Rolling Country 2006 Thread

My thoughts on the last Chicks album influences my opinion of this one - or at least my execution in explaining my opinion. The best song of the last album - bar none - was 'A Home' (second, 'Traveling Soldier'). At the time I had been reading "Set This House in Order" about MPD. At the heart of the novel, and at the heart of the Chick's song (and the reason the two became linked for me) was a soft plot that distracts from the essential tension. In "Set This House in Order" the distraction comes from the humor - the pow is the disaster at the heart of the novel (abuse, mental disease). In 'A Home', the distraction is this classic country theme: You left me, we broke up, I was wrong, so sad. The pow is the chorus: "Not a night goes by I don't dream of wandering, through the home that might have been." The tension in 'A Home' isn't the breakup, but rather the potential of what might have been. There's an apocolyptic emptiness that the Chick's are playing towards in the song. It isn't sad because of the now, but rather because of the future. They are living into the pain that they are singing about in the now. The oddness (and shocking-rawness) of this is that every time the song is played is the now. It never becomes the future of discontent and pain, so the pain is never eased. They are constantly staring into an empty future.

Come to 'Easy Silence' which is essentially about being protected from the world. "The way you keep the world at bay for me." The trade-off between the Chorus and Verse is similiar to the one in 'A Home.' The verse seems to be about the reactions to the Chicks, or the war, etc. The Chorus though ignores those facts. It embraces a peaceful quiet and easy silence. The tension is the album-burnings, Bush, the war, the media, etc. The pow is that they just want the Easy Silence that the song promises. Ironically, because the song isn't silent - the tone is soft, but it isn't quiet. There is a lot of noise going on behind the pretense that the Chicks are embracing.

On the Teenpop thread I argued about the merits of Lily Allen's Smile over LDN because of the authenticity of Smile over the implied sincerity of LDN. Here I'd argue the same thing. Frank said in the recent voice that he wants to see the Chicks express their anger, but I want to the argue the opposite. Easy Silence is a better song than Not Ready to Make Nice because it's a more subtle mission statement that clobbers the listener from behind. Are they saying that they want to be taken care of? That they don't want to have to deal with the world? It flies in the face of the Chick's presented image: That they are tough and will fight. It's gorgeous. So while I'd agree with j, that the Chicks didn't make their Sgt. Pepper's, I'd argue that they got closer to it. That by *not* embracing the politicization of the Bush-fiasco, and not pandering to rock critics, they made a beautiful album (Lullaby, Silent House, Voice Inside My Head, I Hope).

I'm sure I'll refine this later,, but this is where I stand right now with the Chicks: They are best when they *aren't* being self-conscious and *aren't* addressing their issues. They have a subtle vulnerability that comes through with this album more than the last one, because they have been hurt by more. I just hope they are able to eradicate any attempts to be mainstream, and that their country audiences appreciate that the Chicks are *exactly* what the audiences have been saying their aren't. (And j is also right that they need more humor.)

this is going to get me in shit, but im going to say it anyways.

i think that ashlee strings angst ridden teenage cliches that sound good. the i that you talk about a romantic, i see as the solipism of a bored teenager. there are places where i like her voice, but she hasnt figured out how to use it yet, and often it grates.

the bored teenage stuff comes thru in dylan. the gum/bum line is an example of it, but why is that good writing?

and the glam thing to, the sunglasses in teh back of the limosuine and all of that nonesense, but at least dylan was destructive--he built up and tore down, and built up again. but then so did cher. (with the nose job maybe ashlee is the new cher) (and cher declared a quest too--which pop star/musical artist/mtv wunderkid hasnt decalred some kind of desire for indpendence and desire for ones own autonomy?)

reconcilltion is a really interesting word, because i find ashlee intergrative to the whole late capital excess, the mtv culture.

all of that working against, rebellion that you seem to find in ashlee, maybe i find in britney, who i think is a better performer, writer, actor, musician, star then ashlee will ever be, and who burnt out after 4 albums and 10 singles, is a really good example--because i think britney knows what games are being played against her, and she deconstructs them---all of that romanticism that you give to ashlee i find in britney.

britney knew her body, her history, her lyrics, and that supercompact, hyper aware, romantic ambiguity, one claims for ashlee, i see in her.

if you want a line that matches "I was trapped inside someone else's life and always second best" which i think i wrote in my poetry notebooks at 16, then look at lucky:

Lost in an image, in a dream
But there's no one there to wake her up
And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning
But tell me what happens when it stops?

which is more bowie then dylan, sure but then bowie is a better songwriter?

(i am not sure i am saying anything here, again, let me try again: dylan knows his place, and has spent the last 30 years fucking with us, cause hes a legend, adn he can do that; elvis was an artifact of colnel tom; ashlee is in an opedial fury with joe, something that remains unacknowledged;and we give pop starts 5 years, instead of 40...)

where do you think ashlee will be in 20 years? in 5?
is this kevin federline, cheetos and meth schitck that ms spears is doign right now the motorcycle crash

Ashlee singing lines that you wrote in your notebook at age 16 seems pretty good. Also, singing teen angst clichés isn't incompatible with being connected to Dylan. The reason I wrote "You're not saying anything" above is that you were just repeating variations on "I don't see the connection between Ashlee and Dylan" and "I don't get what the big deal is about Dylan." Whereas if we're to engage intellectually you should be heading more towards, "This is how Frank connects Ashlee to Dylan, but I would map things differently, for instance..." and "this is the story Frank tells about Dylan, but I come up with different stories from those same songs, for instance..." Which you're starting to do now. Obviously, understanding why I see things the way I do doesn't require that you agree with my way. But there's no virtue in failing to understand.

No I didn't. The person who wrote the subhed did, maybe, but I didn't. I didn't express an opinion on the matter. I personally think the Chicks do anger well, but everything - anger, loss, peacefulness - would be better if they thought deeper and harder, which is what I was really calling for. More and better thought. By cutting deeper I meant understanding further.

can you talk a bit about ashlee, dylan, joe, mtv, and columbia?

(2) Don't know much about Joe, actually, and would take the discussion to the teenpop thread if I did, though it's interesting that Joe helps to promote a song that takes him to task (first line of "Shadow" is, "I was six years old when my parents went away"). But conflict with manager/dad isn't part of the Ashlee Legend in the way that conflict with record company is part of the Pink Legend - she sang a song about it - and the Shakira Legend and in a very minor way the Dylan Legend.

(3) Obv. Ashlee isn't the innovator that Dylan or Elvis was. Modern teenpop doesn't totally match up with previous teenpop, and there are musical changes going on, but incremental ones coming from a whole bunch of artists. You might say the same with the pop/adult contemporary that the Chicks are now part of; there are some things that mark the new Chicks album as an '00s album, even if a lot of it obviously draws on the '70s.

(4) As for the quietness issue, what you're trying to say reminds me of what I'd say about "Rhiannon" and "Dream" and Coney Island Baby, which I considered not "soft rock" but "quiet hard rock." Not sure I don't think some of the Chicks is soft rock and folkie restraint, but I do think I get the point you're making. "Quiet" and "seething" aren't incompatible.

seems like oprah is a big influence on country right now; celeb-fucking is everywhere and i don't see country as immune from that, it's in fact a species of it, and that's how crafy a guy like chesney is, he gets critics to write about him as some sort of new boho that ain't a boho and he's just another celebrity, albeit one with a very expensive hat on. ditto the chix: i mean come on, are they really that worthy of any big consideration beyond the sociological? there are values in that music, and i suppose they have their "experimental" tendencies just like the beatles, but they always seemed manufactured, three mannequins of varying femaleness who *actually play the banjo* and all that, and are droll about being dixie chix who know all too well the limits of both dixie- and chix-dom. just like madonna or any pomo star, sure there's some good music, but mainly it's just the name itself and the fact that there's some supposed oppositional, female-empowerment shtick happening and you know what happens when you're a woman and buck the system. your fans desert you, and the ones who bought into the opposition the most heavily continue to support the group no matter what--there's "feeling" there because it's country, where with madonna, it's about pure wealth and power making its own rules, and in the case of the beatles, there's a dazed, awed consensus that "this band is the best because they dared to be themselves and they keep changing, endlessly mutating, from 'she loves you' to tim leary and 'tomorrow never knows' in a mere three years! art!" but as someone said above, country is about feeling and humility, something madonna isn't famous for and something the beatles floated above, and something a group like the chix are bored with, just like they're probably too bored and too arrogant to bother with the "hooks" that james doesn't find on the new record.

i saw the chix live last week, and was wondering if their style change is or is perceived to be a necessary response to the growth of their fanbase. tim mcgraw and faith hill were already making arena-ready rock and pop, but the chix' bluegrass-based sound is more delicate and unfortunately can get drowned out in madison square garden. it's still what draws me to them, but i also learned to get off on their sound when it got girly-skynyrd (though not girly-eagles, or unreconstructed fleetwood mac, sorry, tho the fleetwood mac stuff is admittedly catchy). the problem is that persona-wise, the non-natalie girls are a bit too prim (and the show too tightly professional), and they can't be skynyrd if their music doesn't move more (and their backing guitars were really muddy). maybe it would have worked better outside with a big sky.

and yeah, the we're-so-brave-we-hate-bush is pretty facile, and annoying more than twice, but in NYC* at least it got a huge response several times over, and i had to laugh in the encore when they girly-snarled a "stayed in Mississippi way too long" cover.

so are either of the last two albums worth buying?

*where the guy in front of me was wearing a white belt, and the Chesney-costumed guy a few rows down might have been gay. interesting crowd generally - heavily female, obv, lots of dates, lots of moms and pretty young kids, all races represented. is this what a Madonna show is like?

As far as the Dylan v. Ashley thing: I was listening to Dylan at Folksinger's Choice in 1962 - which I think Frank would say is still apart of Dylan's teen-pop era (though I always imagine teen-pop Dylan is Blood on Blood, etc). And what makes the bootleg incredible is, of course, the conversation in between the songs. Where Dylan is feeling around, trying to sense his place in music. His songs aren't "folk songs," they're "contemporary songs."

(nervous giggle in conversation after playing Emmitt Till - Interviewer: Have you sang that for Woody Guthrie? Dylan: Nah, I'm gonna sing it for him.)

There's this figuring out that is going on. I think my problem with Ashley Simpson is that she doesn't have the same emptiness of form that she's working into. The stardom she's trying for has already been mapped out - either by Dylan, or by Madonna, or by her older sister. I don't think you can discount the novel, or the new. Even if Simpson can completely recreate Dylan's ballads, or join him in the Romantic tradition, at best she'll only be the second person to have done so.

anyone want a burn?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000FO45Z2/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/104-7532074-2415914?ie=UTF8&n=5174&s=music

Published on Poptimist:
Jason McCoy, here, has a lurid, desperate, self loathing quality, and the song is obsessed about a woman who "aint missing missing him". The track has a tabloid restraint, where silences replacing details, and loud noise work in the place of sexual explicitness.

Listen to how he sings two lines at the one minute mark--where McCoy talks about a lover doing things he dont, and wont. He gives a long space of rangy, wiry guitar, before adding the word anymore. In those seconds, our minds grow any large with all sorts of decay. Anymore suggests they did that kind of decadence together.

McCoy does this kind of song well because he still believes in sin (there is a song on this album called I Feel a Sin Coming On) but also pleasure. The two break apart into something wilder then much standard country, and even his most tender ballads have an isolating despair.

From his greatest hits.

YSI here

I haven't heard "Whatever We Wanna," the new non-US Rimes CD. I know she's got the #1 song in, like, Taiwan. (and there's a fairly nondescript but still interesting little thing on her on MusicCityNews.com.) the last I had heard, she was working with the producer Dan Huff on a new record; and I've heard she plans to release something next year. "Whatever" is on WEA International, and I'll see if I can track down someone to get me a copy. (And wow, she looks sexier 'n usual on the cover...sexier than Tanya Tucker, to me...)

I told Don this--I interviewed Shelly Fairchild this week, she's playing some of her new material here on the 19th and I wanted to take that opportunity to do a short preview of that show. She's been gone from Sony for a while, about a year, and is writing songs which she says are more pop, more funky, and apparenly has recorded, and will do, a cover of a Mother's Finest song whose title she wouldn't reveal. One of the writers she's working with is Richie Supa, I believe it is, who's written hits for Aerosmith...and she's been recording, and will be shopping. Sounded real smart, real canny, and enough of a sense of humor to tell me that she's tough on bands, apparently--her band quit on her ten minutes before a Billy Block radio show here about a year ago.

That Willmon piece I did is in the Scene this week--I don't have the link right here, but you can also check out Tracy Moore's nice coverstory on the olden days of '80s Nashville rock scene, including some nice stuff on Jason and the (Nashville) Scorchers. Brings back memories, since I was here and hung out at those clubs, seeing X and the dB's and the Scorchers (the latter who were ferociously good the couple times I saw 'em...)

Wow, that's totally badass.

Here are Mother's Finest, if you doubt me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uQV0pVi0y0

i didn't even know he had another live album out. i think that makes 3 or 4 of those for him. probably the best way to hear him, tho -- he's more fun live, his studio albums can be a little draggy.

Video for LeAnn's "Strong", the German single, which is strong, a power ballad. Again, not a good enough song, though a good performance, goes loud without oversinging.

I like these more than her recent few country singles.