Rolling country 2007 thread

MORE THOUGHTS ON JOY OF COOKING -- They really stretch out on the live disc on that reissue I spoke of above, playing up their Latin percussion influence way more than on any of the studio recordings I've heard. "Dancing Couple" is basically a straight salsa track. At the beginning of "Laugh Don't Lie", which is nine minutes long, they could basically be the Incredible Bongo Band (honestly, some hip-hop song should sample those beats before somebody else does), and it eventually turns into Santana. "Brownsville/Mockingbird," even longer at 11 minutes, is blues-structured piano jazz with a major Bo Diddley element (if the billy goat don't float Bo's gonna buy you a mockingird or however it goes.) Otherwise, the folkie vocals know how to mesh really well, though there are moments (in "Humpty Dumpty" for one) where the hippie looseness gets a bit too loose, and almost falls apart. Also, back on the studio disc, I want to mention "How Deep The Dark," maybe the most avant-jazz cut here, but with a real melody to it. And all in all, I think I'm understanding more what Christgau and Willis loved about this band. I'm not sure it ever came across on their regular LPs, but I could be wrong.

Okay, there's at least bit of a little wide-open spaces gothic western feel to "Pain" on that Tiger Army album. I like this! Dark but not dragged down. And Nick 13's voice is easier to take that Danzig's ever was. ("Hotprowl" is straight hey-hey-hey-shout Misfits, though, and I'm sure it's not the only track like that here. And though I never cared about the Misfits, I have cared about blatantly Misfits-inspired hey-hey-hey bands like Naked Raygun before.)

Or maybe I mean woaaagh-woaaagh-wooagh bands.

And both "Big Dog Daddy" and "Hit It" are more '70s Southern rock than the Jerry Lee/Cougar comparisons above imply, I suppose. Also, "Hit It" blatantly quotes "Knock On Wood." And "Big Dog Daddy" turns into a great band workout, though I'm not especially interested in how big Toby's dog is (it is, though, another in the line of his boisterous boasts about size and mastery. Very hip-hop of him, really.)

The Xchange...have a good chance of making my Nashville Scene top ten

More like "an outside chance" (there's lots of competition already, and lots more coming, I just realized), but I still do like them.

Also, I spelled their name wrong in the last post -- They're filed under "X", not "Ex."

Toby's "Get Your Drink On" sounds a lot like "Indian Outlaw" by Tim McGraw.

Toby's "White Rose" (written by Fred Eaglesmith, who Robert Christgau always said I should listen to but I never got around to it, and with a dark melody that makes me think "minor key" though musicologists might argue that that makes me an imbecile) sounds alot like "City Of New Orleans" by Arlo Guthrie.

New album seems to be merely good Toby, whereas his previous album was great Toby. Great Toby being jazzier than the new one even attempts. But good Toby still being pretty darn good.

Morrisey affectations over rote pop-punk hopscotch in "Afterworld" and emo leanings in "Where The Moss Slowly Grows" are not marks in Tiger Army's favor.

And Toby's "Pump Jack" is even more Uh-Huh Cougar than "Hit It" is! Guitar sounds very "Authority Song." It pumps! Half songwriting credit to Bobby Pinson, whose albums always sound like demo tapes to me, but that doesn't mean the he can't write words.

Toby's "White Rose" (written by Fred Eaglesmith, who Robert Christgau always said I should listen to but I never got around to it, and with a dark melody that makes me think "minor key" though musicologists might argue that that makes me an imbecile) sounds alot like "City Of New Orleans" by Arlo Guthrie.

the first song that came to my mind when i heard that one was (kinda appropriately!) billy joel's "the great suburban showdown," which shares one small bit of melody -- the part where i think toby's singing "now there's plywood for glass" -- and is an entirely different kind of suburban lament. (actually i guess toby's/fred's is more a rural lament.)

as for the tonality, the chorus of "white rose" centers on a B minor, whereas the verse lands on a D major. i'm not smart enough to know what key that makes the song, but the chorus certainly acts like it's in a minor key, and the verses go through a minor VI and a minor III on their way from I to IV, so make of that what you will. sounds dark to me too.

Interestingly, the Miranda Lambert thing on my blog has a steady stream of readers from Google searches, usually off people looking for some iteration of -- miranda lambert tattoo. People want to know about it. Google Analytics says they all read it to the end. Since comments are moderated, I'm spared the imprecations from wounded teenagers and twentysomethings.

I'm telling ya, if you're a delver of web analytics, it'll crush your faith in humanity overnight.

Watched "Shut Up & Sing" a couple times last week and liked it. Not quite enough to be a constant fan of Dixie Chicks music. However, with it on Pay-Per-View and far enough removed from the journalistic cant that surrounded them, it was a good watch. I thought it was neat the way everything was kept in indicating they didn't know how bad the tidal wave was going to get even as it was beginning to sweep over them. The pr person blowing her stack and having a meltdown was amusing, too.

Other points in the movie's favor: It kept framing discussions and interpretations by pop music journalists out of the loop, except for two brief ones, and both of the people came off looking crabbed and vile. Made me want to see the act live.

Metal threaders on Tiger Army below (Spanish song is "Hechizo De Amor," a laid-back sort of border desert croon. I'm liking "Ghosts Of Memory" alright, too; another moody slice of vibrato gothabilly):

That Tiger Army disc is like a perfect amalgamation of everything a Southern California mall-punk kid would like - a little punk, a little rockabilly, some overt Cure and solo-Morrissey ripoffs, and even a song in Spanish for the Mexicans in the crowd. It's a good disc.
-- unperson, Sunday, June 10, 2007 7:38 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

I have one of the earlier Tiger Army CDs, and it sounds pretty -Billy to me. That may have changed, though.
-- Jeff Treppel, Sunday, June 10, 2007 8:32 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

speaking of gothic western etc., the first three tracks on Ananda Shankar and his Music are stolid, but the rest are strong post-Bollywood/Morricone (not as over-the-top)romantic bluescapes, from '75, reissued with typically good Fallout sound.

I'm not sure why I said Frank underrates the Xchange; he'd merely said they were weaker than he wishes they were. They're probably weaker than I wish they were, too, which doesn't necessarily mean they're weak per se'. Just wanted to clear that up.

Tiger Army's "Forever Fades Away" actually starts out morose gothabilly, then turns into A Flock of Seagulls, which it's possible nobody has ever done before. And the other gothabilly tracks I mentioned above, "Ghosts of Memory" and "Pain," actually have plenty of hop to their rhythm; their moodiness doesn't detract from their energy. And "As The Cold Rain Falls" may well the cut that Kelefa compared to New Order; it certainly sounds like New Order to me. Anyway, I like these guys' lack of boundaries, and fearlessness about sounding cheesy, by which I mean fearlessness about beauty and the beat. Now I'm wondering to what extent their new album is a leap forward -- I never spent more than minutes with their earlier records, but those struck me as forgettable. Their PR folks insist the new one will be their breakthrough; the summer will tell.

TOBY KEITH -- I am loving the rockers ("Big Dog Daddy," "Hit It," "Get My Drink On" and "Pump Jack" )but reacting in a comparatively "meh" manner so far to slower stuff like "Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya"

That was abridged, but I just wanted to say that I think "Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya" is now my favorite of these four. See, I told you slow ones would sink in.

oops, five not four, duh.

And I'm liking all four of those rockers (and/or semi-rockers) more than I'm loving them.

So I was listening to and pondering the new Big N Rich album, wondering what explanation might be possible for it sounding even worse to me the more I play it, not to mention what explanation might be possible for so great a group making so lousy an album, when the trusty old "cocaine theory" came to mind. Shrugged it off (what they hell do I know about their personal lives?), until I heard Big Kenny say the word himself in the man-in-the-mirror song, "When The Devil Gets The Best Of Me." So there you go, maybe. Or maybe the reason that (as Lalena says) they sure don't sound like they're having much fun anymore is that now this is a job, where, a couple albums ago, it was just a hobby -- Christgau always used to talk about how impending professionalism could kill creative musicians' spirit, and I've rarely bought that, but these are tough times for the profession, and I work at a trade magazine now, and somehow with this guys it seems like it might ring true, for once--and not just because Big Kenny looks like the singer from Nickelback in one of the inner sleeve photos. Now I'm wondering whether their great albums are just done, forever (it's happened to other acts before, after all), or whether this is just a temporary lull. For whatever it's worth, I decided that "Lost in the Moment" (which has at least a smidgen of r&b in it, though probably a lot more Lonestar in it) and "Please Man" (the Wyclef Jean collab, which is just too ridiculous to hate) are not absolutely awful, and I actually do like "Radio," the new-wavey powerpop of which would indeed sound okay on the radio (as for its music-without-prejudice intro, I like the music of it and still agree with the sentiment of it but am tired of the shtick, which I don't really buy anymore.) The Steve Tyler-style shriek at the start of "Loud" is okay, too, though from there the track is as much as decent riff with no song attached as anything by the Fucking Champs. And the cocaine in the mirror song gave me chills for a second, not that I'll want to hear it again. But besides fleeting moments where their harmonies click, the rest is just plain dull. And very sad.

speaking of the new Big & Rich, I think it's a confounding record--some reviews I've read talk about the "inept" sequencing, but obviously they wanted it this way, so they could earn their good times. in interviews I've heard John Rich say that "we're exactly where we want to be, right now" and reference a meeting with, er, Eddy Arnold who told them to do their own thing and so forth. I'm always interested when someone takes AOR or whatever their middle-of-the-road things are, and makes that first principle of inclusion. they do accomplish some weird sort of bland experimentalism that is unlike anything I've ever heard; the strings obviously equal Class; there are a few moments where you just have to wonder what they were thinking, like the sickening yaw of the strings on "Eternity," and wonder if they're just playing at being two ordinary guys with access to a Party Bus that makes them all unhappy despite the presumably free-flowing booze, women and party favors on the bus. the devolved reggae of "Please Man" is as annoying as any devolved reggae, the banjo in that song is their idea of a joke, and so on. and I find their harmonies sort of annoying, too, the folkie quaver of the mix of their voices is just plain strange the more you listen to it and think about it, so I suppose they think they're in some tradition of country duos like the Louvins? so yeah, it could well be blow that got 'em here but I think they just crave respectability like everyone else, I don't totally knock that impulse because obviously I share it myself. But it should make for something more ingenious than "Radio" which is a song about how you should listen to this song. They're Big & Rich and you're not--you can't afford this graphic designer we got but that's cool, we're all in it together.

If the Xchange are stronger than I think they are, then I am underrating them. I hope that clears it up.

Had the new Richard Thompson on in the background, had the impression that the songwriting is catchier than usual (not sure what I'm counting here as usual since I don't think I've heard a full LP of his in years) and that his voice is manly and fine, and that these virtues probably will not overcome the Melinda Doolittle effect he always ends up having on me, even on Shoot Out The Lights - which is to say yes, this is done expertly, there's a lot here, but I end up not caring. (This was not the effect that Unhalfbricking had on me, however.)

Don will surely have smarter comments than I do.

Ah, a little deft CTRL-F action and I see there has been some Richard Thompson commentary already. Seems as if Xhuxk is as clueless as I about the man's recent work - though I did hear Thompson give a concert here in Denver about seven years ago; it was rousing, veered towards Velvet Underground stomp, it was loud, at age 46 I was one of the youngest people in the audience, and actually it ended up a bit more grating than inspiring but I definitely did not say that to Naomi, whom I went with and who adores Thompson. Also come to think of it Naomi must have played one of his recent albs for me around then, though if she did it obviously left little impression.

(Notice the trenchant musical analysis in the previous paragraph.)

How'd we get back to heeyum? Although reading about Big & Rich first reminds me of course of what I wrote about them in Nash Scene comments, the year of their debut album (seems so long ago) archived at thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com: how their sanctimony finally went over the top, with walking around in the street last night, and they met a man who said he was Jesus and that was alright, and now they meet a boy who wants to go meet Jesus, and that's alright, cos they met him last night and that was alright,in fact they sound like they might want to lead the way, except they've got miles to go and contracts to keep, and 'member what I wrote about Big K's solo album, how he's The Confidence Man, but a good one, so they at least sound like they've hypnotized themselves with their harmonic fixations, and they're like the Two Wisemen (Three counting the boy they're now with)in Richard and Linda Thompson's Sufi robes, spinning and singing "Loose my mind and dance forever, lose my mind and dance for-ever,turn my wor-ld, a-round," execept in their own copyrighted words of course). Meanwhile, the Raincoats send "Monk Chant" round the mountain, and 5.6.7.8's send "Cuckoo" off it, in a Japanese Sandcowgirl way of knowledge (get it, mountain, know-ledge), and there's other countryonica heritage of the Monks I didn't have room for in this week's Voice, where also Edd and Porter Wagoner take a little trip (point ov departure)

I like the new Richard Thompson well enough, he always plays good electric guitar. I've rarely been interested in anything he's had to say since, oh, Shoot Out the Lights or his great collab with French, Frith, Kaiser in the late '80s. In fact I will probably say this to Thompson if and when we meet on the ledge--his first solo record Henry the Human Fly remains in my book the one really great Thompson effort, greater even than I Want to See the Bright Lights or Hokey Pokey. That one, he sounded actually young and not especially sure about what that old shit was gonna be about, except that some people weren't going to come out OK. Maybe "Wall of Death" is as great a song as "Nobody's Wedding" or "Old Changing Way," and certainly Linda Thompson had a great voice and losing her must've been tough--but those early songs have an unforced verve most of his later stuff totally lacks, unless you're just interested in Mitchell Froom zoom effects.

Bob Lefsetz discovers current country:

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/06/07/new-country/

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/06/12/more-country/

interesting comments on the Doobie Brothers and how Joe Walsh gave the Eagles iconic status. He's right. Not sure why anyone would actually want to worry over Jeff Tweedy's lyrics, though.

So this Gretchen Peters project Burnt Toast and Offerings (coulda called it Burnt Offerings and Toast if you ask me) is pretty good singer-songwriterdom just like in the olden days. She has had some trouble with men, cities and lousy beach-bum waitress jobs, so she doesn't like summer. She doesn't seem to deserve it but what do I know? She photographs well from the side she chooses to show--she looks pretty good full-face too as in the spread in the middle. Some really fine string writing and lots of cool subtle things like her voice echoing on "Breakfast at Our House." The pennywhistle in "This Town" means that the town she idealizes is where, in Ireland? She's already gone to London in one song, "England Blues," which starts off with a Big Sid Catlett swingin' rockanashville beat, pretty good actually. Her voice seems a little calculated and sometimes annoying, arch, but that's part of the whole thing she's doing. Self-pity is apparent, sometimes, like when she sings about how "he let her music go unheard." Some pretty good ideas, all round, a few relatively wordless moments she needs more of, but "The Lady of the House" has some fancy chords in the middle that work fine. What's always struck me is how overdramatized these singer-songwriter records can be, and how the level of everyday observation could be higher, but of course it's all a metaphor for her breakup or whatever happened to her. Classy stuff right down to the George Harrisonisms of the strings on track 12. I often think that some talented singer-songwriter like Gretchen (and why didn't she change the lyrics in her cover of "One for My Baby" from "I'm a poet" to "I'm a well-compensated songwriter," I don't know) should make a record about how music itself has driven her and her baby apart, so she makes one last record and quits totally, at least for a while. So, you know, I like this pretty well and think Gretchen would be a good lunch date--observant, gently or wryly humorous, and I bet she doesn't eat that much either.

Terri Clark's My Next Life. Was just nattering on above about Gretchen Peters' new 'un (friend on hearing Gretchen: "the best Jackie DeShannon record I've heard in a while!"), and on Terri's, Gretchen co-writes one called "Nashville Girls" featuring Reba, Sara Evans, Martina McBride). That's a harem, but the song itself really disappointed me. "June Carter kept Johnny in line--top that, Madonna!" is a representative line. Oh well. Terri co-writes 3, the ubiquitous Rivers Rutherford one. It's not as arty, and maybe not as good, as the Peters record, which might be a function of the songwriting, which strikes me as something like second-pass stuff. "Never Say No" seems the best song and "Tough with Me" a close second--clever one about how Terri's guy comes home after bustin' balls all day on the job and Terri comforts him by telling him "Let your troubled mind go free." A nice little section of power chords asserts her sexuality: you're off work, baby, so let's fuck all night. On "Dirty Girl" it's obvious Terri knows her way around a socket set, and could even help you replace your water pump on a hot day side of the road. "Look What You've Done to Me" is sorta arty, double-tracked vocal, folk-rockin' guitar, and a "Desire" da-da-da-boom-da-da rhythm. And the title track, which promised what I thought was gonna be a concept record about how she's single and lovin' it (halfway gets there), sets you up to think she's going to change her ways, never smoke, perhaps never date musicians, but then it's really about how she's just gonna enjoy life right now. Pretty good, actually. I like the ache in her voice, she sounds tough, but I think the material just might defeat her in some way, although she's enough of a singer that "Never Say No" works for me because there's some emotion in her vocal that's not totally controlled and which overwhelms the competent but rather puny song that David Frasier and Craig Wiseman have cooked up for her. Gretchen might be artier but the material is really better--her own--and Peters' production is also arty but I think it beats the rather standard Nashville-isms of My Next Life.

Let's see, did Gretchen write my fave Gretchen Wilson song, about racing chariots in Heaven with Granpaw? I know she's written other notables, I'll have to refresh my memory on Allmusic. Oh boy, Terri's really had some kind of probs with material in the last several years, some career anxiety, like when she said on her site she was postponing her honeymoon (or was it her wedding?) to be on this blah CMT duets "special," cos it was important for her career. This one was a long time coming, good by somebody else's standards, pretty uneven by hers,but def has its moments:
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0550,allred,70886,22.html

Los Angeles Times Calendar tried to hop the Big & Rich train today. Boy, Big & Rich, they're not like old country and they're coming to our city! Their first album was the best seller but this one debuted at #1. Mandatory knee-jerk mentions of Wyclef, how they like melody (and everybody in the genre doesn't?!) rebellion, Gretchen Wilson, Cowboy Troy (not by name) and midgets.

Prescription of stupid pills needed to get anything out of it. No link because I don't do linkage to Calendar, it being the worst section of the newspaper.

Didn't Terri Clark used to write more of her own material? Or did I just imagine that? Press release for the new one trumpets that she cowrote three of the songs, like that was some great achievement instead of a step back (?). But maybe it was just one album in particular that I'm remembering that was mostly her?

The Big & Rich piece in the L.A. Times was written by Holly Gleason, who is getting back into freelancing and has been doing a number of the Times' country pieces lately. I'm guessing they won't let her do the inevitable forthcoming Kenny piece.

Yeah, Holly exists in that grey area netherworld between "publicist" and "journalist." Word is she's doing more for the country magazines as well lately.

Listened to the new CD reissue of John Anderson's quite-possibly-best-album-ever John Anderson 2 (on American Beat Records) in the rentacar on the way to my daughter's high school graduation in Bethlehem, PA, the other day, and it totally holds up -- like, eight great songs out of ten (the other two, "I Love You a Thousand Ways" and "The Same Old Girl," aren't too shabby either.) I'm partial to the more rambuntious stuff like "I'm Just An Old Chunk of Coal" (writen by Billie Joe Shaver) and "Chicken Truck," of course, but the song that really blew me away, listening to it for the first time in a few years, was "July The 12th, 1939," about a teenage farmboy accused of rape of a girl whose family has more money than his. I remembered the story, but what I'd forgotten (if I'd ever noticed before) was the slow, repetitiously building drone of the music, which I wonder if Frank would compare to the Velvet Underground -- it goes back to Dylan, and to old folk music I'm sure. Anyway, what a chilling song.

posted this on the metal thread earlier, though I just realized they're more country than this lets on:

HAWK - Stonesy and radio-ready (especially in "Get Back Home," both lycially and soncially a great car song about listening to Exile, Revolver, and Back in Black while driving all night back to Oklahoma) Illinois cdbaby hard rock, with riffs blatantly and efficiently swiped from AC/DC (in "How You Feel") and Tom Petty ("Not Get Down," possibly a better use of guitars from "Free Fallin'" than "Free Fallin'" itself), and their cdbaby profile suggests a self-knowledge about all those influences. "Janey" is a good jangling hard pop track; "(Tao) The Way" the eight-minute long ethereal closer to help you decompress at the end:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/hawkrock

Okay, I was wrong, Hawk's "Not Get Down" is definitely not as good a song as "Free Fallin'." But it's still cool that it steals the riff. (And it's better than the cover of Petty's "Listen To Her Heart" on the new Pietasters album, if not the cover of Petty's "I Need To Know" on the new Poison album.)

Yeah, Holly exists in that grey area netherworld between "publicist" and "journalist."

The LA Times Calender section's country piece on Miranda Lambert was also full of cant and beat-to-death repeated wisdoms. Offhand, I don't recall who wrote it and the hardcopy went out in the paper pile a couple weeks ago. I'd like them to do more if only to furnish material for rewrite.

E-mail of the week:

Dick,

My name is Jessica and I am interested in knowing your
sources regarding Ms. Lambert's quotes. Also, her back
ground information. Is this article written to be a
serious insight to Lambert, or is it written as a
sarcastic parody?

more from metal thread:

Actually, though Hawk do have moments of alt-country vagueness ("In You," especially, but even the less-than-assertive vocals of their good hard pop song "Jamey" and their Petty rip "Not Get Down"), more often (especially in "Suzie China" and "Take My Love") they sound more like the Black Crowes. But I don't think the Black Crowes ever made an album as good as Rock'n'Roll. Next to "Get Back Home," best track is probably "Rock Star Thing," built on a more propulsive Bon-era AC/DC rip than "How You Feel" (that one turns out to be as much Stones as AC/DC riffwise, under whiney singing that sounds like Dinosaur Jr in Neil Young mode.) Also "Rock Star Thing" says they're trying to make Angus proud and then they're going to California because there's a girl waiting there with flowers in her hair. Riff in "So Rock N Roll" comes from "Beast of Burden" but then the music gets way too slow and the compliments they're giving some girl get way too pat; sometimes they really could afford to be more pretentious. But just as often they're just unpretentious enough.

"July the 12th, 1939" definitely the early Anderson standout, and if I didn't write Xhuxk a letter about it sometime in the '90s I should have. Written by Norro Wilson, who I guess has written and produced scads of records, and you guys probably know way more about him than I do.

Though the way I remember it (can't find my copy, could well have gotten lost in various moves) the kid is accused of a rape that was <i>committed</i> by another kid whose family has money. Or maybe it was left ambiguous.

Back to my AI comparisons. Terri Clark is the Katharine McPhee of country: she sings intelligently and in good voice, doesn't oversing but doesn't underplay, solid arrangements, and there's always something missing. (But I've only heard her recent work.)

Wrote this on my MySpace yesterday:

Jack Ingram "Don't Want To Get Hurt": I had Ingram's alb playing in the background while I washed dishes. Pleasant Cougarish quasi-country, not sure if it would stick - then this track comes along, a slow stomp, fingernails dragging through the gravel. Song holds to that for a relentless minute, Ingram's voice a husk, suppressing the melodiousness of the melody. Then bright chiming guitars enter, and we're in a kind of emo-pop country. Very nice; pretty and sad, though doesn't live up to the low-scraping beginning.

(Thus far I'm so-what about him overall, however.)

So not hating the new Little Texas album, even the annoying possibly-racist pro-Lonestarstate song, "Texas 101," which at least acknowledges that Texas includes both the Dixie Chicks AND George W. Bush. The tunes are sub-Mellencamp but that's okay, good enough lyrics, this singer is better than their last singer, they're not Raskalll Flatttts, I vote "okay."

I've got both some Ingram comments and some Little Texas comments way upthread, though nothing on that particular Ingram song, or that particular Little Texas album--assuming it is The Missing Years, which I assume it is -- That's the one that's been on the chart recently, or its title track has at least. When I picked it up off the free table several months ago I guess I assumed -- from its title and because the indie label its on also compiled an album of live tracks -- that it was old outtakes. Is it not? Apparently the band's back together again; they get mentioned in a roundup of country-bands-on-the-charts that runs in the magazine I work for this week. As do some of the bands that Bob Lefsetz raves about in his latest country dispatch:

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2007/06/16/b-level-country/

Norro Wilson did some stuff under his own name in the early '60s, including apparently some covers of John D. Loudermilk songs. Charlie Rich did "July 12, 1939" on one of his Epic LPs--The Fabulous. Great version.

Amy Cook's The Sky Observers Guide on an Austin label--her own?--called Root House. I could only get thru about half of this, but she does some roots-rockin' powerpop moves, a few nice tricky guitar moments, on "The Answer" and some of the rest of it I heard is atmospheric and pretty, so not bad, but her voice makes me weary, although she might really be weary herself. So maybe I'll listen to the second half and see if either one of us perks up.

Saw where Elizabeth Cook's Balls recently entered the Billboard country chart, it's somewhere down there with Sara Evans' last one.

"The Missing Years" is a new studio album that takes its title from one of its better songs.

In reverse order, til I fall over: speaking of a Texas song that W. and the Chicks might both get into, I thought about that re Jerry Jeff's "Keep Texas Beautiful,"("keep it free"), one of his saddest and most beautifullest ever: http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:52232 No, it's not can't-we-all-just-get-along, he doesn't do that. Another poetic curmudgeon (more poetic, more dourtoned, both most of all via guitar) is Richard Thompson, that old son of a cop (speaking of Miranda saying she gets songwriting ideas from her parents' private eye files; we'll see how far she takes it, like writing about what she found in your wallet, a la RT) Doesn't always work, but the lifers do tend to have dry spells. Frank, you say you've only heard Terri's recent; try Pain To Kill and Greatest Hits, maybe/prob the latter first. But I always have to get used to her again, like with ska. Yeah, you did write some letters about that song, and about Norro, and I think you commented on the song in that Voice you did of the last album he did before the current one, long ago (said his voice was almost too beautiful, "too rich and chewy" for your taste). Edd's take on Porter Wagoner, upthread and in last week's Voice, reminds me that, back in the early 70s, PW made Creem's Androgyny Hall Of Fame: with his pop surreal songs, like Edd describes, and his glitter cowboy suits, his sharp, tanned and/or pancaked features (on syndicated TV show, anyway), and plush blond pompadour. Surely some Drag King Porter must have appeared with (TV co-host) Queen Dolly, on some galactic hayride or two?Keep Texas Beautiful!

The Frank review I mention was of John Anderson's "last album he did before the current one," not Norro's (how was Norro as a performer, Edd?)

I'm wondering what folks here think of Emerson Drive--since they had the number 1 single last week (now #2) with that song about the guy about to jump off a bridge until a homeless man emerges from a box & tells some stories about The War & childbirth. On the 2006 thread someone here nominated "Coutrified" for worst album of the year. Are they really that bad? I could be persuaded that this is Country's version of Nickelback.

"Countrified"

i did, they are unlistenable.

<i>No love for the new Ryan Adams?</i>

Listening to "Halloween Head," and it's a pleasing poppy almost-emo angst thing where he's disparaging or celebrating his own compulsive mental processes, and he yells "guitar solo" and it's actually funny (though not nearly as funny as when Dick Valentine did it on the first Electric Six album). And he's kinda square and clumsily dorky in the way that he's all enthusiastically emphatic in his delivery, which is rather endearing, even if <i>he's</i> not aware of the squareness. Problem is that not only is his clumsiness endearing, it's also clumsy, and brings down what could have been a great little single. Might make a good Tom Petty song.

Speculative purchase of Big & Rich at BestBuy. Comes with DVD advertised as "uninhibited all-access, entirely true story of how Big y Rich are taking over country music." No exclamation.

First tune made me think of a Don Henley solo album. Title track is prob'ly the one I like best, so far. Half the appeal is in the production. "Radio" is so-so, the intro to it is better. But don't they already have an "intro song" in "Coming to Your City"?

"You Never Stop Loving Somebody" sounds like it has Petty's Heartbreakers as the backing band, copping the descending riff off some TP tune. Fine with me because you can never get enough big B3 Hammond and Vox-y guitars.

Two points: (1) I'd been made to think they were a lot funnier than they are here; and (2) for guys who talk about liking their music turned up loud so much, they sure could stand to put more thump into the songs on this thing that allege to fit the bill.

No use for a bluegrass version of "You Shook Me" and I'd disbelieve anyone who says they do. I like "Please Man" lots more than "Loud" even with Wyclef Jean and I no more believe he composed the lap steel and country stuff than he could fly to the moon. Song aches for someone to digitally edit out his break in the middle.

Bon Jovi's Lost Highway initially givin' me the impression I don't like it as much as the Big & Rich LP. Maybe because I like TP & the Heartbreakers a whole lot and this album wouldn't exist without a wholesale cop of the style. It's a game of micron differences between great and just workman-like but those microns add up and BJ is just a bit short on first listen.

"Everybody's Broken" and the title track are the closest it comes to getting it just right. Jon is now phrasing and yelping like TP and Richie's traded in the Marshall stacks for Vox Top Boosts, AC-30s and Matchless amps. One for old time's sake is done on "We Got it Going On" when Sambora breaks out the talk box.

"Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore" rips some of Henley's "Heart of the Matter" (what is it with the Don Henley rips today!?) to set its stage. And Don Henley wouldn't write lyrics like 're in this one. Neither would TP. Too trite even for people who love trite.

Doesn't bring the rock as much as it ought. (Too my ears, a lot of this genre stuff doesn't even when it's insisting it does, so maybe it's me.) If you like were Bon Jovi's been going, you might like this, though. It's pleasant.

"I Love This Town (Say Hey!)" -- gosh, Jon, some don't though, though. Song title really telegraphs it.

Leann Rimes shows up to duet with Jon BJ for "Till We Ain't Strangers" which is where the autotune shows up on J's voice. Which would probably have to be done for anyone dueting with LR.

And "Last Night" is the Henley rip. I was looking at the computer read out and there's some odious, as usual, copy protection shtick on this thing and it makes a hash of the sequence menu.

Consensus upthread is that Travis Tritt is a blue-collar growl guy whose antislick shtick doesn't rock any harder than the slick stuff he's supposedly anti, and his mush stuff is total mush (don't know if that was said upthread, but anyway his mush is total mush). So in general way more potential than achievement, 'cept he's had occasional moments of greatness intense enough to stop the sun. So anyway his new single isn't a skystopper but it's a very nice job, covers a cannily rueful Richard Marx song, "You Never Take Me Dancing" (as in you give me all I want of your money but...), the Marx tune in its time fitting into adult contemporary be-good-to-your-woman land but is just as good now at being a genial country aren't men goof's when they don't understand what women want, which is always. Tritt deepens the blues in the music without losing the song's humor or its modest.

(Other current rock tracks I'm liking, Yellowcard's "Light Up The Sky," which kind of makes me want to kill them for the too-standard pretty emo-boy wail in the chorus, but on its way through the verse, before my homicidal urges take over, there's a rather good catchy walk through the agony of being a young man with, you know, feelings. I also like Daughtry's "What I Want" where Daughtry and guest guitarist Slash heave dark armloads of soil into ear ducts.)

The thing about Bon Jovi's new style is that his yelp (or whelp or whatever it is) flattens everything emotionally, the same half-yearning pang on one song after another. So even if he were singing "Since U Been Gone" or "Come Clean" or "Nobody 'Til You" he'd probably turn them into something half-pleasant and half-irritating and negligible. (And "It's My Life" and "Have A Nice Day" and "Complicated" were viable enough tunes along those lines; maybe Clarkson or Duff or Lohan could have made them very good, though the material Martin and Shanks actually gave those three was better.)(And bear in mind that so far I've only heard the title track on the new Bon Jovi.)