "rockabilly" (or whatever you want to call it). I mean, it practically jumps up and screams WE ARE PLAYING ROCKABILLY GUITAR, USING ROCKABILLY REVERB. Maybe someone who knows music theory better than I do can help me explain what I'm hearing in the chords that make them "rockabilly." The key is A minor, with F a crucial chord, F being the subdominant of C, which is A minor's relative major. Having just said that, I have no idea if it's significant or not. I know some music "theory," but not in a way that I can put to any useful critical use. The F-E-Am progression when she sings "I can't wait to see you again" seems most emblematic.

I wouldn't say that Miley's singing is menacing at all, or that the song is menacing, but that reverbed guitar automatically puts foreboding into the atmosphere. Which is interesting, since the song's lyrics are optimistic - she's figured out that he can't wait to see her again, and she's sure that next time she's not going to go all stammering and short of breath, but...

Meta post:

The Little Big Town alb has the handicap that I only got it recently, and the Jack Ingram that I only just now started paying much attention; Black Angel might benefit from my having first heard it last week, since I might decide in the long-run that the sketchiness of J.C. Martin's voice cripples everything, whereas at the moment my reaction is that it's a swamp-shaking rocker with a sketch of a voice on top. It (O' Santa Barbara; I haven't yet heard the Xhuxk-preferred O' California) is an alb that benefits from my All-Albums-Are-EPs Rule; so does Schultze Gets The Blues; whereas the Taylor Swift Xmas EP, being an EP, suffers from the role - as a three-song single it's ace, however. Still, three ace songs from a wonderfully fetching, slight, vengeful voice certainly works in its favor, as does its not having eight or so superfluous songs' worth of noodling around like the Black Angel (though of course I can use the memory button to erase those eight from the historical record, so to speak).

suffers from the role = suffers from the rule

(She actually does quite well in the role; note to Taylor Swift suitors: if you love her and leave her you will end up in a song.)

When Black Angel get their whole wheezing, murked-up apparatus pumping in its groove the record is fine, the niggling-scratching guitar lines working like Cezanne, strokes-in-motion, teeming with mites and grubs. Are like James Williamson-era Stooges piss 'n' pulse tracks ("Penetration" and "Death Trip"), though not as good, of course. Problem is the slow tracks that go songish, the stuff that makes it most country, actually, that takes after Stones twanged and yowled yuk-yuks like "Dear Doctor" and "Sweet Virginia" and "Dead Flowers" and "Country Honk," which were my least favorite tracks from the '68-'72 Stones anyway. If I jigger my rationalizations to get this album on my list, it'll be by reasoning that the Exile swamp groove makes it country-by-association (w/ Brooks & Dunn), as do the country yuks, even if actually the Stooges-like piss throwers are what get it my ranking. Standout track: "I Never Get Over You."

Also, despite Martin's vocal limitations, he should forbid "Audrey Turner" and Lois Mahalia from doing anything but singing in the background, as their Tina Turner tropes get in the way when they take center stage. Is why the three Stones covers don't come off.

BIRD REPORT: While compiling my country's singles list yesterday, I heard three bird flips in one day. Sarah Johns flips a bird ("The One In The Middle," duh), Sarah Buxton gets the bird flipped on her ("That Kind Of Day"), and so does Craig Morgan ("International Harvester").

Blake Shelton Pure BS. Strong, state-of-the-art, likable, intelligent guy; doesn't have the prettiest or most distinctive voice (not a John Anderson or a Gary Allan), so he puts out. I don't know why most of this doesn't connect for me. The tracks that do are the weepers: "I Have Been Lonely," the sort of rock 'n' roll lament that Gary Allan was doing well a couple of albums ago. I wish there were some like it on the new Gary Allan, but I also wish it were Gary Allan singing this. "Back There Again" I wrote about last year; it still touches me, quiet sadness then gets loud and expressive without losing its feeling of loneliness. There's something sophisticated in the chord pattern that one of you will have to explain better than I can - reminds me of the sort of ambitious pop that someone like Charlie Rich could pull off. Blake strains a bit on it, but he does well.

I like the intent of the rockers on here, they just don't manage to kick through the door.

Someone on livejournal suggested Duane Eddy in relation to the Miley song, which I can definitely hear in the guitar tone and also the way the guitar curls at the end of verses in "Shazam" being similar to Miley's voice on "I can't wait to see you again." (Also like how much the bass player looks like George Sanders.)

Frank Kogan's Country Music Critics ballot

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2007:

1. Miranda Lambert Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Columbia Nashville)
2. Travis Tritt The Storm (Category 5)
3. Gretchen Wilson One Of The Boys (Columbia Nashville)
4. LeAnn Rimes Family (Curb)
5. Brooks & Dunn Cowboy Town (Arista Nashville)
6. Various Artists Schultze Gets The Blues soundtrack (Normal Release)
7. Black Angel O' Santa Barbara (Outsiders)
8. John Anderson Easy Money (Raybaw/Warner Bros.)
9. Toby Keith Big Dog Daddy (Show Dog Nashville)
10. Taylor Swift Sounds Of The Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (Big Machine)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2007:

1. Miley Cyrus "See You Again" (Walt Disney)
2. LeAnn Rimes "Nothin' Better To Do" (Curb)
3. Taylor Swift "Teardrops On My Guitar" (Big Machine)
4. Miranda Lambert "Gunpowder And Lead" (Columbia Nashville)
5. Reba McEntire f. Kelly Clarkson "Because Of You" (MCA Nashville)
6. Gretchen Wilson "You Don't Have To Go Home" (Columbia Nashville)
7. Sarah Johns "The One In The Middle" (BNA)
8. Toby Keith "High Maintenance Woman" (Show Dog Nashville)
9. Gretchen Wilson "One Of The Boys" (Columbia Nashville)
10. Tim McGraw "Last Dollar (Fly Away)" (Curb)

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2007:

1. Neil Young Live At Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise)
2. The Stanley Brothers The Definitive Collection (Time Life)
3. -
4. -
5. -

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:

1. Toby Keith
2. John Anderson
3. Travis Tritt

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:

1. Taylor Swift
2. LeAnn Rimes
3. Miranda Lambert

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2007:

-

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2007:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Rivers Rutherford

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2007:

1. Brooks & Dunn
2. Black Angel
3. Little Big Town

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2007:

1. Ashley Monroe
2. Sarah Johns
3. Rissi Palmer

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2007:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Travis Tritt

COMMENTS:

Sorry Geoffrey, I waited until the last minute and have no real time for comments. "See You Again" qualifies as country not 'cause of Miley Cyrus's last name or her Tennessee heritage but because of the reverbed rockabilly guitar and the way her raw throat takes on a menacing half-ballad melody worthy of Johnny Cash. And she makes my number one because of the way she brings her goofy sweetness to this, with lyrics that are essentially about shyness - exuberantly about shyness!

Happy New Year.

I've been listening to the Wink Keziah record, and I really like it. He truly ain't much of a singer but his songs are good, basic and somewhat terror-stricken yet resilient essays into that hammer-coming-down feeling when you know you're gonna walk in your door into some shit with your woman, a song about traveling in Texas at high speeds, and songs about being in a bar.

I see Frank voted for Miranda Lambert at #1. Hmm. I didn't, and here's my best albums/singles/reissues from my ballot:

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2007:

1. John Anderson, Easy Money (Raybaw/Warner Bros.)
2. Charlie Louvin, Charlie Louvin (Tompkins Square)
3. The Greencards, Viridian (Dualtone)
4. Billy Burnette and Shawn Camp, The Bluegrass Elvises Vol. 1 (American Roots Publishing)
5. Johnny Bush, Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston’s Country Soul (Icehouse)
6. Cole Deggs & the Lonesome, Cole Deggs & the Lonesome (Sony/BMG Nashville)
7. Travis Tritt, The Storm (Category 5)
8. The Hackensaw Boys, Look Out! (Nettwerk)
9. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand (Rounder)
10. Sarah Johns, Big Love in a Small Town (BNA)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2007:

1. Keith Urban, "Stupid Boy"
2. Gary Allan, "Watching Airplanes"
3. Sarah Johns, "The One in the Middle"
4. Elizabeth Cook, "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman"
5. Sara Evans, "As If"
6. Miranda Lambert, "Famous in a Small Town"
7. Kenny Chesney, "Shiftwork"
8. Toby Keith, "High Maintenance Woman"
9. Jason Michael Carroll, "Livin’ Our Love Song"
10. Taylor Swift, "Tim McGraw"

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2007:

1. John Anderson, 2 (American Beat)
2. The Stanley Brothers, The Definitive Collection: 1947-1966 (Time-Life)
3. Moby Grape, Moby Grape (Sundazed)
4. Dolly Parton, Coat of Many Colors (Sony)
5. Gene Clark, With the Gosdin Brothers (Sundazed)

Okay, I was waiting for somebody else to go first. Here's mine (I left Taylor Swift off my album list and the Trikont Records: Dirty Laundry: Soul of Black Country compilation -- technically released in 2004 in Germany! -- off my reissue list even though I'd voted for them in P&J/Idolator because Geoff's letter seemed way more strict about release dates, but worrying about release dates for singles that impacted this year seeemed pointless):

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2007:
1. Little Big Town – A Place To Land (Equity Music Group)
2. (Various Artists) – Motel Lovers: Southern Soul From the Chitlin Circuit (Trikont)
3. Flynnville Train – Flynnville Train (Show Dog)
4. Miranda Lambert – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Columbia)
5. Kid Rock – Rock n Roll Jesus (Atlantic)
6. Jack Ingram – This Is It (Big Machine)
7. The Bellamy Brothers – Jesus Is Coming (Curb)
8. Blake Shelton – Pure B.S. (Warner Bros.)
9. Toby Keith – Big Dog Daddy (Show Dog)
10. (Various Artists) – Shultze Gets The Blues (Normal/Filmkombinat)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2007:
1. Tim McGraw “Suspicions” (Curb)
2. Toby Keith – “High Maintenance Woman” (Show Dog)
3. Taylor Swift – “Our Song” (Big Machine)
4. Pat Green - "Way Back Texas" (BNA)
5. Rissi Palmer - "Country Girl" (1720 Entertainment)
6. Dierks Bentley - "Free And Easy (Down the Road I Go)" (Capitol)
7. Miranda Lambert – “Famous In A Small Town” (Columbia)
8. Keith Urban – “Stupid Boy” (Capitol)
9. Sarah Johns - "The One In The Middle" (BNA)
10. Black Angel – “One Beer” (Outsiders Record Company)

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2007:
1. Charlie Rich – The Essential (Epic/Legacy)
2. . (Various Artists) – Goodbye Nashville Hello Camden Town: A Pub Rock Anthology (Castle)
3. .(Various Artists) – Art of Field Recording: Volume 1 (Diesel + Dust)
4. John Anderson – John Anderson 2 (American Beat)
5. Dr. Hook – Greatest Hooks (Capitol)

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:
1. Toby Keith
2. John Anderson
3. Travis Tritt

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:
1. Taylor Swift
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Gretchen Wilson


COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2007:
1. Little Big Town
2. Flynnville Train
3. Black Angel

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2007:
1. Flynnville Train
2. Cole Deggs & the Lonesome
3. Sarah Johns

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2007:
1. Little Big Town
2. Taylor Swift
3. Miranda Lambert

(Diesel + Dust)

Probably the tenth time I've got that wrong; I don't know what my problem is. Should be Dust-to-Digital! I've also been liking that label's Black Mirror: Reflections In Global Musics CD, by the way.

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:
1. Toby Keith
2. John Anderson
3. Travis Tritt

Frank and I voted exactly the same in this category! I voted for the best vocalist categories more on the basis of singing per se' than I have in the past, so Anderson and Tritt got my votes (as did Gretchen Wilson in the female category) even though I found their albums (all of which had some songs I liked a lot on them) too spotty to give votes to.

I'd have voted "Stupid Boy" for sure except I was counting it as last year (when I should have voted it but listed it about 18th). And "Tim McGraw" I did vote last year.

Here are my 11 through 20: (11) Eric Church "Sinners Like Me" (Capitol Nashville), (12) Rissi Palmer "Country Girl" (1720 Entertainment), (13) Carrie Underwood "So Small" (19 Recordings/Arista Nashville), (14) Faith Hill "Lost" (Warner Bros.), (15) Sarah Buxton "That Kind Of Day" (Lyric Street), (16) Big & Rich "Between Raising Hell And Amazing Grace" (Warner Bros.), (17) Alan Jackson "Small Town Southern Man" (Arista), (18) Tim McGraw "Suspicions" (Curb), (19) Rodney Atkins "Cleaning My Gun" (Curb), (20) Billy Currington "Tangled Up" (Mercury Nashville)

Anthony's ballot and commentary here.

Here's mine:

xxx

I didn't do one. Thanks for sending me a ballot anyway, Frank. It woulda been all Mexicans and Chicanos anyway, plus maybe Adrienne Young and Eilen Jewell and Gary Allan. Oh well, country music, it's been fun re-discovering you, but you're not doing anything for me anymore, and I've found someone new.

the Taylor Swift Xmas EP, being an EP, suffers from the role - as a three-song single it's ace

But Frank, which three songs?? Don't leave us hanging!

"Christmases When You Were Mine," "Santa Baby," "Silent Night," and "Last Christmas," in that order, and that's four not three. And the other two aren't bad either.

hmm, here's my almost-the-same-as-Chuck's-and-Frank's best male vocalists:

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2007:

1. John Anderson
2. Toby Keith
3. Trace Adkins

I once got a mocking letter-to-the-editor at the Voice for saying that Rodney Atkins had more of a higher register than Trace Adkins did.

"See You Again" up to 48 on the Hot 100, but still nowhere on country radio, which prefers the boring duet with dad.

Been listening to the first two Black Angel albums, from before they started naming all their albums O'Someplace. The first one, 13 Stories, is a compilation of stuff recorded between 1991 and 2000, when they were apparently technically called the Black Angel Girls, and indeed all the songs are sung by women doing the Tina Turner thing and vaguely gospelish stuff (Lois Minato, Andrea Buchanan, and Shawn Larsen get vocal credits), and the album doesn't have memorable tunes and the songs lack momentum and it's basically a washout, though songs sounds might improve if J.C. Martin sang them. It does initiate one trend which is carried to rather absurd extremes on the much better (if annoying named) second album Real Music For Real People from 2003 -- namely, songs about breasts, frequently naked ones. Actually there may be only one line to that effect on 13 Songs (namely a song where one of the singers says you'll never get to touch them), but several more, and not always clever or funny or sexy ones unfortunately, on the followup. I am amused by "I'm a Fool (for a Selfish Girl With a Good Pair of Breasts)," though. Still, RMFRP is a good record, if nowhere near the level of O'Whatever albums. Good country-Stones swamp-honkers include "Broke Dick Dog" and "Drive, She Said" and especially "Inglewood Jail" (unlike Frank, apparently, I can usually get sucked into these kind of Black Angel songs on the basis of the pretty melodies alone); "Rock'n'Roll Chick (With a Bad Attitude)" and "Rock Star" (which has more energetic hooks than the Nickelback one though maybe not words as good, who knows) and the goofy "Yummy Friend" are pushier, harder rocking Stone rips; "I Never Got Over You" has the sort of riff that I expect Frank would say verges into Raw Power Stooges territory; "I've Got My Eyes On You, Baby" is a great vamp with not much of a song attached; "Stoned in Los Angeles" is almost mid/late '70s art-punk new wave (sort of sounds like it could have come from Cleveland around then) that turns into a irritatingly obvious list of famous people (Cobain, Belushi, Joplin, Jim Morrison, Keith Richards so obviously not all dead ones) who "were stoned." Songs I like least are probably the blatant funk attempt "I Just Wanna Funk Ya" and the blatant mush attempt "Blonde Adventure" (where the singer begs that said blond adventure also be his "topless dancer"). So yeah, just like the Holy Modal Rounders, Black Angel apparently like boobs a lot.

some songs might improve, I meant.

and an irritatingly obvious list (obviously).

I also relistened to the Jason Michael Carrol album from last year on New Year's Eve, for some reason, and I want to say that "Lookin' At You," the song that had briefly reminded me melody-wise of Ryan Paris's '80s Italo-disco classic "Dolce Vita" last year (see January 15, 2007 rolling country thread post) still does. Said song also contains a line about driving cars into mailboxes, just like "Chicks Dig It" by Chris Cagle. So maybe that's a new trend.

I have driven a car into a mailbox, several mailboxes.

Did we talk about Further Down, the Jonesboro, Ark. Southern rock band featuring two cousins of grey eminences in Southern rock and classic rock--Tommy Shaw and Jim "Dandy" Mangrum? I can't remember. Anyway, they're playing Nashville and sent me their debut 7 Years Hard Luck which appears to have come out in '06. Man, some of this made me really happy, great churning Motor City-style overload on some songs and some nice fat hooks on almost all of it. Sounds great too, recorded at Ardent in Memphis. My favorite song on a record full of quotable lines is the one called "Power of Revelation" which isn't about what you might think but rather kind of about what you might think--the guy wants this girl and to convince her he says that Jesus would have used the exact same pickup lines as he is using! "I know that your Savior said the things I said," and the girl is a barfly with bad cigarette cough and so forth, so the advice he gives her, to unburden herself of everything including underwear, is perhaps merited. "Maiden, she takes off her Sunday dress/Oh, my maiden, when she gives me Sunday's best" are amazing lines. The opener is called "Black & Bleach" and it's a vengeance song about how he's coming down off the mountain to burn down this other woman's town, but first he tells her, god-dammit: "So come back down [ed.note: off the mountain] and bring me cash/And tell me what you want me to get/Because the dark side of your life is where I live." Did we talk about this one already?

Real Music For Real People

This title is familiar! Perhaps I heard the album. Or perhaps the phrase's familiarity is due to its being a familiar phrase.

Someone on livejournal suggested Duane Eddy in relation to the Miley song, which I can definitely hear in the guitar tone

Yeah, that's pretty blatant, now that you mention it. I forget if Frank had burned me "See You Again" on one of his mix CDs or not; if so, it somehow didn't jump out at me from them. But it definitely jumped out at me while I was listening to Z-100 in the kitchen today, and yeah, the rockabilly in Miley's vocal inflections wasn't hard to hear, either. What hell, maybe it will make my 2008 top ten singles list, since it will have more impact this year anyway. So...naive, uninformed question that I could easily research myself: Is "See You Again" off the Hannah Montana album from this year, or what? And what about "GNO Girls Night Out" (which Frank definitely did burn, and which I also like, though probably not as much)? Are they on the same album, or just spare tracks from somewhere, or what? I've got the first Hannah Montana album, which has nothing as good as these two songs on it, I don't think, but that's it. I am so out of it. (Among the other stuff I liked, very belatedly, on Z-100 today was Britney's "Pieces of Me," Fergie's "Clumsy," Rihanna's "Shut Up And Drive," Taylor Swift's "Teardrops On My Guitar" {on top 40 radio! In New York Fucking City! How weird is that? Okay, maybe not so weird after a year of "Before He Cheats"...} and some other girl-song I couldn't place, though I assume it's obvious and my ignorance is going to inspire guffaws and chortles from people who have been paying closer attention to pop radio than me in recent months: It sounded vaguely Pink-like, but definitely Pink in rocker -- maybe even slightly rockabilly too? -- mode, and I feel like it had one part that went something like "now I've got you where I want you." Any ideas, anybody?)

Okay, yeah, just checked Amazon; both songs are on Disc 2 of Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, which also has "East Northumberland High," which has a great title and which I've heard good things about but not to my knowledge actually heard per se'. Anybody have any opinions about how good the double-disc is? Or is Disc 2 available separately in any big-box establishment exclusive? (Should I bother?)

I spent the afternoon at the PBR bull riding championships at Madison Square Garden, and I don't think I heard a single country song over the loudspeakers the whole time. It was all Def Leppard, Metallica, ZZ Top, and whatever that hip-hop song from this year with the steel drum sample is. The national anthem was sung by the lead vocalist from Long Island-based Lilith-fair-headliners-if-it-still-existed Antigone Rising.

Weird! And I'm jealous; that sport is really to watch on TV. This PBR soundtrack from seven years ago was almost all country (well, country-rock, including Montgomery Gentry covering Bon Jovi), but maybe that's changed in recent years:

http://www.amazon.com/Dancin-Thunder-Official-Professional-Riders/dp/B00005O68X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1199658059&sr=8-3

By the way, I just re-posted my Miley questions on the rolling bubblegum thread, where they are more applicable; answers might make more sense there, too.

Latest entertaining addition to the girl-rockabilly-singer-with-lounge tendencies sweepstakes (see also: Devil Doll, Sarah Borges And the Broken Singles) is Fingerprints by Britt Savage & Twang Deluxe, who says on her cdbaby page that you will like her if you like Blondie, Amy Winehouse, and Nancy Sinatra, and wears mini-skirts with mod patterns to match. Real strong singer, capable of pop stuff (which she's apparently done in the past) as much as country, which helps her -- Ballads like "Broken" (belted almost Laura Branigan style) and "Truce" are preferably to most of the competition's ballads (though "This Town Can't Keep A Secret" is too much reverent kitsch), but the faster Carlene Carter style pub-rockabilly cuts (especially "Last Flight To Vegas" and "Fearless" so far) are preferable to the ballads, and she does what's probably the best version of "Secret Agent Man" I've heard since Devo's in the early '80s. Also like how "I Found Love" progresses from rockabilly guitars to gospel backup choruses. Very professional, non-anorexic production for a self-released record, too; she evidently has some connections in non-low places:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/brittsavage

http://www.myspace.com/brittsavage

oops: that sport is really fun to watch on TV

The only other Real Music For Real People album I found in a quick look online was a compilation by DJ Language (whoever he is); there is also Real Music For Real People From Kankakee To Malibu, which was compiled by Doug Rapier, James Riordan, George Lord, and Thomas & Nancie Evoniuk. Then there's a whole series of "spectrum" records: ____ Spectrum: Real ____ For Real People, e.g., Jazz Spectrum: Real Jazz for Real People, and ones for Disco, Latin, and Funk. Then there's Real Music For Abstract People, which is a house and techno compilation.

Other notable hits while searching Amazon included a book entitled Real People Working In Mechanics, Installation, And Repair and (35th listing in Amazon) The Accidental Evolution Of Rock 'N' Roll: A Misguided Tour Through Popular Music by Chuck Eddy, with this sentence fragment highlighted from p. 61: "In contrast to 'real people's music' like blues, rock was ersatz..."

Haven't heard the full Hannah/Miley double disc; both Greg and Dave - two strong fans of "See You Again" - feel mixed about it over all. Xhuxk, I included "See You Again" on The Girls Are Here And We The Swingflies in September (along with Miley's "Start All Over," which Disney actually is promoting on Radio Disney while insanely refusing to play "See You Again"). "East Northumberland High" is good as well. "You're my type of guy I guess if I were stuck for the rest of my life in East Northumberland High for the rest of my life, but people change, thank God I did. Just because I liked you back then, doesn't mean I like you now," sung by someone who's probably only just now starting high school. All three of those tracks are on the "Miley" rather the "Hannah" disk. Co-writers (with Miley) on "See You Again" and (without Miley) on "East Northumberland High" are Antonina Armato and Tim James, the producers and writers of most of Hoku's album back in 2000 and producers and sometimes co-writers of Aly & A.J.'s Insomniatic and also of Aly & A.J.'s "Not This Year" and "Chemicals React." Miley isn't in the credits of "Start All Over," but Fefe Dobson is. I think "G.N.O. (Girls Night Out)" is as good or better a song as "See You Again" but her voice on that one just seems to be barely showing up. (She co-wrote that one too along with Tamara Dunn and Matthew Wilder, whom I don't know anything about.) She's got an interesting tone in general, though: it's got more strain than prettiness, and she uses the strain well, gets a raw feistiness out of it. Most of what I've seen from her "live" performances on YouTube seems to be lip synched. Maybe keeping a consistent voice is hard for her.

Of the few I've heard from the "Hannah" half of the release, I like "Nobody's Perfect," despite its being written by the dreaded Gerrard and Nevil. Dave doesn't particularly like "G.N.O." or "Nobody's Perfect," so maybe he's wrong about the album.

(I had one too many "for the rest of my life"s in those lyrics. She didn't want to be stuck in East Northumberland High in a previous life, either.)

BIG twanging rock boogie guitar sound worthy of top-tier Nashville productions on "Lonely Town" on Britt Savage's album, which song would not be out of place on a Gretchen Wilson album, tossing of the kitchen sink into the truck and all. "Fearless" is frantic, funny rockabilly, with a lyric that starts out with Britt being afraid of spiders and snakes, then progresses through the rest of The Pop Up Book Of Phobias. Title opener "Fingerprints" is an instrumental, Duane Eddy at the Space Age Bachelor Pad...so yeah, that explains the Tarantino namedrop on her cdbaby page. Her ballads gain gravity, in general, by sounding countrypolitan. Real nice album.

Xhuxk, "Teardrops On My Guitar" is number eleven in the country in CHR-Pop airplay, where it's been for a while, so there's no surprise its getting on Z-100. What's really interesting is that Miley's "See You Again" (number 33 in CHR-Pop airplay) is number 3 over the last seven days on Z-100, in a virtual dead heat at top with Alicia Keys and Rihanna.

Listening to Britt Savage's MySpace. I like her voice, and I'll want to hear more, though there's a precious '60s retro-ness to her - the era of Emma Peel and Secret Agent Man, the first a MySpace friend, the second a cover song - that makes the music more emotionally distanced than it ought to be. But I've always loved the "Secret Agent Man" theme song. Don't think Johnny Rivers can be beat, however.

"I Never Got Over You" has the sort of riff that I expect Frank would say verges into Raw Power Stooges territory

In fact, I said this very thing in an email to Tom et al. yesterday. I've got the version of "I Never Got Over You" on O' Santa Barbara, on which it's the best thing. In fact I like it more than "One Beer," though the latter is an exception to the Black Angel Suck When They Get Slow And Ungrooveful Rule.

there's a precious '60s retro-ness to her

Well, like a lot of this stuff (from Amy Winehouse on down), there's a precious '60s retro-ness to her trappings (i.e., that mini-skirt, the Nancy Sinatra and Tarantino references), but, in general (with the exceptions I named above -- and I actually like the instrumental despite its space-age-bachelor-padness), I'm not sure how that hurts her music (less than it hurts Winehouse's, Devil Doll's, Sarah Borges's, and maybe even Mechanical Bull's, though I do prefer the latter's album to the rest.) In fact, in the case of Savage, Devil Doll, and Borges (and Finn and the Sharks for that matter), the '50s/'60-retro-ness actually adds energy to their music, during their more rocking rockabilly songs at least. I can think of plenty of un-retro albums that might be helped by more rockabilly; it provides a bounce that even plenty of the country-rock out of Nashville these days tends to lack. And Savage's production, at least, doesn't feel retro to me; it's way too bright and poppy for that.

But yeah, I can understand how trappings like hers might make even the less blatantly schticky tracks seem like music between quotemarks, which might cut into the emotional effectiveness. I see that in theory, anyway; I'm less sure that it actually happens. I've never bought the idea that current styles are more emotionally affecting by definition, just because they're current. And I like mini-skirts. It's not like they suddently turned stodgy.

Yeah, have made my way to the Britt Savage CDBaby page. Wish there were more pictures, given that Billy Block of Western Beat Entertainment says "Britt Savage is a totally captivating talent of enormous proportion," and I'd like to see some of those proportions. Track Four, "Last Flight To Vegas," is the first song that's really hitting me, also the first thing that sounds like it might be commercially viable on a current country station. But I do think it needs stronger production, someone like John Rich - and, honestly, think it needs a louder singer: is the sort of thing Sarah Johns could drive home.

I like "Fearless" as a song but the band is too heavyset and not swinging enough, though I like 'em in the break, where they're not getting in her way. I understand what you're saying about the band's retro-ness actually adding energy by way of aggressive guitar and organ. Not pulled together all that well on this song (better on "Vegas"). "Broken" a good song, but again, I think it needs a bigger voice, larger proportions. I'm hearing promise in this, but actually more in the songwriting than the performance (I'm assuming that everything but "Secret Agent Man" is original, but I could be all wrong about that). "This Town Can't Keep A Secret," with that distanced lounge kitsch, is good songwriting, if she'd only done it straighter. I wonder what Elizabeth McQueen would do with it?

Ah, "Lonely Town" may be the other partial exception to that complaint (along with "Last Flight to Vegas"); would like to hear LeAnn Rimes do it, though (whose album would probably have replaced Gretchen's on my Pazz & Jop if I were voting today). "I Found Love" is strong in a gospel-style with twang-guitar included, though it's middling as song.

(Remember, I do tend to underrate things on first hearing, but so far I'm only finding two keepers - in these versions, that is. As I said, I might hire these people on as songwriters.)

xp By the way, since I only mentioned Mechanical Bull on the '07 rolling country thread a couple days before it ended, and since I'm going to be listening to it a lot more this year, I shall now revive that post; heck, I'll revivie HorrorPops while I'm at it, too, since that's actually an '08 album. Not Drive By Truckers, though; they don't need my help here:

Mentioned Mechanical Bull a few paces upthread; like them even more now. Advance CD sleeve shows a young hipster looking guy (apparently Adam Widoff on guitar/bass/ drums/B3/clavinet/shaker) and young hipster looking girl (apparently Avalon Peacock -- great name, or annoying one, take your pick) from Woodstock, NY; so maybe they're considered a duo, but the cover credits also list six more musicians (on mandolin, pedal steel/dobro, guitar, guitar/vocals, dums, banjo/sax), plus John Medeski (jazz/fusion/jam band guy from Medeski Martin and Wood who I've never really listened to, right?) playing B3 on the song "Luke Warm Coffee," which is one of the ones Avalon sings, or rather purrs, and is an attempt at a seedy sort of smokey-lounge torch ambience ("lukewarm coffee and a filter cigarette" -- I don't smoke, but doesn't that just mean one you didn't roll yourself?), and therefore cornball by definition, and one of my least favorite songs on the album, but that said I still like it okay; it does the ambience as well as, I dunno, Amy Winehouse or Devil Doll or Sarah Borges do, maybe better.) But on this album, it is also, fortunately, atypical. And Annette (who does ethereal to the male singer's earthy -- good match) only sings a few of the songs (incluing "Desert Air," where she manages a good Grace Slick quiver amid some ominous spaghetti western psychedelia and the chants turn almost Gregorian by the end, so yeah, they get a good desert sound indeed); the rest are sung by a guy, who I had been assuming was Adam until right this second but I just noticed that "vocals" are not among his credits, so maybe it's Chase Pierson? Need to check, I guess. Whatever; whoever it is has a good deep voice with plenty of gravity -- reminds me of Cooley in the Drive By Truckers (yes, I am finally able to tell the DBTs' voices apart; sorry it took me so long.) And Southern Rock guitar jams like "Crazy Lady" would doubtlessly appeal to Truckers fans, too, but the other act the male voice and songs keep bringing to mind are much less authentic Brit techno-country collective A3 (at least on their late '90s-ish debut album that had the Sopranos theme on it), except without the techno. (The hipster boy/girl duo acting rustic thing might also put Mechanical Bull in the White Stripes/Kills/ Raveonettes genre, whatever that's called these days, but I don't really hear sonic similarities to any of those acts.) Anyway, songs I like I a lot (1) "Debts" ("...that no honest man can pay" -- that's a cover, isn't it? Though here, like most of the other songs, it's credited to guitarist-vocalist Chase Pierson, who okay, if he writes the songs, I wouldn't be surprised if he sings them too, and maybe that's even him not Adam in the photo, which is really confusing seeing how Adam's name and all his multitudinous credits are right under the photo); (2) "The End" (existential country -- I just made that probably meaningless subgenre name up; it also includes certain early Joe Ely songs like "Bhagavad Decree" and "I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown" and yeah some A3 too, okay? -- about how you're good at starting things but not finishing them); (3) "Find A Home" (more existentialism about how "I don't look for trouble/trouble finds me on its own," very Cooley actually and the guy ain't got no home); (4) "Biggest Nerd In The Class" (closest thing to a blatant novelty joke here, except it's not, really; concerns the eternal high school popularity contest and the kid who gets picked last for kickball and carries the big bookbag falls in love with the girl who doesn't pay attention to what anybody thinks of her and they both wind up attactive people; very Revenge of the Nerds obviously and maybe Nada Surf's "Popular" too I'm not sure and okay there's probably some connection to White Stripes' walk-to-school songs on their first couple albums too come to think of it); (5) "Left Turn in Jersey" (= nearly impossible just like understanding the girl the singer is singing to: great metaphor, and "you've got your barbs in me like a porcupine" is a great line; anyway, this two-step is the second most blatantly "funny" song on the album and it's funny to me anyway and by the way did I say that these mostly all have really good melodies? well, they mostly all have really good melodies -- with hooks and energy and plenty of prettiness attached); (6) "Million Yesterdays" (good wistful memory drone with more Gregorian sighing in it; Avalon is watching the children in the park going round and round on their merrygoround while she herself goes round and round on the windmills of her mind and voices in her head as tears go by -- too bad Lee Hazlewood died; he would have liked this song I think); (7) "Goodbye Woodstock" (nice summers but harsh winters there and every year is the same so where will they move now? -- reminds me a little of that song on the new Vampire Weekend debut album, only song I like on there really, where they leave Cape Cod, but this song is better). So anyway, those are my notes, and sorry there are so many of them. Good album. Their myspace page, again:

http://www.myspace.com/mechanicalbullpen

-- xhuxk, Sunday, 30 December 2007 14:24

(Actually, those two songs I call Joe Ely songs are quite possibly actually Butch Hancock songs, but Ely's versions are the ones I know, assuming Hancock ever actually sang them. Also, with the Bhagavad one -- assuming I even spelled it right -- I realize that conflating Eastern religion with existentialism may well be a contradition in terms, but so be it. It still feels existential to me, somehow.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:04 PM

And okay, Mechanical Bull's myspace page (which for some reason also only shows two people in its photo) says the lead male singer is definitely Pierson:

Band Members CHASE PIERSON-Lead Vocals/Guitar CHRIS ZALOOM-Steel Guitar/Electric Guitar ADAM WIDOFF-Electric Guitar/Bass/Drums DAVID MALACHOWSKI-Electric Guitar GEORGE QUINN-Electric Bass JBIRD BOWMAN - Drums/Vocals AVALON PEACOCK-Vocals

Influences: Dysfunctional marriages, alcoholism and the american dream

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:19 PM (

And I've also been wanted to proclaim my love, or at least like, here for the upcoming early '08 album by the Horror Pops, lady-led Eurogothskasurfabillies on Hellcat; as with labelmates Tiger Army earlier this year, they'd never hit me before but somehow seem to have finally come into their own. Good glam-rumble bottom underneath, and the singer (sorry, don't have her name in front of me) does a good Lene Lovich hiccup on top, and she likes exciting movies (as evidenced by the excellently surf-guitared "Thelma and Louise" and the somewhat torch-kitsched but still real good big ballad "Hitchcock Starlet" as in "tonight I'll die in black and white like a Hitchock starlet") and other tales of girls living or at least driving fast and dying young ("Highway 55," probably my favorite), and "Missfit" has cool Madness "Our House" quotes and "Boot To Boot" has cool oi! shouts and "Horrorbeach Part 2" has cool Link Wray style guitars and "Kiss Kiss Kill Kill" has a cute '80s modern-rock melody, and the schtick dates way back to the Cramps at least but all told I sure don't recall No Doubt ever being this much fun. (Qualifies for thge country thread thanks of course to the rockabilly element, which No Doubt lacked.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007 8:04 PM

Apparently the singer's name is Patricia Day; HorrorPops is only one word; they are from Denmark but currently based in L.A.; and have Warp Toured:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=6058446

-- xhuxk, Sunday, December 30, 2007

Also, there is the idea that, thanks to Miley Cyrus and HorrorPops et. al., rockabilly suddenly may be starting to feel current again. Which seems to happen every 20 or 30 years or so, I guess.

Remember, I do tend to underrate things on first hearing

And I tend to do the reverse, which means we'll probably end up liking the album exactly the same.

here's another entertaining addition to the girl-rockabilly-singer-with-lounge tendencies sweepstakes as Xhuxk sez and speaking of all this countrypolitan madness.

Jesse Dayton & Brennen Leigh's Holdin' Our Own and Other Country Gold Duets, on Stag Records, and I think it's just out now. On the cover, he looks like Conway Twitty and Brennen looks like the best-looking extra in Hee Haw, in other words real country and kinda sultry. But there's not exactly rockabilly on this one except maybe "Long Legged Guitar Pickin' Man" which isn't really rockabilly. They sound tense in a way, these two duet partners, but not in the rockabilly fashion. A pretty well-done rip on '60s -politan duets with a George and Tammy cover. "Let's Run Away" chugs along in that familiar Texas Sir Douglas mode, a bit of drollery with just enough organ. He sings a lot like George Jones on most of this, Leigh sounds very country, since she apparently has been a bluegrass performer for a while. "Two-Step Program" is nice, "Somethin' to Brag About" is like weird mid-'60s Nashville stuff like Henson Cargill and does the hapless-guy-redeemed-by-love song well. He gets his suits from Penney's, she wears a minidress on her job as waitress and has "17 pages of Top Value stamps." I think it's passable, they do that duet think mostly without shtick. Still, this is kinda alt-country's view of what this music should be, and that's not a totally bad thing except I think the "accuracy" of what are basically pastiches (and some covers) is the selling point, and the best thing on the record is the most impure, a nice 3/4 white-soul-gospel thing with slightly altered chords that to my ears are idiomatic--of, like, a late-'60s Parsons song or something more calculated by a rocker going country, or maybe like a Leon Russell song, where it's a basic format but it's those little alterations that make it pop. Pop gospel, and pretty good, mentions church-funded marriage counseling.

Listening to the Dayton and Leigh "We Hung The Moon" on the Jesse Dayton MySpace, and I agree with you about it's sounding alt, though if someone disagreed I'm not sure what I'd say to them. And I agree that it doesn't sound particularly "accurate" either; seems patchwork, the thrift-store version of music, or maybe just impoverished. Anyway, it's deliberately off, as if the style were irrevocably a foreign language that they could appropriate bits of but they could never feel it was quite theirs. So, whether it's their intent or not, there's a feeling of alienation, of having to create a world out of parts that are given to you, but not having the models at hand to do so, so you try this one, then that one. (I guess this is different from what you're saying.) But part of what's going on is that Jesse's willing to make his voice strain and miss. Or, OK, maybe he's just not that technically good. Anyway, I'm not really liking it, though I don't hate listening to it. This isn't to say that this kind of alt/alienation can't be good. It's what the White Stripes trade in, basically sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Not that the White Stripes are alt-country. But like this duo, the White Stripes are willing to throw themselves in the direction of a style without particularly worrying about hitting the bullseye (or even hitting anywhere near the target).

Now listening to "Let's Run Away," and I hear the Sir Douglas organ, but still not feeling enough from the vocals. I like Dayton's solo tracks more ("I'm home getting hammered while she's gettin' nailed"), especially his countrified cover of the Cars' "Just What I Needed." But a slicker voice would actually be better. Maybe I'm spoiled by modern production values. But I don't think he's getting anything particularly expressive out of his missed notes.

But anyway, what's on my mind, for the column I'm going to write tomorrow morning, is that mainstream country thinks it has a sense of an overarching balance and rightness in God's universe. But am I right? You guys know the genre better than I do. I'm listening to Dayton's version of "Pancho and Lefty" - not a bad version, and from the picture that MySpace posts with it, it looks as if Johnny Bush is the guy duetting with Dayton. The song maybe doesn't quite assume a "rightness" to the universe - hard for "outlaw" to quite take that position. Yet somehow it's comfortable in its world. It knows its world (even if it's a world of myth and legend). (Am I making sense?)

Anyway, for my column I'm trying to rationalize why I think that Kelly Clarkson's "Because Of You" is outside this assumption that mainstream country makes, that there's an overarching rightness, or at least sense, to the universe. My question is why do I include, say, "Gunpowder and Lead" and "Independence Day" in this overarching rightness/sense, but not "Because Of You"? "I watched you die I heard you cry every night in your sleep/I was so young, you should have known better than to lean on me/You never thought of anyone else, you just saw your pain/And now I cry in the middle of the night for that same damn thing/Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk/Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt/Because of you I try my hardest just to forget everything/Because of you I don't know how to let anyone else in/Because of you I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty/Because of you I am afraid." I would say that "Because Of You" seems to cross a barrier, except I don't think anyone in country particularly felt the song was controversial or notice it crossing a barrier. Maybe the song does assume an order to the universe, the order of modern-day psychotherapy or something. But it seems pretty despairing to me. My argument I guess is that "Gunpowder and Lead" and "Independence Day" still have an overall perspective, even if the perspective is outside the song. Whereas "Because Of You" has no outside. There's nowhere to find perspective. (Maybe you can tell me what I'm trying to say.)

By the way, what do you guys think of the White Stripes' version of "Conquest"? White utterly mauls the song, but I think he expresses something, simultaneously desperate and exuberant.

Anyway, I'm thinking of the country music theme of "continuity," the daughter in "Wide Open Spaces" splitting for "Wide Open Spaces" and the mother remembering when she too yearned for "Wide Open Spaces." Or Trisha Yearwood's "She's In Love With The Boy" (her dad says that when it comes to brains her boyfriend got the short end of the stick, and mom interjects and tells him that that's what her dad said about him when they were dating). Or a funnier continuity, like in "Cleaning My Gun," where the kid was terrorized by the dad of the girl he was dating and now that he's grown up he's going to terrorize the young man dating his daughter. Or more complexly we've got "Sinners Like Me" where the guy drinks and messes up just like Grandpa, but Jesus will hold his hand in the end anyway. Or the Montgomery Gentry and the Jack Ingram songs where the stubborn kid and the stubborn dad tear the relationship apart and then a decade later repair it (often at a time of distress or death). Tropes of continuity, often a phrase (Ingram's "Measure of a man") that seemed relevant to the rebel circumstance and now is relevant to the reconciliation.

Anyway, those are continuity songs, and you guys know a lot more of them than I do, probably. So my point is that "because of you I am afraid" is a very different kind of continuity.

"increadingly bearded" indeed, which is no prob in itself--increasingly bearded c'est moi--but Bon Iver's the slo-mo farmhand, loft in teh stars with frost-flowers in his whisker-curtains, which part only to emit vapors

Just when you think the GOP can't possibly get more neo-Nazi, white identity and "Turner Diaries-esque," reality surprises. In the Christmas season.

Make "Puff the Magic Dragon" into something Prussian Blue will wind up singing, "Barack the Magic Negro." What a brilliant idea! Such genius! Since it aired on Limbaugh, listenership must make it one of the top songs in the country.

In the Tennesseean

In an Iowa newspaper

It's kind of weird that everyone is mad about that song now, since it barely made a dent a year and a half ago when Limbaugh played it. Of course back then there was the context of it being a response song to an LA Times Op-Ed piece called "Obama the Magic Negro" that went into the Legend of Bagger Vance type relationship America seemed to be having with O. I never understood why it's supposed to be Al Sharpton singing though.

A candidate for Chairman of the Republican National Comittee sent it to his friends as a Christmas present.Alibi: an alleged parody of Al Sharpton allegedy saying Obama wasn't "black enough." Chairman of Virginia Republican Party was just now on MSNBC, criticizing candidate for sending out song, but also making a point of quote "defending Rush Limbaugh for playing it" unquote, as she summarized her own position.

The song is retarded, but it's amazing how many refractions are involved in the controversy--

1. The media (and Peter, Paul & Mary) are mad at
2. a GOP chairman candidate
3. for sending around a song parody by some doofus named Paul Shanklin
4. which was first played on the Rush Limbaugh show 21 months ago
5. the song is supposedly sung by Al Sharpton
6. Commenting on an LA Times op-ed by David Ehrenstein (this is pretty explicit in one of the verses, lyrics follow)
7. That comments on how the media presents
8. Barack Obama
8. as the sort of Black character that makes white people feel good about themselves
9. A character often played by Morgan Freeman
10. And who is contrasted in the song with Snoop Dogg and Louis Farrakhan.

"Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.

The L.A. Times, they called him that

'Cause he's not authentic like me.

Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper

Said he makes guilty whites feel good

They'll vote for him, and not for me"

And the current coverage seems to miss that the song is an attack on Sharpton, not Obama.

Yeah, I'm sure Rush meant it that way and that way only, just like his defensers and the RNC candidate.

Hence my fascination with the refractions--as we're all becoming expert readers of the nodding and the winking.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm finding President Keyes's logic a bit disingenuous here, or maybe just gullible -- If you can't even figure out why the song is in Sharpton's voice, how effective a Sharpton parody can it be? (And even if it is in part a Sharpton parody, which I don't doubt, who says it can't walk and chew Obama at the same time?)

In other news, my 51st to 100th favorite albums of 2008 (many of them country, natch):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/51-eddy-current-suppression-ring-primary-colours-goner--52-dolly-parton-backwoods-barbie-dolly--53-black.html

Of course back then there was the context of it being a response song to an LA Times Op-Ed piece called "Obama the Magic Negro" that went into the Legend of Bagger Vance type relationship America seemed to be having with O.

Yeah, context is everything. My initial readings of the story didn't register on how far back Limbaugh had played the think.

I don't even recall the LA Times Op-Ed piece. However, since then we've had the campaign and every newspaper in the US interviewing white male heevahavas saying they wouldn't vote for the Islamic n-----. 60 Minutes even dredged through their tapes last night to find some old footage of a crank going on about Obama being a muslim and not knowing the words to our patriotic song.

That and being passed around by the head of the Tennessee GOP makes a firm addition to the majority impression it's the party of mad as hell white racist cranks. Good found humor, every day.

This is another good example from soCal from the campaign timeline

This is unintentionally funny, in a Ted Nugent way, from something called the Dakota Voice

Excerpt from the Atlanta newspaper here.

It brings to mind the local Republican official here in Georgia who sent out an email to her fellow Republicans not so long ago with a doctored photo of Obama as a black lawn jockey, among others. She wasn’t a racist, she insisted, and neither were the 20 or so Georgia conservatives who had sent the photo to her.

One of the more curious responses came from Erick Erickson over at redstate.com. “”In any event, that Chip Saltsman did this shows poor judgment on his part,” Erickson writes. “He should have known this would happen. This is a distraction from the RNC Chairman’s race coming on the heels of revelations that South Carolina GOP Chairman, and fellow contender, Katon Dawson belonged to an all white country club shortly before he decided to run for RNC Chairman.”

In similarly amusing political matters.

Ted Nugent: I'm the Motor City Madman, but 'Fuck you, Detroit!

Oh, that wacky dude from near Waco

x-post The seeming disingenuousness of my logic might be because at first I was commenting on what I'd heard about the song, and later commenting after I'd read the lyrics--which cleared up for me why it was Sharpton singing. I haven't actually heard the song yet though.

Get all of this out of your systems or take it to ILE, because it'd be a shame if this off topic shit carried over to Rolling Country 2009...

It's more or less to the tune of "Puff The Magic Dragon." Not to change the subject or anything, but Nick Spitzer's radio show, "American Routes," if that's how he spells it, recently spent two hours on original and cover versions of Hank Williams songs. Amazing how flexible they can be, without losing any identity. Tuscaloosa's own Dinah Washington extended "Your Cheating Heart" through the backwoods to the nighttime skyline of post-WWII jazz, with proto-rhythm & blues rumbling through the implications; Bob Dylan & his road band of a few years ago chopped "I Can't Get You Off of My Mind" through some kind of riverboat rock without leaving the dock (chopping, rolling in place, cos he can't get you etc) None of it upstaged Hank of course. I liked what the host observed about Hank with his Drifting Cowboys, the mixture of austerity and swing--what Dylan still goes for sometimes, like he did on John Wesley Harding. Willie and Merle get it too. It's not for everybody (no dis on Bob Wills, cos he had something else).

Mike Barthel (from a rough draft he posted on livejournal of his P&J comments):

I love the Taylor Swift album because it sounded like my high school girlfriend: pumped full of hormones (so many walks taken, so many tension-filled car rides!), overqualified for its small hometown but immersed fully in its stunted possibilities for romance and sex, visibly smart but not as smart as it thinks it is.

("Barack the Magic Negro" is getting press now only because other candidates for RNC chair are attacking candidate Chip Saltsman for having distributed it on his Xmas CD.)

Obv my cultural sense of what sounds respectable and not respectable is getting ever worse. I mean, as a proud Ashton Shepherd voter I think she has about as much subtlety, integrity, and depth as Girlicious, and I assumed that critics would consider her too trashy to vote for. (I mean, the song about the terminally ill girl in the hospital, the one who wants to know if she's too small to fit into angel wings, is utter craven swill. And the lyrics to "Sound So Good" are ad copy.)(Which doesn't mean they can't be good, mind you, though I'm not impressed with those two.)

Oh, I'm repeating myself, called "Sounds So Good" ad copy in two separate posts and used "I mean" twice in one post.

So I must be a classicist myself.

Chuck, so your Rhapsody list means you like Jamey Johnson's new one and Rick Springfield's new one better than the Toby Keith greatest hits comp you listed (and better than the Kid Creole comp and numerous others farther down in your list)? Interesting.

Shepherd might become the honky tonk Cher, a paradigm for the Queen of the Silver Dollar costume contest/way of life, if she isn't already (what are you doing, this Neww Year's, Eeevvve?)

Chuck, so your Rhapsody list means you like Jamey Johnson's new one and Rick Springfield's new one better than the Toby Keith greatest hits comp you listed (and better than the Kid Creole comp and numerous others farther down in your list)?

Yeah, basically. Thing is, with best-ofs, you gotta take usefulness into account -- I already have all of Toby's '00s albums, and a few of his '90s ones, so the redundancy factor obviously figures in. (Same with August Darnell, in his own special way.) Plus there's the fact that I didn't want to put a Toby Keith best-of in my top 10. That'd be totally lame, right? So he gets the same coveted #11 spot that I'm pretty sure a Bob Wills box set occupied a few years ago. That make sense? (Most other box sets on this planet, which I have basically no use for at all, wouldn't even come close to making my top 150.) (And less redundant best-ofs further down the list were rated pretty much one-on-one with new albums, though. And you'll note that one sort-of-best-of -- by Ross Johnson -- did make my top 10. I'd never heard his stuff before, so that one just felt like a regular album to me.)

(Curmudgeon was referring to my top 50, which was not linked on this thread til now, and starts with...George Jones! Sort of):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/12/george-jones-once-called-1970-a-good-year-for-the-roses-and-though-the-fellow-who-made-my-very-favorite-album-this-year-ac.html

(Or, another way to put my Toby explanation: "Telling me stuff I didn't already know" seems like at least one valid criterion for judging how good records are. And "having 35 tracks, which is way too many by definition, most of which were on my shelf already" seems like one valid negative criterion. When you think about the fact that it had that black mark against it going in, Toby's best-of actually did pretty well!)

(Yet more valid album criterions, if these help: "How much did I wind up playing it?" "How much pleasure did I get out of it in 2008"? Etc. Obviously, right?)

(There's the predictive factor, too: "How much do I expect to play it in the future, and how much will it hold my attention/entertain me/keep telling me new things/not make me want to do other things instead/etc. when I do"?)

Speaking of the future, not to jump the gun or anything, these are my favorite country albums of 2009 so far:

Megan Munroe – One More Broken String (Diamond)
Chuck Mead – Journeyman’s Wager [label tk]
Dierks Bentley – Feel The Fire (Capitol)

And speaking of the past, a couple questions I've always wondered about that came to mind again this morning while listening to The Stars Are Out In Texas. an eight-song 1986 vinyl compilation LP that I found free on the sidewalk in Manhattan while Christmas shopping last month:

1. In "If You're Gonna Play In Texas (You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band)" by Alabama, why do they say "That lead guitar is hot, but not for a Looziana man?" I thought they said we were in Texas! Or is the unstated assumption that, if you're in (presumably east) Texas, Looziana men will definitely be in the audience?

2. In "Luckenbach, Texas (Back To The Basics Of Love)," why does Waylon first say "Newbury's train songs," and then Willie sneakily changes it in his verse to "Jerry Jeff's train songs"? Did Willie not like Newbury? Also, whose train songs are better? I've never much listened to either contestant's train songs, though every time I hear this song, it reminds me that I probably should.

How much do I expect to play it in the future

Actually, truth is, given this criterion alone, maybe the Toby Best-Of should have finished higher on my list -- Hell, maybe it should have even placed #1. Which is to say, 10 or 20 years from now, when I want to hear my favorite singer of the '00s, assuming I'm still listening to CDs at that point (a possibility I definitely don't discount), which Toby CD will I pull off the shelf? Wouldn't totally surprise me if it was disc 2 of 35 Biggest Hits (which, after all, is the album I've repeatedly told people who don't own any Toby albums to start with.) Heck, maybe a year from now it will even seem like one of the best albums of the decade. But it still would have seemed really weird to list in my Top 10 this year (judging from how much play I gave it, and the redundancy stuff above.)

Also, I just noticed that Frank and Lex and some other people say some interesting things about album-ranking criteria in the comments here, if anybody's interested:

http://alexmacpherson.livejournal.com/215057.html

According to his daughter Susie or Suzie Nelson's Dad-bio/memoir, think it's titled Stardust Memories, Willie belatedly discovered that his offspring was about to elope with Mr. Newbury (forget how old he was, but way older than her). So, it was Willie who approached the waiting sports car that fateful morn, Willie and his .357, bringing enlightment (it worked, as least as far as Willie's kids were concerned). The Toby set is no doubt the right intro, but it's at least his third such, and includes many if not all tracks from the first two. Also, what's with his label? Why isn't that Carter's Chord album getting the big push? Not like girls aren't big in country now. Maybe they're gonna do the geological timespan thing, releases singles off it for several years, gradually bring the Chord to the forefront after infilterating fairgrounds and parking lots for a while, but I'm not seeing them on CMT, not hearing 'em on local metro country stations, etc. Haven't heard the whole Trailer Choir album, so don't know if it's equally worthy, but seems like they're worth more hype. The only noteworthy thing he's done lately was on Steven Colbert's Christmas Special: "The War On Christmas," which is actually a steady-rockin' parody of the postition you might expect him to take--and then some: "Ah pledge alleeegence, to th' Bay-bee, Jeeezuz." For instance.Guess he's willing to work diff angles, so we don't take him for granted (like Willie doing peace songs and "Beer For My Horses")

Also proves he's still got *some* initiative about marketing, but if you're gonna have a label that's more than a vanity, work it, dang it.

Here the 9513's Top Ten list:

http://www.the9513.com/top-10-country-albums-of-2008/

1. Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson- Rattlin' Bones
2. Joey + Rory- The Life of a Song
3. Hayes Carrl- Trouble in Mind
4. Justin Townes Earle- The Good Life
5. Lee Ann Womack- Call Me Crazy
6. Patty Loveless- Sleepless Nights
7. Kathy Mattea- Coal
8. Randy Travis- Around the Bend
9. Reckless Kelly- Bulletproof
10. Ralph Stanley II- This One is Two

Jamey Johnson's album was disqualified because the indie version appeared on their 07 list.

and their Most Disappointing Albums:

http://www.the9513.com/ten-most-disappointing-albums-of-2008/

1. Pop Crossovers (Jessica Simpson, Darrius Rucker, Jewel)
2. Wilie Nelson- Moment of Forever
3. Alan Jackson- Good Time
4. Allison Moorer- Mockingbird
5. Randy Houser- Anything Goes
6. Kellie Pickler- ST
7. Keith Anderson- C'mon
8. Dolly Parton- Backwoods Barbie
9. Josh Gracin- We Weren't Crazy
10. Heidi Newfield- What Am I Waiting For

And the top 10 from Country Universe

http://www.countryuniverse.net/2008/12/22/top-ten-albums-of-2008/

1. Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson- Rattlin' Bones
2. Kathy Mattea- Coal
3. Jamey Johnson- That Lonesome Song
4. Patty Loveless- Sleepless Nights
5. Justin Townes Earle- The Good Life
6. Emmylou Harris- All I Intended to Be
7. Lee Ann Womack- Call Me Crazy
8. Peter Cooper- Mission Door
9. Sugarland- Love on the Inside
10. Jim Lauderdale- Honey Songs

Roughstock's list

http://www.roughstock.com/blog/the-best-of-2008-in-country-music-the-top-25-albums-of-the-year

1. Joey + Rory- The Life of a Song
2. Patty Loveless- Sleepless Nights
3. Hayes Carrl- Trouble in Mind
4. Jamey Johnson- That Lonesome Song
5. Sugarland- Love on the Inside
6. Lee Ann Womack- Call Me Crazy
7. Zac Brown Band- The Foundation
8. Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson- Rattlin' Bones
9. Randy Travis- Around the Bend
10. Jim Lauderdale- Honey Songs

I didn't make it through that Chambers/Nicholson album; seemed even duller than Joey _ Roy to me. So did the Justin Townes Earle (who seemed even duller than his dad has lately, which is saying a lot). Never heard Mattea or Loveless or Lauderdale, any of which I may have liked, but none of those artists has really ever seemed much better than pleasant to me. (Coal is a good album title, though!) Two of the albums in 9513's Top 10 made my Top 150 (Restless Kelly, who I am actually glad somebody other than me noticed, and the inevitable Hayes Carrl), but four of their "disappointing" albums did (Newfield in my Top 50, Parton just missing it, and Alan Jackson and Keith Anderson, though I can at least see how those last two were disappointing in a way.) Bizarrely, I didn't realize until right this second there was a new Kellie Pickler album this year. (I thought her debut was good.) Never even heard of Peter Cooper before -- who he? (Not sure I've ever actually heard Josh Gracin, either, though his name is at least familiar. I think I thought he was an adult-contemporary guy or something, which probably means I confused him with somebody.)

Joey + Roy I mean, obv.

So is there any overlap among the writers of those blogs? Interesting how much overlap there is on those lists, either way -- mainly albums that barely if ever came up on this thread, strangely enough. Though it's interesting that only Roughneck (which I'd never heard of) and Country Universe went for Sugarland (who I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume that the seemingly stick-up-their-ass purists at 9513 probably hate, right?)

(Joey + RORY. Aaarggh. I will never get that right, I don't think.)

(Or if not writer-overlap, then maybe at least voter-overlap?)

And it's RoughSTOCK, I guess, not Roughneck. Their 11-to-25 albums, fwiw: Emmylou (snore), Grascals, Little Big Town (in 2008? weird. expanded major-label reissue seemed pretty pointless to me), Becky Schlegel (never heard of her), Jason Boland & the Stragglers (ditto), Rodney Crowell, James Otto (had no idea anybody liked that so much), Lady Antebellum, Trace Adkins, Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton (which probably would have made my "disappointment" list if I'd made one), Wade Bowen (another guy I never heard of), Ashton Shepherd, Randy Houser (which I still need to hear and making the 9513 disapppointment list makes me want to hear him more), Hal Ketchum (who I didn't realize was still around).

It surprises me that Ashton Sheppard didn't make any of the top ten lists.

re: Sugarland & the 9513-- I looked at the voters (9 of them) individual lists and two of them had Sugarland. That site has a forum too--the readers seem a lot more interested in mainstream country than the editors are.

You may have been confusing Adult Contemporary's Josh Grobin with Josh Gracin, xhuxk. Gracin is like, older brother, back from Iraq but don't be skurred, let's have some fun and talk about our lives as they continue, thank goodness. Sort of a younger Chris LeDoux, or para-Darryl Worley/Phil Vassar, from what I've heard, though haven't heard a whole album.

Like it nor not like it, but how could anybody be Disappointed by solo debut of somebody from Trick Pony? What were they expecting?

Good point. If Trick Pony had a following among country critics, I never noticed.

Roughstocks's Top 10 singles of the year (supposedly Top 40, actually, but I'm having a hard time finding the other ones on their site. Top Singles lists on 9513 and Country ?Universe seem even less User-Friendly, but somebody should post links if they exist):

http://www.roughstock.com/tag/top-40-country-singles-of-2008

Also, me on John Rich's 2008 jerkitude:

http://idolator.com/5121129/heartbreak-no-8-john-rich-shills-for-the-republican-party

Here's the Country Universe Top Ten Singles

http://www.countryuniverse.net/2008/12/19/top-40-singles-of-2008-part-4-10-1/

DC9 At Night Top Ten

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/2008/12/top_10_country_albums_of_2008.php

Hayes Carll
Lee Ann Womack
Jamey Johnson
The Steeldrivers
JT Earle
Patty Loveless
Bruce Robison- The New World
The Wrights EP
Kathy Mattea
Randy Travis

From 9513:

9. Bulletproof, Reckless Kelly

Call it country or call it rock–Bulletproof is just outstandingly smart, hooky, hard-charging music that kicks off in high gear and doesn’t let up. Braun and the boys have never sounded more confident. — CM Wilcox.

Actually, I mostly call it "powerpop." But it's still a real good record. (I also call the band "Restless Kelly" a lot -- including a few posts up -- but I swear that's just me paying tribute to the Bryan Adams LP with "Run To You" and "Summer of '69" on it, which I mistakingly called Restless on and off for going on a quarter century now.)

I'll have to check that; likewise Patty Loveless (haven't heard her ina while, but a fairly pungent voice, I recall). And Bruce Robison, based on songs like "Travelin' Soldier." His original got played a lot down here after the Chicks were banished. Justin Townes Earle, according an NPR interview with father and son the other morning, is quite content to write like his father, but his voice seems to be in better shape, so I guess that's handy. Haven't heard the album. Mattea's album is good as far as it goes, but emotional range seems narrow, not just re variety's sake, but emotional resources of people in coal country. Steeldrivers' s/t made my own Top Ten (comments on them upthread)

The Patty Loveless CD is all covers of classic country songs--a popular move these days. It's good as far as that goes, but I've liked some of her other albums much more.

x-post Did Josh Gracin ever go to Iraq? I remember his unit was called up while he was on American Idol and they decided to let him stay in the US for the Marine PR.

Never even heard of Peter Cooper before -- who he?

Looks like he's a music writer turned musician.

From his bio:

Peter Cooper’s Mission Door is an engaging first-time collection from a songwriter who has spent the better part of his adult life writing about his musical heroes as a journalist (The Tennessean, No Depression, Esquire) and is now creating music revealing the lessons he learned from the masters. John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, Todd Snider.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/cooperpeter

Some other CDs I'm seeing in multiple individual lists:

Rodney Hayden- 12 Ounce World
Amber Digby- Passion, Pride & What Might Have Been
Eleven Hundred Springs- Country Jam

Pierce Greenberg, one of the 9513 voters, voted for two more albums I listened to this year but I don't think I even mentioned on this thread -- Aaron Watson's Angels & Outlaws, which struck me as a completely run-of-the-mill honky-tonk album with no songs that jumped out at me at all, and the Randy Rogers Band's self-titled red dirt country-rock album, which I actually kind of liked when I heard it (especially the circus song), though ultimately , as competently Southern-rocking as they are, they're just not that memorable a band; I kind of liked their two previous albums when they came out, too, but I can't tell you a damn thing about them. They're missing something major; I'm just not sure what. The fact that they couldn't even bother to come up with a title for their new album was probably a bad omen, when you get down to it. Workmanlike is only good up to a certain point, after which it turns into kind of a drag. Bet people claim they're great live, though -- They seem like that kind of band.

All right--I'm going to go ahead and start a 2009 thread.

Link:

Rolling Country 2009 Thread