Rolling Country 2008 Thread

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