Rolling Country 2006 Thread

sorry (4 hrs. sleep)http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/content?oid=oid:56647/

might be the last / that's doing it, but seemed like I needed it for the linking, anyway you'll see the title,"I Let My Mind Wander," in the lower left margin; click on that pls, and you'll be there, whoopee. Anyway xpost Ian thanks for your thoughts, I'm sure they pertain, but a lot of people, performers and others, are urban *and* country (esp. as processed in city of Nashville), and also what you describe doesn't nec lead to depressing albums, so if (I still haven't heard) new Chicks is a drag, it's their fault, at least as much as the Situation, etc. (not that there aren't plenty of reasons to be depressed)xxhux, the only time us small town folk don't lock our doors is when we're addled and/or hoping for some compny. One mo time:
http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/content?oid=oid:56647

That's the one, without the slash on the end! Also, anybody got a new release date for (the reworked) Ashley Monroe?

I think everyone in small towns locks their doors now but maybe didn't use to and that's why all the nostalgia for it. (We never did, which was good because when I came home from cruising 82nd in Portland I could just walk right in, and I probably would have lost my keys all the time.) But that whole necrophiliac 'oh the good ol times is gone woe is us' stuff is boring me right now, maybe later.

And Anthony I am referring specifically to Reba getting kuntry kudos for dissing the Dixie Chicks behind their backs. Always a great voice and an appealing personality which doesn't come thru on the show. But she is now part of the Axis of Evil, eff her.

line dancing to alan jackson is more fun then it sounds

matt reba didn't dis the dixie chix behind their backs until after the dixie chix dissed her behind her back!

they didnt though, not really, they were talking about peoples tastes in music, and although it was a dumb statement it wasnt personal the way hers was, and you know all this already

what was the anti reba statement?

Martie McGuire, in Time Magazine: "I'd rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith. We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."

This is being taken out of context by a lot of people who have only read part of the quote, or interpreted as "CHIX DISS KUNTRY STARZ CUZ THEY HATE BLU COLLAR TV AND 'PUBLICANZ" but I don't think she meant it like that. Still kind of a dumb thing to admit out loud though.

I'm not sure I agree with Haiku that the Chicks' clunkily worded Reba diss wasn't "personal" (if you don't want to share space in a CD changer with somebody, or be listened to by "those kinds of fans," whatever the heck that's supposed to mean, how is that not personal, whether Martie meant for it to be taken that way or not? Toby's been in my five-disc changer more than the Chicks this year since he made a better album, so does that mean they don't want me as a fan?), but the claim here is that Reba threw the first stone:

http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/dixie_chicks/message_board.jhtml?c=v&t=727264&m=5543246&o=0&i=4

By the way, that 1970 Charlie Rich album that Edd burned for me, Big Boss Man, is great; my favorite songs on it are "Nice 'n' Easy," "I Can't Even Drink It Away," "Big Boss Man," "Golden Slipper Rose," and the excellently titled "I Do My Swingin' at Home," with probably "Memphis and Arkansas Bridge" next, and the two early '60s singles he added at the end, "Lonely Weekends" and "Who Will the Next Fool Be," at least as good. But I might like the second disc of that Fully Realized twofer LP I bought (aka either Fast Talkin Slow Walkin Good Lookin Charlie Rich or The Best Years, from 1966 on Smash -- Peter Guralnik's liner notes seem confusingly to contradict the note on the back of the album) even more; I'm kinda blown away by how funky the guy could be.

(Martie also severely underrates the extent to which having "a smaller following of really cool people" as fans can limit artists too, obviously.)

so yall really think reba's soft enough for her sitcom cracks that 1) the dixie chicks don't like the bushes (HOW DARE REBA INSINUATE THIS) and 2) the dixie chicks stick their foot in their mouth are really way harsher totally crossing the line more than the dixie chick's 'reba and her fans are garbage and beneath us'???

I don't think that at all, James. That was sort of my (muddled) point.

Bram Tchaicovsky Strange Man Changed Man (post-Brinsley Schwarz soft Brit country Byrds-jangle powerpop rock pretending to be pub-rock new wave in 1979, just like the Ian Gomm LP I bought but even duller) on now. I think I buy a copy of this album for $1 or less every 15 years or so, and I discover the same thing every time --- namely, that "Girl of My Dreams" (#37 pop in the USA in the late summer of '79, where Gomm's "Hold On" went to #18 a couple months later; "Girl of My Dreams" is better thanks to its "Born to Run" opening and the fact that it's as great a blow-up sex-doll song as any by Roxy Music) is the only non-mushy thing on it. (Okay, "Nobody Knows" churns a little at the beginning in an early Tom Petty kinda way maybe, before it softens up; I dunno, I'll give the LP a couple chances, but I'm really not expecting much.) It's sort of like how every few years I'll order chicken livers in a restaurant and then remember why I haven't ordered them for a few years. Or something.

I like the Rich Smash material the best; I think "Big Boss Man" is a good Billy Sherrill record (BS did good stuff with Jones, too). To my ears, it gives the best-rounded picture of what Rich did. The companion disc to that one, made around the same time and also by Sherrill, I think, is "The Fabulous Charlie Rich," another real good one.

That Trent Willmon record is a great concept album about upward mobility in the class sense, seems like, with a real undercurrent of that desire to make your woman happy while having the real fear underneath it, like she's gonna leave any minute because you don't have enough money, and maybe she's sick of your Ray Wylie Hubbard all the time on the stereo, plus your knuckles, Trent, are a mess from all that tinkering around with that piece of shit truck in the driveway. Perhaps the emblematic line is the one that goes "You can't blame a country boy for tryin'/And I did the best I could." Trent seems to realize his hard-shell redneck tendencies and wants to pull back, like when he realizes he's looking right through his woman (seen that look myself from good ol' boys down here, and probably guilty of giving it myself from time to time), and then he gets her coffee the Way She Likes It, probably with those little individual Kreamers you get at the convenience store (bait is available too, and WD-40 for that fucking bolt that's stuck on that goddam truck), the ones that have International Flavors, Irish Setter Mist. "Baby, is the Irish Cream your favorite, or how 'bout this Amaretto Splash...? More sugar...?" But he maybe gets the coffee thrown in his face, that'll wipe that thousand-yard stare off your face. And of course, "Surprise" is excellent, and this is where his sensitivity and receptivity to new modes of coffee enhancement and perhaps male enhancement (when is a country star gonna make one of those commercials, I mean Trace Adkins in a bar and so drunk he forgets to tuck his johnson back in, so everyone is transfixed by his enhancement), and certainly to some specific wishes on the part of his partner, really pay off--he ends up in a high-rise with a jacuzzi, and Ray Wylie sure sounds good there too. "Baby, lemme play one for ya that's for the con-ess-yours, 'Choctaw Bingo.' Ever watch the History Channel...?" Like Tony Soprano, a little afraid of Kulture but when it comes attached to a pretty ass or face, open as all hell. In short, one savvy guy who plays off the competent-plus that is self-effacing, can change a tire quick or tighten up that squealing belt (hey, this spray I got here will get that squeal out, baby, until we can git this ol' belt replaced, let me take you down to Auto Zone, yeah, this ol' truck's a little dirty but it runs real well...you like Willie, ever *really listened to* 'Red-Headed Stranger'?"

And in "Good Horses to Ride" he learns from the best bullshitter, Tut, still dreams of "Conquistador Gold" (like Tony Soprano in the episode where he dreams he's a Roman emperor...hey, ever watch the History Channel?), and gets off an eloquent line about "concrete and steel they spread like the plague/Consuming the rivers,, the mountains and the plains." In short, a great line of bullshit and one designed to help him get that classy, elusive woman he's always wanted, a real evolutionary step or two up in this hat-act thing. And I think the music's pretty great, really cool choruses that manage to play off the rockin' verses, the usual excellent guitar...good album, and the only one I can't stand is "Night in the Ground," yet another live-like-you're-dying song, pretty lame for what seems to be an imaginative guy who can see Comanches "in them breaks to the south." But, an interesting contrast to what Toby wants to do, wall 'em up and play with 'em? Women just want to be kept at home, eh, guys? Trent knows better.

xp (Actually, Bram's 2nd best track is probably his "I'm a Believer" cover. Which may or may not be better than Smashmouth's, who knows.)

But mainly his album just reminds me once again that British people can't sing (though pub-rock did seem to produce a whole bunch of exceptions, and in 1979 they were all over the place).

"Turn on the Light/We gonna wreck the place tonight"--man this Bram T. track would totally put a foot in your ass (it's the British way) and spill some blood on the dancefloor if the Count Bishops or even Eddie & the Hot Rods or Ducks Deluxe or the Motors was doing it, but Tchaicovsky's band (who had some connection to the Motors, I think, but I'm not exactly sure what) are just way too polite about the thing. They also don't have the prettiness of, say, the Records (whose "Starry Eyes," bizarrely, did not go Top 40 in the US)

(Sorry about the tangent folks, but it is country, sort of.)

haha: james b. intentionally seeing only one side of dixie chick comment so he can work up indignant anger on the part of good-ol-salt-of-the-earth supermultimillionaire reba

i already said it was a dumb comment, because mm left herself wide open for that interpretation. but there's no 'reba's garbage' there at all unless you're desperate to see that. if anything it's misguided rockism. (and no i don't think it started with the bush family reunion thing, that was just kind of a lame sitcom line and not malicious at all and I don't think they were reacting to it.)

You don't have to stretch too far to see "Reba's fans are garbage" in there, Haiku; in fact, you have to stretch pretty far not to see it. I could give a flying fuck for Reba myself; when was her last good album, Whoever's in New England 20 year ago? Or For My Broken Heart in 1991, maybe? Never heard it, but that one had a couple good singles I guess. Either way, it's been a while; can't remember the last thing she did I cared about). But most of her fans aren't supermultimillionaires, I don't think. And I bet most of them had no reason to hate the Chicks, until now.

but but but that's not what she meant...haha now i'm Capn-Save-A-Chick!

What did she mean, Haiku? And I'm not saying being hated doesn't have benefits (which might be the point, in which case more power to Martie.) I have no problem with the Chicks pissing people off. If anything, they don't do it enough. I'm just saying that acting like jerks toward fans might not be the canniest career move.

My interpretation is that it's kind of like if Chris Martin said "I don't want Coldplay to be in the same five-disc changer as Oasis and Robbie Williams, I want fans that get us" or some nonsense like that.

Although, y'know, fuck it, if she meant "fans of Toby Keith and Reba McIntyre are stupid assholes who don't understand how awesome we are because they are hayseed buttmunchers," then I can't think of another American musical group that would have more of a reason to feel that way based on recent history.

I think Martie was trying to say two things: (1) If we want to please the bulk of Reba and Toby fans, this will prevent us from doing a lot of stuff that we want to do [this is obviously true], (2) Reba's and Toby's fans aren't as cool as our fans [this isn't as obviously true]. Those really are two different points, and she shouldn't have run them together. I kind of don't think she meant to say she doesn't want to associate with Reba or Toby fans, but I can see how people could read her that way.

I think she was saying 'Reba's and Toby's casual fans [remember these are people who only have three CDs in their five-disc changer] aren't as cool as our most intense and therefore ideal fans'. But I have said way too much about this and watch, they'll start playing "I HATE SOUTHERN WORKING CLASS LOSERS" in concert. I'll be so embarrassed.

In other news, Chip Taylor's two-disc album, Unglorious Hallelujah / Red Red Rose is still awesome.

x-post, sorta. I listened to the Rodney Atkins last night, and found it very enjoyable, (esp. Cleaning My Gun) if not amazing. Agree that Trace's "Swing Batter" track is good--stuck in my head the past few weeks.

I've heard a song by Josh Gracin (early American Idol finalist working with Rascal Flatts) a few times now--"My Favorite State of Mind" I think its called. I was kinda suprised at how much I liked it considering what a wet bag of salt he was on the TV show. Anyone with an opinion?

I saw this t-shirt while wandering aimlessly on the interweb yesterday:

http://www.standarddeluxe.com/store_c.php?pageNum_s_c_simg=0&portid=158

My first instinct was to be anoyed by it: I take it to mean that country music is a thing of the past. It's a dodgy critical trick: don't get involved in an argument about whether a genre's currently good or bad, try to claim it's dead, imply that what's using the name at the moment's a fraud. (Philip Larkin pulled the same trick with regard to modern jazz, btw.)

Possibly I'm displaying the heightened sensitivity of the recent convert.

In other news, I am hatching a plan to visit Nashville, finally. I very much hope this plan comes off.

Tim, let me know if you make it down to Nashville (or over, or up...).

I am in the middle of doing my Trent Willmon opus; the post on TW above was an attempt to get loosened up to do it. Musically, I think Trent's record is pretty bleh; but any record that has, what, two or three songs about "changeable" women, two songs that mention "bobbers," and two in a row that extol the virtues of skinnydipping...conceptual: he's, in my estimation, *easy with unease*. I find his vocals corny and overly professional, but I still think this is one fascinating and kind of important country record.

and it's not country, but I think Andy Fairweather Low's new one, "Sweet Soulful Music," is superb; and yeah, Brits can't sing, but can we make an exception for the Welsh? (and there is a sort of Nashville connection with Low; some of his '70s records were partially done here, and he used many great Nashville session guys on some of them.)

it's not pubrock, it's more focused, seems to me; but damned if I don't halfway think the new one is even better than his stuff from thirty years ago, he sings better. he's 58 years old today.

Andy's La Booga Rooga was one of my post-played of the 70s, and he had a lot of other goodies too (yeah, all the way back to the Amen Corner, when they were duking it out with Small Faces and Peter Frampton And The Herd, for many a young bird's heart and pence). Brits can't sing (with xxhuxx-preseved italics in the original) was a stage whisper of Mr.Frith's, in one of his "Letter From Britain" Creem columns, I think. I forget what he was listening to.It might even have been when he was grossed out by cheeky Bea'uhls singles, re-released in mid-Punk: "the *chirpiest* group ever!" He's not just talking notes, of course. But I think it's truer of Brit (and American and other) males than females, and yes, let's not tar the Queen's Welsh-Scots-Irish captives(except for Bono etc.) with the same brush. Speaking of healthy Irish/Irish(and one German)-American female lungs: http://www.uweekly.com/story.php?iidart=3474

ah, a stage whisper.

my mother died this morning. I was there when she died, along with my sister and my father. She was bedridden the last week, and stopped eating and drinking last Thursday. Funeral Friday. She was 71, born near Savannah, grew up there and in Statesboro, Ga., and in and around Augusta/N. Augusta/Aiken, S.C. Lived in Tennessee since about '55.

These things, you think you're ready for them, but you never are, and as I sit down for the first time today and think, it's hitting me.

I'm so sorry, Edd. It's good that you were all there for her.

Battle of the debut singles about listening to other artists:
"Tim McGraw" by Taylor Swift vs. "Let's Make Love and Listen Death From Above" by CSS a/k/a Cansei de Ser Sexy; I pick the latter (which more or more seems like it could wind up in my year-end singles top ten even though I was very iffy about their album in a review I wrote for Spin, and which also has nothing to do with c&w music), but feel free to try to convince me otherwise. The Taylor Swift song is admittedly pretty good (also better than anything Tim's done this year, just like the CSS song is better than anything DFA have done, ever. I didn't notice the middle part where they try to *sound* like DFA til I watched the highly adorable video on youtube, during which part they also dress up like DFA elephants.)

Finally watched Toby's "A Little Too Late" video on cmt.com loaded (where I am getting really sick of the Prilosec commercial about the Big N Rich groupies or BnR deadheads or whatever they are), and I found it quite successful. Only part that strikes me as remotely questionable is the shot where it looks like he misses hitting this wife with the shovel and digs it in the cement bag instead; the rest is self-deprecating enough and just convinces me that people are too frigging senstive these days, even if it reiterates that Toby might have some women issues almost as conflicted as, say, the ones Dennis Leary exhibits on Rescue Me. Also: Jeez, what a great song.

Edd: sympathy and best wishes.

Don: let's not tar the Queen's Welsh-Scots-Irish captives: heh, this'll be British history as learned from "Braveheart", I'm assuming. I was much happier when you were writing off all the Britishes, it seems a bit harsh just singling out the Englishes. (Seems to me the English have as many honourable exceptions as the Scots at least: I'll take the English Dusty Springfield over the Scottish Bobby Gillespie if you know what I mean.)

Anthony: I was all ready to order that CD until your final paragraph! Perhaps I should learn to download stuff, like everybody else.

sorry for your loss edd.

thanks, you guys. just got back from the funeral home. she had a lot of friends, and I saw some old, old Clarksville folk I hadn't seen in decades. got a phone number from a recently divorced old flame who called me "amazingly well-preserved, for a former drunk," and she's half-right...sense of humor well-preserved too, baby...

filed my trent willmon scene piece. during all this, working has been my salvation. never missed a deadline yet and figured I'd keep that up; my mother would've wanted it that way, a scrupulous person. doing a shortie on wanda jackson's upcoming nashville show w/ amy lavere--talked to wanda on the phone! and she was sexy as hell even at 70, what a burr and a purr in her voice, and she said something to me about how male writers typecast women but never do the same for "some hairy-legged boy" that floored me. now to listen to her (most likely awful_ "I Remember Elvis" CD, which has a pic of the young, sexy(er) Wanda on the cover...

I think that's the right word--I am a bit fried, finally had to calm down with a valium. I ran 5 miles in the dusk last night, just to get back to semi-normal. good to be alive, all that.

anyway, I think Trent's record--having now listened to it maybe 4 times all the way thru, and in my usual method, taking notes on it twice, once for music, once for lyrics--is uneven. but "surprise" seems like a minor masterpiece, and for once his telegraphing the lyrics feels like the right thing to do instead of just cheesy as on the song about "good horses to ride," which I find insufferable. as I do the otherwise quite pleasantly performed "ropin' pen." but his songs about women and their changeable ways are really good...and as I might've said above, this is a good record about skinny-dippin' and fuckin', I guess, but I wish he'd come out and say it. I don't hear much too exciting in the music itself, and the singing can be overripe. but he's onto something here and god only knows, he could turn out to be a menace or even better, a good novelty-song artist. so I rate the record a solid B, but "surprise" gets an A+.

Take care, Edd.

Edd,in my experience, that's the kind of loss that stays lost, but sometimes you might find yourself growing around it. Not "growing" like losing a parent is One Of Life's Lessons etc but more like hair growing around scar tissue, as if it were the seasons. Yeah, keep working, keep running, sweat some of it out (but pace yrself of course)(xpost Tim, I was mostly just kidding, and notice I got Americans in there too, and allowed for Dusty, as I 'llowed for female singers in general, since I really do prefer them to males, a lot of time, especially in anything likely to be called "rock")

i want to hear that tom swift.
i can burn and email, if you want, tim.
has anyone heard todd snider.

i said the rosary today edd, and am going to mass on monday

Edd sent me Lone Official's Tuckasee Take; he was really right about it! (see decription upthread) Also, seems like Y'all, Michael Hurley, Willie Nelson, re the mellow old dude in local cloud, but then there's a headrush or five at certain moments, so kind of a Big Kenny thing too, minus drum machine and vocal toys (so far)(I'm circling with "Amelia Earhart" now)

Well that was different. Despite having just ridden the exercycle while watching war(s) news, and continuig to drink a pot of coffee (the only pot involved on this side of the speakers, honest), still got sort of lacing in and out of consciousness, which seemed appropriate, but maybe not. Certainly some blue alerts on "le coq sportiv" and "lost my ass," and a strong (if that's the word for it), finish, via tracks 15-20 (single-only versions, and then several from their first, s/t 2003 album). Another artist this kind of reminds me of, with the bluegrass twining round yr. sleepwalking ankles, is Vic Chesnutt, and maybe Lambchop, although I mostly know them from their work with Vic.

should i buy the new lampchop or todd snider

I've never heard Lambchop. Snider's interesting but thin and scraggly in the voice. Is the Snider you're thinking of getting the '90s compilation? I've only heard it once; I recall a rousing cover of "Margaritaville" and a rousing original of "Alright Guy," and a song that seemed about sentiment and memory and then snuck up on me by being about violence and child abuse.

If I'd had space for another eighty words, this'd have been the final paragraph of my Dixie Chicks piece:

The Chicks' albums have always been spotty, impinged by hokiness on one side and gentility on the other. Their leaving country killed the hokiness, and they've found a way to find intensity within their soft rock. This album may be their best. Still, an opportunity feels lost. At this point, there's no way for them to communicate with their detractors, but I wish they'd felt their way into their detractors' innards. "Goodbye Earl," their murder song from two albums back, is about the glee of a liberating killing rather than about the rage and desperation that caused it. Now, being subjected to the rage itself, they could have learned from it, used it to deepen their music.

Oh, and here's my Dylan piece from Paste (scroll down almost to the end to find it), though if you want to see it with paragraph breaks you'll need the newsstand copy. I made a typo, leaving out the word "well" in "Where the executioner's face is always well hidden." Oh well. Or O! well.

Edd, best wishes.

im thinking about buying the lambchop album for a few lines qouted in this weeks esquire, which im not ure are super cheesy, or rather amazing. (the lines: In the barracks/by the Army Cot/theres a fellow whos just cut his face shaving/And as he bleeds on his pillow in the dark/.waiting for the morning/whe he gets go online to you)

the todd snider album is the devil you know, and i dont know if its a 90s comp but i foudn east nashville skyline a week ago or so, and i love the raw scraggliness of hsi voice, and his wit...so i dont know to go new or go old wrt him

i liked the dylan article, i still dont get the connection to/love for ashlee, and the general article sort of disappointed me, for its lack of soul, hip hop, etc and its general indie tendecies, but i wonder if we can talk about songwriters if we are talkign about production by comittee...(so anything britney sang from Oops, to Toxic, for example are amongst the best writing of the 90s but are rarely acknowldeged; or sexyback the new justin timberlake song, is an almsot perfect peice of writing in how it fits words into rthyms, but no ones mentioning he writing (or Missy, where was Missy on the list?)

yeh, I'd get Todd first, going by Frank's description, and since you like his voice already. Where was the hokiness in Dixie Chicks' previous albums? I thought "Goodbye Earl" was gimmicky, but as a performance (as a recording, with the sad, quiet, steadfast "na, na, na, naaa" 's eventually joining the celebration and general keepin' on keepin' on), it won me over: no hokum in gimmicks, so real true enough. Gentility, yeah, but not too much, especially not on Fly or Home, the latter is intense as hell. Still haven't heard the new one, but as I posted way back, Sasha was a bit frustrated by it too, by the lyrics, though liked the tunes and singing, but likin' ain't lovin'. Great that you got the Paste cover story, and deservedly so.

(I think xxuhxx likes Todd too?) I haven't set a good example by Searching this thread for the exact New Yorker quote, but Sasha said something close to: "For lesser artists, an album this harmonically confident would be a coup. But coming from the Chicks, it's a bit disappointing, like watching Muhammad Ali hurt a man's feelings." They never were Ali, but yeah, friends and enemies were hoping for more than they got, judging by most of what I've read. But, I'll probly like it fairly well, especially considering the Sargasso of this year's mainstream country (recent article bubbled about how great sales are, and mostly named albums that have been worked since '04. Which should make '06's Top Ten a no-brainer, as we used to say in '04, and still do, by cracky.) New Dierks and M.Gentry this fall, praise Allah!

see i never got the whole soft rock thing from the dixie chicks--even on something like landslide.

landslide is actually a really good example. the last time i heard it was in a wal mart in central bc, in prince george, picking up film. it should fit into such a place, a lower, softer, cover of a song that was low and soft to begin with. but waiting to buy my goods, i kept listening to it, and its not my favourite dixie chicks song, but it has a intesity of feeling and devotion, a permeant kidn of sadness, that i haev a really hard time talking about. the idea that understantement can be as emotionally/musically evocotive as overstatement is something that i have been thinking al ot about lately, and the dixie chicks embody it perfectly. landslide sounds worn, broken, devoid of content, aird, exhausted in a way that is rare in country.

other examples:
on travelin' soilder, the slight emphasis on vietnam, or the almsot whisper of conversation in the first verse, or how the correspondance is mentioned--think of it in other veitnam songs, like dear john or vietnam by porter wagner--and see what seems like rhetoric, and what seems like a confused narrative, from someone who doesnt know exactlty how they feel...

(also, similar feelings on If I Fall You’re Going Down With Me,Cowboy Take Me Away Ready to Run Tonight The Heartache’s On Me Wide Open Spaces There's Your Trouble I Can Love You Better, etc)

the feeling i think, is taking the domestic, and not feeling good about it, and not feeling bad about it, but feeling profoundly unsettled...

i think that the trouble w. the whole london mess, was that they became settled, and though i like this last album, the sadness has disappeared, andthe fuck you has come, and well they cant do fuck you, they arent good at fuck you.

toby, toby is good at fuck you, but then you cant really imagine him sad (big blue note is a failure for that reason) (and he is the only male country singer right now who isnt perpertually down)

male, mainstream country singers is what i meant.
and MG might be the exception, but they always seem to be fronting.