Rolling Country 2008 Thread

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.

Okay, for one thing, I would say what I always think, which is that Frank listens to lyrics way more closely than I do -- more closely than they usually tend to warrant. What my gut would have told me up to this point is that that main thing that sets "Because of You" apart from most of the country songs he's naming is that "Because of You" is just way more vague; I'd think that Frank is cutting it slack for what it's missing -- namely, specifics in its lyrics. I'll listen to it more closely, eventually, but up to this point I guess I'd just thought of it as "another Diane Warren type power ballad" (for all I know, she wrote it, though she probably didn't -- Kelly must at least get a co-writing credit, right? Too lazy to check right now, though.) The one line that has stuck with me goes something like "because of you I've never strayed to far from the sidewalk"; maybe I have it wrong? Guess I always assumed that it was directed to an ex, though I suppose that particular lyric, assuming I have it right, might make more sense being directed toward a parent. (Which is what the lyrics which Frank quotes a couple posts above, which I'd never paid attention to before -- I would say because the music or singing never drew me into paying attention to them as lots of the country songs he names do -- suggest.) Which would put it in the great line of I've-got-psychological-problems-my-parents-are-to-blame songs, from the Supremes and Panics and Eminem and Hank Williams Jr and people like that. (I've got a chapter about those in my second book. I'm pretty sure Frank has said that some of the teenpop shemo gals -- he didn't use "shemo," but that's what they are -- like Pink have done similar songs, but those songs have never particularly hit me, at least none that come immediately to mind have.) Anyway, why that theme would be relevant here, of course, is that "Sinners Like Me" by Eric Church and some of the other songs Frank names fall in the same family-tradition tradition. And I guess what Frank is saying is that the country songs, um...Frank, what are you saying again? I guess that Eric Church says his family tradition has messed him up and that's normal, but Kelly is saying her family tradition has messed her up and that's not normal? I suppose that distinction makes sense -- though I have idea whether you clould generalize that one stance happens more in country and one doesn't; I need to ponder that question more. (This is an old Frank argument -- way back in Radio On more than a decade and a half ago, he argued that Garth Brooks's "Thunder Rolls" and Skid Row's "18 and Life" are very similar songs-- they even sound alike -- but Skid Row acknowledge that the world is fucked up outside the house the kid in the song gets kicked out of, whereas Garth pretends the world outside is normal but only what's happening in the house is fucked up. Though actually I doubt Garth actually mentions the world outside -- which means it's not fucked up? Frank, let me know if I got that wrong, but I think that's your basic gist, right?) Anyway, the main thing I'm noticing is that all this stuff still suggests that "Because of You" is more thematically similar to "Sinners Like Me" than thematically different. And I don't know if pop and rock songs are more likely to let parents off the hook than country songs are -- and even if they do, if that by definition would make them better, especially if figuring out what they're saying is so much more work. (Not that it always is, of course, but I do think that country songs gain something from their specificity and proper nouns and place names and so on; "Because of You" still hits me as generic, somehow, and interchangeable with lots of other songs in its ilk, in a way several of the country songs that Frank names do not. Though, of course, now I'll start thinking about "Because of You" more, and it will never sound generic to me again. Though that may well be more Frank's doing than Kelly's, really.) Finally, just real quick (look ma no paragraph breaks!), does something like "Stays in Mexico" by Toby Keith (to pick one random example) really assume a moral or perspective or continuity or rightness-with-the-world? (Beyond loose lips sink marriages, I mean? Sort of like "Deny Everything" by mid '90s all-girl punks Fluffy -- hey Frank, ever heard them? You'd like them!) I dunno, maybe it does.

As for the White Stripes' version of "Conquest," I actually re-listened to it last week, and sure, I like it. Mariachi bullfighter music move; "Hunter Gets Captured By the Game" type lyric -- what's not to like? Well, the precious frantic old-Western-showtune over-emoting, maybe, but that doesn't really bug me. The turning the tables on genders thing is swell. But I honestly don't know that I've ever heard the original version, and when I'd first noticed it was by somebody named "Robbins," I'd assumed it must be a song I'd never heard before by Marty Robbins -- who defintely had his over-emoted mariachi bullfight moments, much to his credit -- but nope, it's a different Robbins. To me, that's what's surprised most about it so far.

As for White "utterly mauling" the song, I don't especially hear it that way, though maybe that's because I don't know the original -- I'm not sure what Frank means, really (he wrote this in one of his Vegas columns a couple months ago) about White Stripes being one of the last bands to get doing-music-wrong right; they get music pretty right, as far as I can see. They're part of an old enough tradition (as Frank acknowledges) that it seems kind of weird to set them up against, say, a mainstream pop-rock tradition of singing and guitaring that's got nothing at all to do with them, especially when their own old weird tradition has constituted a different part of the mainstream for so long itself. I'm a fan (with reservations) of White Stripes, and I gather that Frank is too, but I just don't get the yardstick. For what they do, they don't sound "wrong" in any way that jumps out at me (and they do it way better than most other bands in the indie/alt/bohemian/whatever world. Not that that would, say, get them onto country radio. But I'd rather country radio bend to them than the reverse.) (Or would I? I dunno. At this point -- now that they've made basically the same album several times in a row, and I know what I'm getting from them and that I'll like it but there's no way it's going to excite me -- it might be fun to see them bend. And yeah, Meg still isn't much of a drummer, obviously. Though that's never hurt their music much, really.)

I also, obviously, don't hear the shortfalls in (for instance) Britt Savage's singing that Frank does. I'm extremely cynical about lifeless alt-country voices and rhythm sections, obviously, but I in her case, I hear plenty of life in both -- and where self-released records often sound way too small to me, I'm not hearing that in Britt's case, either. (Both Frank and I are probably spoiled by modern production techniques, but Frank is probably more spoiled than I am. Or, at any rate, I don't hear "missed notes" anywhere near as often as he does, because I'm not usually musically astute enough to get how the notes would have sounded if they hadn't been "missed." I'm looking more for energy and tunefulness, I guess, than for singers singing "on key" all the time, maybe I'm saying.)

Which reminds me, Frank, that you should check out that Mechanical Bull myspace, since you're now in the myspace-checking habit. Curious what you'd think.

I also realized that two of the albums I voted for in Pazz & Jop and Idolator in 2007 -- the ones by Gore Gore Girls and Sirens, both of which bands Frank has a fondness for, at least -- use a retro schtick that helps their rock'n'roll more than it hurts. So maybe retro schticks just aren't bugging me so much these days. (And I also don't hear the Sirens as inept players like Frank does, at all. I mean, I realize Slade were probably a great band, but how much of a virtuoso do you have to be to play glam rock? To me, it sounds like they can play! But then, I'm not a musician myself. Though George is, and he likes the Sirens album even more than I do.)

Country song of the day: "Sweet Jeremiah," bonus track on CD reissue which came out a couple years ago of the first (1976) Starz album; excellent Skynyrd rip. Not sure when it was recorded, though; it was a demo, apparently, but doesn't feel like one. (I only have CD-Rs, with colored Xerox covers.)

two of the albums I voted for... use a retro schtick that helps their rock'n'roll more than it hurts

Or four albums I voted for, if you count Flynnville Train and Kid Rock (though they're maybe slightly less kitschy about it in their trappings than the Sirens or Gore Gores are. Or maybe not, if dressing up as a '70s Southern rocker counts. It is notable, also, that three of these albums come from Detroit.)

I have idea whether you clould generalize

= I have no idea whether you could generalize

It should also probably be noted here that I just realized this week that the Starz' song "It's A Riot" (from their 1978 Colliseum Rock album, most recently heard by me on their 2006 Live in Cleveland CD) is sort of answer song to Rodney Atkins's "Cleaning This Gun," almost three decades before the fact, seeing as how the singer stands up to the dated daughter's shotgun-wielding dad and all.

(And White Stripes' "Conquest" is of course doused in retro kitsch schtick as well -- which oddly, is probably more what I find irritating, inasmuch as anything does, about the song than any performance mauling. Jack really sounds like he's acting on this one. But I am probably contradicting myself.)

And nobody will believe this, maybe, but I actually called the song "bullfighter" music here before looking at its video (even though no bulls are actually mentioned in the lyrics, to my knowledge.) Until now, I'd only listened to it on the album. (Also, there may not be any actual mariachi per se' in it. But it's still in that general neighborhood.)

Sirens rock like mothers (and better than the Mothers), so there's a sense in which they always can play, very very well, but whether everything else goes kerblooey varies from song to song; and when stuff does go kerblooey, which seems to be deeper than just singing or playing out of tune, though maybe that's it (but I'm not that hyper-sensitive to out-of-tune; the Shirelles weren't always in tune, James Chance was almost always out-of-tune (those are just two examples), don't think it hurt the former's music at all, did hurt the latter, but not critically), the force of the music is weakened considerably too. "Rock 'N' Roll Preacher" seems the most together in pitch (and least demanding) and is the one that rocks the hardest.

But yeah, I am being inconsistent and need to invoke the Boney Joan Rule (i.e., escape clause), I suppose.

My original sense of the White Stripes "doing it wrong" probably had more to do with Meg than with Jack, actually. And you're right there's a tradition of that within rock which (at least on and off) makes it a tradition within pop, too.

I do think that the White Stripes are getting worse, and that I'm also getting tired of them, but it isn't like they've fundamentally changed.

Original version of "Conquest" is Patti Page, who's not the most galvanizing singer in the history of music. I'd assumed there were scads of other versions, since the song sounded very familiar the second I heard the White Stripes version, and I'm not exactly a Patti Page aficionado, but allmusic.com only lists the Page and the White Stripes versions as being by Cory Robbins. (When I saw "Robbins" in the credits I though Marty too, since he plausibly could have written it.)

Anyway, I like the White Stripes version; there is one spot where Jack's not just a little off, he tries to rise with the melody and misses by a note or more, it sounds like a car running into the opposite lane. Obv. he could have corrected this by resinging, and chose not to.

The Patti Page version

Interesting that Xhuxk is kind of recapitulating my own discovery of "Because Of You," my starting off thinking the track was fairly standard (I way underrated it) in both its romantic you-left-me-broken theme and its mainstream balladry. Anthony and I talked about this a bit on Rolling Country in December 2005-January 2006. Anthony'd said that he'd been watching Kelly Clarkson on MTV, "the video that looked like some lost melodrama, all blonde on black, with heartbreak and a sort of undersung sadness/meloncholy... i dont remember the song, but how it was sung was more country and less girl singer, more lambert and less lohan..." He'd meant "Because Of You," which I claimed could easily be country with or even without a few tweaks, and Anthony said, "the best proof of its country tendencies is its obsessive seeking of solution wrt domestic melodrama."

But then I actually listened to the words and went "Oh." Except my "oh"s are lengthier than other people's, this being just an excerpt:

I think it is out of bounds for country. Which is to say that though I can imagine Faith singing in this style she probably wouldn't go for this melody or these words; and though I can imagine LeAnn going for both the melody and these words and totally nailing it in performance, she'd probably decide that it would be bad for her country career at this point to release it.

First the words: it isn't just that they're unremittingly despairing, since you could say the same about country classics like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "The End of the World." But those don't feel like despair, or they take a different approach to despair, or something. (I've always considered "End of the World" a beautiful, sweet delight.) In general, country's "life falls apart" story belongs to its standard romance cycle: "My heart is broken, now I'm drunk, now I'm going to fuck up again and again," is mined for a lot of rue and a lot of comedy. It's something country is comfortable with. Whereas "the relationship was fundamentally pathological and has left me unfit to live" is not standard for country, even if it's fine on Oprah and adult contemporary and Radio Disney...

Note in 2008: So what about that John Conlee song where he ends up in a mental institution? Well, those lyrics are just "He Stopped Loving Her Today" set in the booby hatch. OK, but isn't "He Stopped Loving Her Today" kind of pathological too? Er, um, no, well yes, of course, but country music doesn't seem to know this, and what took John to the nuthouse wasn't that he obsessively continued to love for the rest of his life, which apparently is quite sane (cf. Conlee's "Miss Emily's Picture") but that he was suffering from sorrow-induced amnesia, where he was forgetting that he still loved her or that he even knew her. Oh, and I'm hearing a question from the peanut gallery. "How is the relationship in 'Gunpowder and Lead' or the one in 'Independence Day' not fundamentally pathological, leaving the characters unfit to live, in fact leaving some of them dead?" Er, that's just being abused and, you know, killing people and stuff. Sorta not getting over something.

Look, I'm making a generalization, and no generalization is perfect, OK?

Further down that thread I talked about "Independence Day" and said, "Its despair and vengeance seem within country's ken (and aren't divorced from murder-ballad conventions, though the song is certainly something different). Not that it's a simple song. It doesn't pretend to answer the questions it raises." Maybe if I'd said why its despair and vengeance seem within country's ken I wouldn't still be puzzling about it now. If I knew why. Anyway, I think I'm right about the despair in "Because Of You" being different from the despair of "Independence Day." I just don't know why I'm right. I mean, I feel that I'm right, damn it! But the whole point here is to talk about legacy, which "Independence Day" hints at by having the song being narrated by the daughter of the abused mom and abusing dad's but then avoids by not saying what eventually happens to the little girl, except that she's shuttled off to the county home. I think that "Independence Day" implies, like a lot of country, oh, this is what some people are like, but it adds, maybe fairly new for country at the time of its release, that it's not necessarily all right or the permanent state of things.

And Xhuxk, you actually mentioned Hank Jr. back then, too, and I said to myself, "You know, I really need to go back and listen to a lot of Hank Jr." So, I really need to go back and listen to a lot of Hank Jr. Someone mentioned Dolly as well, and I'm almost as ignorant there. My guess is that even if the legacies in their songs are horrific - are they? - they still take place within an overarching sense of right and wrong, or this is what our world is like, or some such. And I'm not saying that "Because Of You" refutes that overarching sense, just that it lacks an overarching sense itself. (I'm just repeating myself now.) (Now?)

(Of course, as I said above, if "Because Of You" crossed some country boundary, then you'd think someone'd have made a big deal of this, which no one has, as far as I know.)

I do think there's something more haunting in the melody to "Because Of You" than a Diane Warren would usually go for. Apparently, the initial version of the song was written by Kelly at something like age 16, then at the time of Breakaway she brought it to the two ex-Evanescence guys to rework (one of whom she now would never wish bad things but she does not wish him well, and she hopes the ring he gave his wife turns her finger green, etc.), who maybe added that slight air of ghostliness.

By the way, what's Roy Kasten doing these days? (I was reminded, looking back at those old posts, that I haven't seen him here lately.)

According to the ever reliable world-wide-web, the original version of "Conquest" was performed by Corky Robbins & Johnny Bosworth.

From Billboard

Country, Pop Stars Set For Livestock Show

January 07, 2008, 11:00 AM ET

Ray Waddell, Nashville

Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus and Rascal Flatts are among the 21 artists slated to play the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo at Reliant Park from March 3-22.

The Rodeo has long been one of the premier live country music events in the country and has increasingly broadened into more diverse entertainment offerings. In addition to Cyrus, John Fogerty, John Legend and Fergie represent non-country acts booked into the Rodeo for 2008.

The complete talent lineup is McGraw (3), Hill (4), Kevin Fowler (5), Alan Jackson (6), Legend (7), Martina McBride (8), Montana/Cyrus (9), Sugarland (10), Rascal Flatts (11), Fogerty (12), Toby Keith (13), Clay Walker (14), Brad Paisley (15), Duelo/Los Horoscopos de Durango (16), Miranda Lambert (17), Big & Rich (18), Fergie (19), Dierks Bentley (20), Pat Green (21) and Brooks & Dunn (22).

Btw, have there been recent (or even not-so-recent) instances of pop songs crossing over to country radio rather than (as with "Because Of You") getting there on a cover version? What I mean here isn't something like the Bon Jovi/Jennifer Nettles duet, or material we think of as being pop, but of a track that hit first in pop and then went country? My feeling is that country radio isn't too strict about the sound of something but is very strict about the performer being a country performer - or accompanied by a country performer, or doing a country album. Which is to say I'm not at all shocked that country stations aren't playing "See You Again."

(Elvis may have had songs that went pop then country, or went both simultaneously. And maybe Bobby Bare had a few things that were released pop even before they were released country. I don't know.)

Los Lonely Boys' "Heaven" crossed over to #46 on the country charts, after going pop, a couple years ago. (I know it because I just researched it over the weekend for a long article I've been working on.) But #46 isn't all that high, obviously. And off hand I don't know if Mellencamp has gone higher than that. (Does the Waite/Krauss "Missing You" count? But that was never actually a pop hit, was it?)

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."

Actually, I suppose this could be sung about a fucked-up romantic relationship as much as a fucked-up parent-and-child relationship, come to think of it. And one could easily be "so young" in either.

I have no idea if Tom T Hall's "Pay No Attention to Alice" is fundamentally pathological enough for Frank or not, but I'll quote its lyrics here anyway:

Pay no attention to Alice, she's drunk all the time,hooked on that wine,bunches of it, And it ruined her mind.
Pay no attention to Alice, they say she's a sot, sane she is not, but she loves it, And it's all she's got.

She made that apple pie from a memory, Made them biscuits from a recollection that she had.
She cooked that chicken too long but she don't know that, Oh what the hell, it ain't too bad.

(CHORUS)

Don't talk about the war, I was a coward,
Talk about fishing and all the good times raisin' hell.
Empty that one down, we'll get another one,
It's getting late, you might as well.

Though we ram your car into a ditch, man don't sweat it,
I know Ben down at the shell station and he'll get it out.
Alice, put your ashes in that ashtray, I swear woman,
you're gonna burn down the house.

Re up thread, in the last week of the year I finally caught up with the Gore Gore Girls and thought it was a good to great album. Way too late to even consider doing anything with though. Garage band that comes down on the good side of execution and production. Most of that genre wears me out after two listens. It has traces of revved up honky tonk in it.

Concerning glam, the mold was set in large part by production and arrangement choices. Mike Leander for Gary Glitter, Chapman and Chinn for Sweet, and Chas Chandler with Slade. Those choices emphasized the pop song, the block chording, the rhythmic puncuation -- handclaps and so on. Dynamics where the band doubles its energy in various parts of the song to give you that surge of excitement even in a bold delivery.

Sweet didn't like it, wanted to write more and more of their own material and show they were musicians. Except when they were musicians they were less captivating. Didn't help that the singer got in a fight in which someone punched his throat, ruining some of his ability for the rest of their duration. So while I like their hard rock/metal album -- the one with the big tonearm on the cover, it's not the same ...

With Slade, even when Chas Chandler wasn't producing, they didn't get away from the idea that their tunes ought to explode, as opposed to telegraphing how clever and sophisticated musicians they were. Which they were, or at least Jimmy Lea on bass was, and that's pretty much proved on In Flame, the soundtrack album to their movie. Nobody's Fools, their last in American on their first run, also spans a gamut of Americana that most American bands of the time chose not to play. (Brit music hall, too.) On In Flame they also showed quite an ability to get at some of the essence of late period Beatles. Plus they were able to turn the Hokey Pokey -- a wedding staple that triggers the gag reflex -- into a real good short rock tune. The Sirens ought to cover it some day.

And I didn't have any trouble with the execution and performances on the Sirens' More is More. The record's an improvement from their first, which wasn't bad either.

Pathology and morbidity have always been a big part of country music, in a lotta ways (also forensic examinations of relationships etc. As far back as what Rodney Crowell calls the "dead baby and bad tooth" ballads of his Appalachia-to-Arkansas-to-Port-Huston heritage Poverty (what was that book, One Third Of A Nation), and when there are more jobs, the travelling, work-drink cycle, and maybe you get past that a bit, but still both those phases have some lasting, passed-along effect (and not like they don't co-exist, like title-pawn and other "money stores" around here, among the trasnplanted auto industry-related offshoots) So concerns with normalcy can get a bit obsessive, even in Burbtown, vs. the hungry hordes (anxiety over/dependence on los illegales just a recent part of that)(not too mention sweatshops just over the border and further afield, and those who know how much we depend on Chinese buying US Gov debt, just another part of the debt market, economy of debt on every level, speaking of effects passed along, whatever the awareness/acknoledgement of morphology). Braddock's "He Stopped Loving Her Today" described by Music Row mainstay Alice Randall as exemplary "dramatic stasis"(and everyday Southern Gothic, pathological yeah)Sorry of all this is too obvious; I'll read the prev posts more carefully when I have more time. Some interesting folkie stuff on PTW today, incl me on The Battle of Land and Sea, incl discussion of their take on "Harden My Heart," although that's not the featured/download/stream here:
http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=1294

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