Rolling Country 2006 Thread

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (2098 of them)
Did Steve Cropper record in the 50s? Somehow I never thought to look back before Booker T. & The MGs (whom I assumed started in the 60s, but--?)

don (dow), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 21:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Omigod. Trace Adkins just dropped the key on "Star Spangled Banner" into the abyss. That must have hurt.

Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 23:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Didn't Crawford do some session work in the late '50s when he worked at Sun and Peacock, before moving to Stax? He's listed as guitarist on some 1958 Hank Crawford recordings, but I haven't heard them. And don't forget he played with the Mar-Keys, who pre-date the MGs.

Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 23:57 (seventeen years ago) link

err, that should read "Didn't Cropper..."

Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Ying Yang Twins, who have only album I truly love,

...have only ONE album I etc. (aka Me and My Brother. Though maybe I should go back and listen to their debut Thug Walkin more one of these days. I also like the two remix sets My Brother and Me and USA Still United, and the side project Da Musicianz from this summer is finally growing on me, and there was a weird B-side EP I found a few years ago that was good too. So: One great album, one boring one, and a bunch of perfectly okay ones. But I still like my least favorite Montgomery Gentry album {their debut, I guess} more than my second favorite Ying Yang Twins album.)

Did anybody else notice that the new M-Gentry record has 1) really good graphics,

Weirder: The front cover of their new CD looks almost exactly the same as the back cover of their previous CD! (Maybe paintings based on the previous back cover's photographs, or something? Wacky!)

xhuxk (xheddy), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 00:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Some good stuff on Alley, the second Ying Yang Twins album. Has my favorite Ying Yang Twins song as such, "Sound Off." But my greatest Ying Yang favorites are actually the guest shots they do on Lil Jon's "Get Low," Pitbull's "Bojangles," and Don Yute's "Row Da Boat," the last couple of which they totally own. The version of "Bojangles" without them and Jon is much less exciting.

But that's all off-topic.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 26 October 2006 04:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Only slightly more on topic: Gwen Stefani yodels on her new single (streamed here - and uses brass band, and house bass, and she screws around with song form (or screws around by seeing how much form she can jettison).

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 26 October 2006 05:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Meant to say that the new Gwen single is "Wind It Up."

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 26 October 2006 05:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Some good stuff on *Alley*, the second Ying Yang Twins album

I never even knew this album existed until two days ago, when I was googling in an attempt to find out the weird audio EP (only playable in DVD players) (because mostly otherwise a DVD, as are the two outtake/remix albums) I mentioned above. It's Puttin' It In.

But yeah, way off topic. Unless you think Southern hip-hop and Ying Yangs in particular are "country" (some do, and not just Britney.)

xhuxk (xheddy), Thursday, 26 October 2006 09:27 (seventeen years ago) link

PS) Dwight Yoakam two-disc Guitars Cadillacs etc etc etc etc reissue is about five times too much of a fairly good thing (sort of like his version of that ridiculous Funhouse box set on Rhino or something, maybe). But it does make me wish I still owned the original Oak Records EP on vinyl (probably sold in a mid '80s purge).

xhuxk (xheddy), Thursday, 26 October 2006 10:52 (seventeen years ago) link

reading rob bowman on stax, I see that cropper and the royal spades did an early pre-mclemore-ave. stax/satellite single around '60 or '61, but no reference to anything earlier than that. the "50 years" thing in the upcoming show refers to when cropper began playing guitar, in '56, at messick high in memphis. really, people always say that rufus and carla's "gee whiz" invented stax, but for me it's cropper and packy axton as "mar-keys" doing "last night" that gets it well and truly going.

I guess I'm in the minority on really liking alan jackson's "like red." just about everyone I've talked to dismisses it as sterile middlebrow airbrushed krauss-i-fication, but I just find it calming and even sort of inspired pop music. rich kienzle in the new no depression really takes it to task, "navel-gazing ballads score big with Bluebird Café types or dilettantes who derive their primary world view from NPR. One suspects damn few of these folks were ever Alan Jackson fans." OK, Rich is a good writer and I see his point, but I mean I get a lot of my world view from the monthly co-op newspaper (really, a well-done publication, excellent charts and photos of soybeans in all parts of Tenn., and some good recipes, plus great info about how farmers use Science, just like Alan and Alison use the Recording Studio to Make Music That Isn't Necessarily Last Year's Crop) and have nearly gotten myself kicked out the Bluebird because it can be so fucking boring. I don't get that the record is "arty" as Kienzle maintains--it's no artier than Dwight Yoakam anytime. For my part, I'd love to hear more people in Nashville doing exactly what Krauss does on this record; to some extent, Nevers is doing it, but within the context of "indie" or whatever with Lambchop, and his new Charlie Louvin record ought to be choice. In short, I have no problem with this kind of thing at all, I suppose I have some bad old Middlebrow in me. But I seem to be just about the only person who really likes this record, which for sure makes my top ten this year.
xps

edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 26 October 2006 12:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I got all excited about the Charlie Louvin record; that excitement was tempered rather by hearing that the dread hand of the Costello was involved. I like EC as much as the next man, but he's generally at his worst when he's paying homage.

I bought a Charlie Louvin LP, "It Almost Felt Like Love", recently (I'd always steered clear of his solo material, assuming it just wouldn't match up). It's surprisingly fine.

Tim (Tim), Thursday, 26 October 2006 15:11 (seventeen years ago) link

"navel-gazing ballads score big with Bluebird Café types or dilettantes who derive their primary world view from NPR. One suspects damn few of these folks were ever Alan Jackson fans.

I haven't seen the whole review but that quote is maybe the most wreteched countrier-than-thou-ism I've ever read.

Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Thursday, 26 October 2006 16:40 (seventeen years ago) link

I think Rich's review makes a good point, that the record is sort of effete or attenuated; it is, sort of, and it's sort of instant nostalgia, perhaps unearned nostalgia. but I dunno about the idea of "earning" something or some way to represent reality when we're talking about art and all that. I enjoy the record, and was kidding around about How Country we can get and so forth--I mean I'm an Alan Jackson admirer, not a huge fan but he's good and I respect him and think he could exert himself even more and do better work, but he's calm and that's his thing. I'm also an NPR fan, as far as that goes, and I mean I've been quiet in the Bluebird, too. But Rich is probably right about the country audience perhaps not quite knowing what to do with this record, but Ray Charles wasn't content with his r&b audience just like everybody wants to cross over. For Rich, the record is a train wreck (his words); for me, it's a charming record that might traffic a bit in cheap emotions and calibrated forms, but seems like c.e.'s and c.f.'s are a big part of pop music in general, and they want to go pop.

Excellent: Dierks doing "Fast Lanes and Country Roads" from "She Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool," and Brad Paisley "In Times Like These," where he sounds more lowdown, a bluesman even. For that matter, the banal hackery of some of the chord changes, very J.R. and Sue Ellen-pink, that anchor "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool" as done by K. Chesney and R. McEntire--that's pretty fucking middlebrow and cheesy, but the version is a good one, and useful historical perspective on the bad old '80s. Haven't heard "If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right Yet" by dirty LeAnn Rimes; that might be for my tumbler o'bourbon and smoking jacket, later tonight.

Only ringer so far I've heard on "She Was Country" is Randy Owen doing "Years," that Fogleberg quaver, bearded ass-man in doleful extremis, I don't like it.

edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 26 October 2006 17:28 (seventeen years ago) link

navel-gazing ballads score big with Bluebird Café types or dilettantes who derive their primary world view from NPR. One suspects damn few of these folks were ever Alan Jackson fans.

hi dere

gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 26 October 2006 19:52 (seventeen years ago) link

x-post That No Depression "Like Red" review surprises me--I thought they'd be all for it. What are they really into this year? Alejandro Escovedo? For what it's worth I love the Jackson album.

ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Thursday, 26 October 2006 23:57 (seventeen years ago) link

When was Alan Jackson not instant middlebrow nostalgia?? New album's the only one by him I've ever made it through without getting bored long before the record ended. And so what if I was never an Alan Jackson fan before? He's had a few good songs here and there, but dude was just never all that good, for crissakes.

xhuxk (xheddy), Friday, 27 October 2006 01:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, way more to the point, when has No Depression not been about instant middlebrow nostalgia itself?? I guess Kienzle's point is that Jackson is supposedly reaching for a more upscale Starbucks crowd for this album, which he may well be (though actually reaching said crowd might be a longshot), but isn't that pretty much the exact same crowd that No Depression has always aimed for? I don't get it. I also don't get how making what's more or less (at its best anyway) a Gary Allan record is any more nostalgic than the neo-traditionalism of "Chatahoochie" or "Little Man" (and Alan has almost never been as good as those two songs in his career anyway).

In possibly related news, there's a glowing full-page review of the new Dierks Bentley album, of all things, in Paste, of all places, arguing that fans of alt-country shouldn't ignore Nashville country, which Geoffrey Himes says has gotten better in the past few years (though he may he overrate Bentley's importance in that equation -- Dierks is hardly the most interesting act in Nashville, though I agree he can frequently be real good -- and Himes mentions the Wrights and Bobby Pinson but not Big & Rich or Toby Keith or Montgomery Gentry as evidence of his claim, which strikes me as somewhat odd). Nice to see the barrier being broken down, regardless.

xhuxk (xheddy), Friday, 27 October 2006 11:11 (seventeen years ago) link

(Though No Depression perceives itself as identifying with rowdy roadhouses, not effete coffeehouses, right? Whatever. Either way, that magazine complaining that an Alan Jackson album is too polite makes about as much sense to me as Decibel complaining that a new Meshuggah album is too metal. Or something.) (Though I dunno, if it was a Montgomery Gentry album, maybe it'd make sense? Does No Depression even review Montgomery Gentry albums yet?)

xhuxk (xheddy), Friday, 27 October 2006 11:30 (seventeen years ago) link

no, ND doesn't do MG albums and probably never will. I think the roadhouse/NPR contrast is pretty much it. I've been to plenty of "roadhouses" or whatever down south, and I listen to NPR. When I went to Perry's Flowing Fountain on Nelson St. in blues-town Greenville, Miss., and ate the spaghetti 'n' catfish and listened to patrons get rowdy to a jukebox full of Bobby Rush, B. B. King, Latimore, et al., I didn't come out of there ready to extol the roadhouse, it's just a bar with music. And one might remember that acting as if you're having an "authentic blues experience" in a place like that and letting the patrons--in this case, very well-dressed black middle-class lawyers and so forth, with their equally dressed-up wives and girlfriends--see that in your face, that lets you in for a lot of deserved derision from them. So it's a bad habit.

A lot of what alt-country is, to me, it's just bar music, music you hear in a bar, intellectualized bar music, whatever, and having to worry about my relationship to the supposedly "authentic" or not, is wearying to me and fucks up my thinking and writing. So I don't do it, but I think ND honestly tries to get at some of that stuff and that there might well be something in the effort that I am either too rooted or not rooted enough to fully appreciate. It's just a bar--let's have a drink.

Glad to see that Himes gives country its due; by my lights, Dierks Bentley is a classic case of a pretty good artist whose overall production-design is flawed. Kinda like a pretty good and perfectly good-looking but not spectacularly beautifuly actress who never quite gets lighted the right way on set. What I find interesting about Dierks' last 2 is the utter banality of the whole thing, when you set the sometimes kind of brilliant *conception* of the *sound, playing and production* itself against the, to my ears, deflating *sententiousness* of the sentiments themselves. In other words, the whole ramblin' thing makes me urp, and the point of those records is a) the fact he's got this unruly head of curls, no hat (and MG are significant not least because Eddie wears his big hat/duster and Troy doesn't, and that's the contrast, exactly what they try to do in their music, whereas Dierks is all No Hat) b) the one great trick Brett Beavers has come up with re DB--using this four-four kick-drum stomp to ground some really interesting guitar licks by the great J.T. Corenflos and the surgically applied banjo and the occasional really cool lick as in "That Don't Make It Easy Lovin' Me," which is I think the only great song on the record, just like "Lot of Leavin'" which it rewrites was the only great one on the last one. I find the 4/4 kick a bit intrusive after a while, altho on this one the drummer often does a kind of roll suggestive of some Civil War memory or some forgotten road memory or whatever, and that adds to the whole thing. And the songs are mostly non-songs, actually, and the one where Dierks imagines an egalitarian heaven with the usual post-hobo-sentimental cast of characters, is downright fulsome. Plus, as on "Modern Day Drift," the production itself is wrong, both these records sound like they were just digitally moved around and flattened out, they lack depth. Too compressed. And that's what I find mystifying about country music and some of the writing about it, why not talk about the record as artifice and get into why they sound the way they do? As on Jackson or as on MG, which sounds fucking great. I kind of wish they'd work on their harmonies a bit more, or do something with background voices that wasn't just using some gospel choir, which has become just as much empty signifier as mariachi horns in country music.

Anyway, Dierks just needs a new producer, and god forgive me, but he needs to record somewhere else than Nashville, perhaps. It's obvious that Brett Beavers (who cowrites nearly every song on the record w/ Dierks and one/two others) has created this sound that is supposed to go with a ramblin' persona, and it half-works. And that songs are written piecemeal and by committee to fit into that sound. I'll stop here: Dierks, to my mind, isn't all that interesting as a person or a "star," but the whole process by which he makes records is real interesting and indicative of what can be wrong with how they make records on Music Row these days. And that most of the records made around here sound fucking great.

xps

edd s hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 27 October 2006 12:50 (seventeen years ago) link

For what it's worth, Himes and Paste are a bit behind ND. Barry Mazor did a big feature on Dierks in the magazine issues ago, so let's not start again with the ND strawman. We covered that pretty well last year, and it was clear that most of the folks opining on what ND stands for and covers couldn't be bothered to pick up a recent issue.

Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Friday, 27 October 2006 17:48 (seventeen years ago) link

The Rich quote is a parody, rat? Gotta be--as xhuxx says, not like AJ was some rowdystential heerow before AK got her girly hooks in his jeans. And seems like (hope I'm wrong, but can't stand the thought of listening to his new album again tonight) we're all being too girly nice to Dierks at this point. Not like his bios haven't emphasized that he studied country hard, in school, at work (The Nashville Network), and On The Road, which he now invokes every other line. Not like he just fell off the turnip truck, pathetically grateful for whatever the TrashVegans ram up his innocent tushie. So, he's gotta restore the quality control, songwise (shitshining's all in a day's work for Corenflos etc., but not for meee)

don (dow), Saturday, 28 October 2006 02:33 (seventeen years ago) link

All of a sudden, everyone wants to work with Alison Krauss, who's sort of the country version of DJ Premier
--Tom Breihan in The Village Voice

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Saturday, 28 October 2006 21:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Finally got a shot at the MG listening party, may be too busy to get a second before it drops off. Favorite song by far is "Hey Country," which sounds as if it could be a Warrant song (in fact, might be better as a Warrant song). Liking the sound overall but thinking the melodies don't quite take me over that big tent they're invoking. "Your Tears Are Coming" and "Redder That That" rocked me nicely. But so far during listen numero uno nothing hit me nearly as hard as "Cold One Comin' On" and "Free Fall." To really work, the "Fast Lane" one should have sounded more like "Life in the..." (though it's a good little rouser). Most intriguing is "Clouds," 'cause Eddie's deliberately singing way above his range, to convey strain and reach, I'd guess.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 29 October 2006 01:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Frank, I sent you a copy of the MG CD; you'll have it shortly. (I figured it must've arrived there already, but apparently not.)

xhuxk (xheddy), Sunday, 29 October 2006 01:55 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, "Clouds" is good, I like about half of it, as said above, but c'mon (for instance), "Slow Ride In A Fast Lane"? They're not even trying. What's next, "Cat Scratch Highway"? (Okay, I'd like to hear that). Dixie Chicks sounding very strong with current material, on VH-1 Storytellers right now. (Cool if Krauss and Lari White are vanguard of a new wave of female producers in mainstream country. Lari's got more varied background, so she may get more work, eventually, but of course AK may have more clout as a more hitmaking/-having artist and bandleader and producer of her own stuff, if she does that; I haven't paid that much attention to her own albums)

don (dow), Sunday, 29 October 2006 05:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I sent you a copy of the MG CD

Oh, good, then I can snatch some time to listen to the Brooke Hogan instead (not a distinctive voice, but for r&b riffiness and catchiness she beats a lot of more distinctive singers, e.g. her producer's gf Janet Jackson).

(Haven't visited the PO in a couple of days; the package with the Mandrell trib arrived, as has the one with the Alan Jackson and the Cornerstone mixes. A couple of mix CDs are on their way to you.)

"Redder That That" - "Redder Than That"

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 29 October 2006 08:45 (seventeen years ago) link

(Ah, Xhuxk, see that you got the mix CDs. What do you think of the Teddy Thompson? He's the Richard/Linda kiddie, right? He actually sounds straight-up classic country on this, delivering the very funny words straight, no mugging. Song - "Psycho" - is by Leon Payne, don't know if he did the original (a quick glance at Google finds a '68 version by Eddie Noack).)

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 29 October 2006 09:54 (seventeen years ago) link

I'd say the Teddy Thompson song is a good obsessive and somewhat interminable drone of a folk song (doesn't he murder his girlfriend in it or something? I dunno, I don't remember ever having heard the original, though didn't some '60s Back From The Grave level garage punks used to cover that too?), but I wish Teddy had his dad's voice, not to mention his dad's guitars. Still, it's good track; I enjoyed it. ("Country" didn't cross my mind when hearing that track, though. Which isn't to say one couldn't classify it as such.)

Wasn't the MG album I sent in the same package as the Mandrell one? Weird. I only sent you two packages; should've been in one of those! Unless for some ridiculous reason I forgot to put in in the envelope.

Went back and listened to the MG album yesterday, after Don's and Frank's skepticism about it on this thread, and it's as great as I thought. Only song I could live without is "If You Wanna Keep An Angel," I think. I'll concede that there may not be a "Cold One Comin' On" on here, but who cares -- "Hey Country" (with that cool Stooges chord progression or whatever it is at the start! Though okay, the "lookit that cowboy hat" Alan Jackson reference gets on my nerves, though I think it's supposed to be a joke), "Lucky Man," "Takes All Kinds," "Your Tears Are Comin" (= "96 Tears"/"Who's Crying Now"), "Clouds" (which I didn't get, I admit, til everybody started loving it here), "Twenty Years On" (has any act ever sung better about not getting along with their dads? Probably, but these guys are way up there), "What Do Ya Think About That," "Redder Than That" (great high school reunion song, the "red" stuff is just extraneous gravy), "A Man's Job," and "Free Life in the Fast Lane" all kick my ass. The latter always makes me think of that South Park movie song about "Freedom Isn't Free" more than it makes me think of the Eagles, but damn does it rock -- what's really hitting me about this record is how southern-rock-*expansive* so much of its music sounds; they really sound like a *band* these days. Which I guess maybe they always did, but that doesn't mean I can't be surprised when it happens again (and maybe more). Also, the spoken word sections in I think "Free Ride In the Fast Lane" and especially "Twenty Years On" (I *think* those are the tracks they're in) blow me away every time. And these guys have never sounded as open-hearted and even *happy* as they do on this record (happy even if life does give them a pound of pain for every ounce of pleasure or whatever it is they say); they've never made as many jokes, and the jokes can be really funny! Anyway, the moral platitudes they spout (or remember their dads spouting, usually) are just one very small part of the mix. And nobody else in music now rocks with a comparable immediacy. In my book, it's still the album of the year.

xhuxk (xheddy), Monday, 30 October 2006 11:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Three songs into the Kelly Pickler streamed on this week's AOL Listening Party. Quite enjoyable bubble country. Likes to buy shoes, but is irritated by TV ads that promise too much.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 30 October 2006 13:47 (seventeen years ago) link

(No MG in either package.)

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 30 October 2006 13:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Kellie Pickler, that is (ie not y). A great name for a country singer, no matter how you spell it.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 30 October 2006 13:52 (seventeen years ago) link

yep, ND did a good Dierks piece a while back, and in the new issue Vince Gill's new 'un gets a nice piece of writing. Dierks is like Waylon cyrogenically enhanced with the tofu-chicken-fat of the sessioneers playing on the record; play this one in the changer with the Byrds' "Ballad of Easy Rider" (later shit where they really turned vocals into velveeta spread a la McGuinn's "folkie roots" and added C. White's gtr., the latter which makes it all not velveeta, just like J.T. on Dierks. Non-country fan opinion of this one: "I still can't tell him apart from Gary Allan or whoever as a singer, but the producer is just wringing every ounce of interest from these sort of undeveloped songs, the drummer is killin' it. And the single ('Every Mile a Memory') is great.")

And the MG record, I guess the whole thing works fine as "album" and as a canny reinterp of their *own* image. Still bad-ass but adding some backstory and their own songs which of course derive from all their hard-earned experience to the mix; and I kind of am nonplussed by the spoken-word shit except on "Hey Country" where the duo show a nice feel for the dumb-ass enthusiasm of southern stoners. But I mean they're pop pros (them, their producers, and their songwriters) and it's indeed post-Big & Rich in Nashville. They're one of the few big acts to even try to do the same thing, right? So in the end I think "Clouds" is pretty much a dog, "Redder Than That" is a great idea (right, the redneckery is just a red herring) but isn't quite there. I'm forever a skeptic about Nashville songwriting and a lot of this just seems *almost* real good but almost always too...banal, or something like that. But it's high-grade and you definitely have to enter their universe and all that. (I mean, hearing "Some People Change" on the radio around here, they're promoting the shit out of the record on radio, MG tailgate parties, Meet Us in Lexington, Kentucky, "rednecking and ready to have a good time," and you do get a sense of how ambitious they are, with that single, which I think ultimately gets over on that big chorus of Many Colors on the last "SOME PEOPLE CHANGE," and you think, that's what good about country music--the people.

edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 30 October 2006 14:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Some people do change, and now more people want to change, or want a surrogate to do it, so might be a good last minute add, as theme song,to the campaign of some hopeful Democrat (or Republican newbie, with not too much baggage). Abd I'm glad for them if they made it out of the halfway house, although (it's probly all just part of the writing factory's five year plan and)I liked 'em better there, re the struggling-to-and vs.-change conflict.This just seems too self-congratz, not quite ersatz but not celebratory enough, when it comes to big thrills. Some people need to change some more, but I'll listen some again (I guess, but there's a lot of other stuff to listen to). About half good, still.

don (dow), Monday, 30 October 2006 19:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, and Kellie, whom I never saw on American Idol or whatever it was, was later a seeming natural with the sunny whacky charm on Tonight Show, doing interviews with celebs on the red carpet, entering some stupid Event. She engaged them with her own ditz, then played straight man/appreciative audience to their tiny bursts of buggy response. Would be interesting to see how her album is. (Reba is U*S*A* Woman Warrior [Navy, but they got Navy on the ground in Afghanistan now, running low on Army and Marines], in new video. She's plausibly stern, [a little old, still,they're running low etc], but duet partner Vince Gill sounds and especially looks way too puddin' for this)

don (dow), Monday, 30 October 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

and speaking of female producers in Nashville: was Pam Tillis the first? or at least the first to have significant hits? she's playing here next week. I'm kinda psyched 'cause I've never seen her.

Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Monday, 30 October 2006 20:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I've been getting the idea that the Kellie Pickler album is front- loaded: i.e. big dropoff after the first four tracks. But I could be wrong. So far my favorite track is probably "Things That Never Cross A Man's Mind" (though "Didn't Know How Much I Loved You" starts out in Leann Rimes r&b-pop territory); least favorite so far is probably either "Small Town Girl" (for roteness) or "My Angel" (for sap).

xhuxk (xheddy), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 02:07 (seventeen years ago) link

My Pickler post was three songs in and I kept losing interest afterwards (was giving it the bkgd treatment anyway), so you're probably right about the sudden dropoff, though I ought to try and give it a second spin before AOL takes it down. (They're also streaming Willie Nelson's Songbird, which I've got on promo; Lady Sov., and I'll admit her voice is too samey but I might still end up voting for it if I've got an album shortage; the Pitbull which we talk about on the hip-hop thread; the Borat, which I think is actually very good (being quasi-Asian it has twice the twang of new country); and the Kevin Federline, which is neither a disgrace nor a joke but on the evidence of the first four songs is too hard and slow in its moods.)

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 21:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Roy, there's a discussion of the (apparently few) precedents in female mainstream country production, at Lari's website (think it's just lariwhite.com, been a while since I was there; Bonnie Guitar is the earliest cited, and she's also quoted. Gail Davies also mentioned) Yeah, and Pam also toured with that all-studio/session-star, all-women band, Pretty Good For A Girl (wonder if they ever got to record without backing Pam or anyone else?) And I'll take this opp to mention that PGFAG incl my University Of AL/T classmate, Alison Prestwood, whose bass had no prob jumping out of a bigass jazz band te very first time I heard her ("Who's THAT!?"), and certainly no prob with many fine Nashville albums (also incl degrees of fine shitshining, but all in a day's work, as noted re Corenflos & Co. on new Dierks)Frank: more on Borat, please!

don (dow), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 21:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Pretty Good For A Girl was also a very good stage/road band, as seen w) Pam on Nashville Network, and early CMT, I think it was.

don (dow), Tuesday, 31 October 2006 22:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Taylor Swift sells 40,000 in her first week. The Montgomery Gentry sells 37,000.

Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Thursday, 2 November 2006 14:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Taylor Swift boated again! (Even if her big dull song is "Tim McGraw," who may run for the Senate as a Democrat, but then again, in an ad for Flicka, he looks like W.)

don (dow), Thursday, 2 November 2006 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link

haven't really listened to pickler yet. but, did attend to new keith urban and new sugarland. I think urban's is the stronger--he even covers a song by obscure billy nicholls, a brit pop guy who was on immediate label in '60s and released a nice sort of lite-pop album in mid-'70s called "love songs." in fact, urban's "love, pain" is a turn on that very kind of music, and I sometimes am good: taking my notes I wrote down "billy nicholls," since I've been listening to his stuff lately, and damned if the liners didn't list nicholls as the writer of "can't stop loving you." anyway, this record is a gloss on that whole jimmy miller/paul buckmaster '70s production style, right down the the strings and the rather leisurely but totally packed song structres. "faster car" is a great piece of post-skinny-tie powerpop, there are hints of tom petty in there, and plenty of pretty fine guitar. the songs are mainly about what a well-meaning guy he is and how hard it is to keep love together when you're a celebrity. obv. some written for/to nicole. what's really good about the record is just how rich it is, how ambitious--the mean time of these 13 trax is around 4:30, and the opening track goes on for just under 6 minutes. very good indeed.

I like sugarland almost as well--maybe it isn't quite as strong as the first record, but it's ingenious and I suppose "folk-rock" as opposed to british pop. many songs about small towns, one great one about how mean girls grow up into noxious bitches, and jennifer nettles' voice is huge, cutting and, to my ears, sometimes near panic. which is really their theme, panic at moving to the city or back to the small town, and they seem caught in between. but the music is bright and chewy and all that. I dunno, I give it a B+.

saw recently: john anderson sing "seminole wind" and "swingin'" with a band including steve cropper and a big horn section. amazing. he's a great singer, the real fucking thing. also saw t. graham brown, all jolly and round and with a beer in hand, prowling around the stage (this at the ryman--a tribute to cropper for charity) doing his r&b country stuff. great, as well. tanya tucker was there, mark farner did a great "closer to home/i'm your captain," and john kay did "sookie sookie," which cropper and don covay wrote. it was a great show, with james burton and cropper playing guitar and many other guests including delbert mcclinton. but robben ford stole the show: one of the greatest fucking displays of guitar savvy i have ever seen, just mind-blowing. I mean, james burton was standing there looking at robben ford and his face said, "i got to go home."

last night, a bunch of muscle shoals guys got together to back songwriter donnie fritts. fritts can't sing a lick but it was still great, he's got presence, and the musicians were just superb--david hood, spooner oldham, like that. fritts did his "damn good country song" he wrote for jerry lee, delbert mcclinton showed up again and they did a texas blues that killed. the two shows were like a history of country rubbing up against black/white soul in memphis/shoals/nashville.

and, rip, buddy killen. I was gonna say, time to pull out my joe tex stuff, but it's already out.

Wally, my cat, died yesterday, he got diagnosed with heart disease on monday and he went downhill from there, he'd been acting strangely for a few days and finally it got worrisome. he was only 7, and, you know, a great little guy I was attached to, had him since he was born.

edd s hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 3 November 2006 15:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Sorry about Wally, that's really a shame. I was browsing through Buddy K's autobio at the library last week: some good anecdotes and other insider info, discreet but not too. He describes how Joe Tex gradually got totally strung out on the write-record-tour cycle, and other things, and how early-teen Dolly Parton would come all the way to Nville from Butcher Holler (her uncle drove her), and be so exhausted from writing and demo sessions, could barely make it back to the car before passing out. In today's obit, she talks about how much he meant to her (Chet Atkins had recorded her even earlier, and I think released a single, but sent her home, said she wasn't ready for der Process). Great that Cropper got such a trib while still alive, and that it was good (heard a broadcast chunk of the now- deceased John Hartford's trib, with him in attendence, but it sucked). Also good about Keith, esp room for guitar. Saw video for B&R's ""8th of November" today, was reminded that it's not chest-thumping, but ambush and last-minute rescue, with the fiddle casting about in hazy soundscape. Will be just as appropriate on upcoming 8th, and the next, no matter who wins (in Congress, or elewhere)

don (dow), Friday, 3 November 2006 21:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Dierks sings better than Waylon. New album is a really good concept album obviously designed to sound best on a long car trip, best tracks seemingly being "Trying To Stop Your Leaving" and "That Don't Make It Easy Loving Me," which is probably what Edd said up above, though I didn't check just now. Bluegrass closer with the Grascals seems somewhat gratituous but still nice (and livelier than anything I've noticed so far on the new Nickel Creek best-of album -- I'm starting to think I kind of hate that band; they're so introverted it drives me crazy). "Band of Brothers" is B-grade Toby Keith, more or less, but I like it anyway. Excellently onamatopeic or however you spell it use of open space in "Long Trip Alone." "The Heaven I'm Headed To," which Himes lauded as being very philosophically un-Nashville (i.e., prostitutes and renegades can go to heaven too etc) in his Paste review, doesn't really say anything that Big N Rich on their debut (and conceivably Brooks N Dunn, on Red Dirt Road) haven't said before, but that's nothing to hold against it. Anyway, Dierks has a great niche. Free and easy, down the road he goes.

That's a good band on Stereophonic Musical Listenings That Have Been Origin In Moving Film Borat; not clear to me how literal their ripoff/appropriations of Middle Eastern European (or whatever) pop are (for all I know it could just secretly be like one of those Sublime Frequencies albums where the music is all stolen from found cassette tapes) (the "credits" on the CD cover are in real or fake Kazakh, ha ha), but the actual music balances out "In My Country There Is a Problem (Throw The Jew Down The Well)" and "You Be My Wife" (rhymes with "we'll make love whenever I like") appropriately.

The guy in the Country Teasers sings as bad as Borat or Waylon, I've decided. His flatness reminded me of Mark E Smith on Full Moon Empty Sports Bag a couple years ago, but on The Empire Strikes Back: Race And Racism In 70s Britain (almost as good a subtitle as the Borat album!) the shtick's really starting to wear thin for me. If anybody wants to convince me otherwise, I'll listen.

"O Kazakhastan" on Borat's album is on now. It'd fit right in on the new Laibach album Volk, which is their renditions of national anthems from the world over. Maybe they read what Frank wrote about Rammstein making a folk move upthread, and decided to one-up them?

Now Dierks is claiming every mile is a memory. His road shtick could easily wear thin too. But probably not until next album, at least.

xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Has anybody heard the new Lee Ann Womack? Due out 11/21. I just listened to the single on her myspace page. Did Jack Johnson produce this thing or just play the bongos? I think I hate it.

Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Saturday, 4 November 2006 17:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Nickel Creek come out of the prayer closet on Why Should The Fire Die see my groovy review archived at http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/

don (dow), Saturday, 4 November 2006 18:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, did the Silos always sound as bland as they are on their new album? I don't remember ever listening to them before, but I vaguely recall people convincing me over the years that I might like them. But I can't tell if the band has just gone downhill, or if they were always bores to begin with. Explanations would be appreciated.

xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 19:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Christgau suggests downhill, maybe:

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=silos

xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 4 November 2006 19:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Hi yall, I'm reading the latest Music Issue of Oxford American at the Lieberry; somebody stole the CD natch, but seems like mostly good readin', past Roy Blount Jr.'s ramblin whine (which is also qualified in so many places he don't like Bob Dylan, feels implicitly looked down upon for this brave, Politically Incorrect Southern White Male stance, but then again he will concede that Dylan is good at this and that; mainly is offended atillin' Dylan's looseness with words, not like sweet succinct Roy, of course)(which reminds me of one of the better pieces: Bill F-W on logocentrism, beginning with music crits' tendency to review the lyric sheet [anecdote from his time as editor at "an alternative Nashville weekly"], and how he himself avoided writing about instrumentals, ahd how he kind of got past logocentrism in some respects. but I won't tell you the ending. it's pretty cool)Some other goodies too.

don (dow), Saturday, 4 November 2006 22:25 (seventeen years ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.