Rolling Country 2006 Thread

An indie hipster countrypolitan (between inverted commas no doubt) revival, if that's what Edd's post about L.A. is predicting above, sounds like potentially the most annoying thing since the indie hipster Esquivel revival of the mid '90s, but I will keep my ears open and try my damnedest to stay awake, I promise. I guess the indie hipsters like how unmacho and emo countrypolitan is? And I guess some people liked that album last year by Bonnie Prince Billy or whatever his name is. And didn't Ween make a "countypolitan" album once? God I hate that kinda shtick. Don't hate countrypolitan, but there are many things I like more, I gotta say. Still, definitely a subject for future research. Been listening to this new Time Life compilation CD *Classic Country: Sweet Country Ballads,* and it seems like a nice little overview of the subgenre; I already knew and liked the Eddy Arnold, Ray Price, Charlie Rich, Glen Campbell, Bobby Bare, Don Gibson, Skeeter Davis, and Bobby Goldsboro tracks (make the world go away for the good times behind closed doors by the time i get to phoenix detroit city i can't stop loving you the end of the world honey), but for a bunch of those artists it's the only song I know by them, and the only one of them I've ever investigated in detail is Glen Campbell, who had tons of hits I love. I used to own a couple Charlie Rich LPs; stupid of me to get rid of them. Never have connected with Charlie Pride, whose "I Can't Believe You Stopped Loving Me" is on here; probably my loss. Bobby Goldsboro had better hits than "Honey" (i.e., "The Straight Life," hey what I can say, I like crackers and beer) but I had no idea he was ever considered country, if he in fact ever was. Favorite track I don't recall hearing before so far: "Abeline" by George Hamilton IV. Didn't know he was country, either. Dates range from 1958 to 1970; when did "countrypolitan" (the sound and/or word, which Time Life doesn't use in its title by the way) actually start?

Either way, I'm afraid right now I'd rather listen to the the Little Big Town album, which is more pop than earthy no matter what Don thinks. Sounds better every time I listen; if I did my Nasvhille Scene list over again, I'd definitely list it a few slots higher than #10; possibly even as high as #3. Anyway, Frank: Song credits in the CD sleeve (with copyrights ranging from 2002 for "Stay" -- wait, is that cover? authors don't seem to be people in the band -- to 2005 for most of the rest) don't seem to list lead singers, for some reason; just (session, I assume?) musicians. (Also, Frank, you seemed to say above that they'd been dropped from Sony; was there an earlier album? Or did Sony never put one out?) The slush guy singing in both "Bring it On Home" and "Stay" DOES sound more Eagles than Fleetwood Mac to me --actually, he sounds a lot like Don Henley, and yeah, these are definitely a couple of the lesser tracks, as is "Fine With Me", the melody of which starts out reminding me of some Lionel Richie countryish song (ie "Stuck on You" or "Sail On" or maybe "Easy" I guess) then turns into something else obvious I can't out my finger on. The tracks emphasizing girl voices are definitely better than the tracks without them. But it's not just the harmonies that remind me of Fleetwood Mac - it's also some of the melodies, and I swear there's Lindsey Buckinghamness in some of the guitar parts. One day maybe I'll sit down and take notes and pinpoint where. (Also, it turns out the one line in "Mean Streak" - still my favorite track - I coudn't pinpoint on the '05 thread is "like a frat boy at Hell Week." I can definitely see these people appealing to a frat/jam audience, if such a crowd heard them; they're for sure more rock than Nickel Creek, who I get the idea said crowd already likes.) (Though they're not as earthy as NC, Don! And maybe that would bug the fratters?)

Finally, Povertyneck Hillbillies again: They sent a DVD as well as their CD, and it's quite entertaining, especially the documentary about them coming together in Western Pennsy and winding up with the biggest song on Pittsburgh's "Froggy" commercial country station a summer or two ago off a self-released CD they sold from the back of their tour bus; supposedly, in Pittsburgh, according to a radio station guy on the DVD, they're as big as Montgomery Gentry or Alan Jackson or Kenny Chesney, and the live shows on the DVD seemed to kinda confirm that, though sometimes it was hard to tell to what extent this was staged. I prefer to think of them as a musical equivalent of minor league baseball, which is a pretty cool idea when you think about it. Said local hit is the superdupercatchy love-the-one-you're-with/you're-all-I've-got-tonight "Mr. Right Now" (as in I may not be Mr. Right but I'm Mr. Right Now), and it's more loveable on the DVD than on the CD, as is "Hillbilly State of Mind," since that one shows just about everybody in the audience (including all the pretty girls and a couple less pretty ones who were apparently all urged to stand in the front row during filming plus two little girls in cowboy hats the band brings on stage) doing this completely silly hand-jive dance where they make deer antlers with their hands and show the corn growing up and pump their fists in the air and stuff. DVD has a couple songs that aren't on the CD as well, and the concert on it ends with a nice healthy guitar solo at the end of "Any Road." Singer wears a snazzy black cowboy shirt with a crucifix-shaped cross on either side of its chest, but there's no other Christian imagery I notice. A whole lot of off-roading, fishing, and clay pigeon shooting, though.

I was wondering the same thing this weekend. David Cantwell, who is working on a book about the Nashville Sound (tentatively called Make the World Go Away), isn't sure either, but the term probably dates from the '50s, though it's since been used mostly for the '70s, which is kinda interesting. I'm guessing Billboard put it into circulation but can't find a ref.

Playing new Shooter Jennings album, *Electric Rodeo* now. Sounds great, though sometimes he still sings like Kid Rock. Doubt there's a song I'll love as much as "4th of July," but overall, I'm thinking right away that it's the way more consistent album of the two. The title/opening track and "Bad Magick" are as heavy metal as anything on the debut. Also like the (non Nazareth) hangover head-holder "Hair of the Dog," the cocaine lament "Little White Lines" (where you hear Shooter sniff in the middle and a cop stops him and he seems to refuse a breathalizer then the cop asks him the shave something but he never says what), "Alligator Chomp (The Ballad of Martin Luther Frog Jr") (total Jerry Reed "Amos Moses" swamp-funk rap-neck racial allegory); and at least the hoedown choo-choo chug opening of "Manifesto No. 2" (where he also catches his woman with another man so he shoots her with a shotgun) and the country jazz conclusion of "(The) Living Proof" (dumb question, but is that his daddy's song? Seems familiar, but I'm no Waylon expert.) Also, plenty of winding-road Allmans boogie, and a few goofy lines in "Aviators" (one of a couple Kid-Rock style clumsy ballads) where he takes a date to waffle house and he shoots her dog and slashes her dad's tires but she just don't understand his strange kind of wit.

Tom Keifer hair-metal CMT ballad I mean (hence its inclusion on this thread.)

Related question: Did Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" sound at all country or southern rock in 1988? If so, I sure never noticed. But Shooter seems to swipe its riff in one of the Allmansy tracks on the new album, and a couple country acts (Montgomery Gentry and Chris Cagle) have covered it. So is it possible that it always sounded Southern rock, and nobody noticed at the time? Or did the cowboy on steel horse and stuff just inspire country people to reinvent it, the way, say, early '80s punks claimed and reinvented "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers, and mid '60s punks claimed and reinvented "Louie Louie" and "Hey Joe"? Either way, it's a clear influence on the modern CMT sound.

ah, the old "what does 'rocking' mean" debate again. shooter definitely has louder guitars, but if we're talking about sheer momentum and/or fuck-the-world attitude this might be an interesting debate.

The first pop song I ever loved. 1963. Gorgeous. Sad. Cited birds. They were singing. But they shouldn't have been.

My favorite song so far in 2006 is "Hair of the Dog" by Shooter Jennings, about him waking up after drinking too much alchohol. My second favorite song on his new album so far is "Little White Lines," which is about him waking up after snorting too much cocaine (and what the cop asks him to shave is his face, apparently), and which has a pretty darn heavy riff, it turns out - definitely seems to rock harder than "Bad Magick," which needs more tune to go with its heaviosity; may well rock harder than the title track as well. Some of the tracks go into totally blatant funk breaks in the middle, too. Definitely a hard rocking Southern boogie album, and a real good one.

Finally kinda made peace with Bobby Bare's *The Moon Was Blue* this morning; after months, I've decided I'll keep the dang thing, though I still find some parts (e.g., "Are You Sincere" where I'm still not sure that "Bobby Bobby Bobby" is what those canned backup singers are chanting and the production of which sounds all scuzzy for no reason I can fathom, the Stereolab-produce-Langley Schools junk of "Fellow Travelers") unbearably kitschy. The cover songs are almost all better than the non-covers. Didn't notice til now that "Shine On Harvest Moon" is basically Western Swing. And "Am I That Easy to Forget" has incidental sounds as weird the ones in "Everybody's Talkin'" (which is a great track), or pretty close to it. And yeah, Bobby may well sing "Ballad of Lucy Jordan" better than Marianne Faithful did.

I talked about James McMurtry's 2005 album, which I guess I'll also keep with reservations, on that No Depression thread. Just wannna add here that, when Joe Ely's voice replaces McMurtry's fairly deadassed one in "Slew Foot," the thing somehow sounds way more alive all of a sudden. Go figure. (I hadn't even noticed on the album cover he was on there, then I heard him, and thought "holy shit, that's Joe Ely.")

xps

Both of whom, at least when they recited prose about popular kids and detachable penises, were probably funnier. So no, really probably NOT worthy. (Not that funniness is all I care about. And it does occur to me that titles like "Aftermath USA" and "A World Of Hurt" might mean this CD's supposed to be about current events or something, somehow.)

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/20ryanadams.html

I think they're all covers.

Was a self-titled album on Sony/Monument. It flopped.

But it's not just the harmonies that remind me of Fleetwood Mac - it's also some of the melodies, and I swear there's Lindsey Buckinghamness in some of the guitar parts. One day maybe I'll sit down and take notes and pinpoint where.

The circular return-to-drone motion on "Bones" and the song's first blast of vocal harmony are both right out of "The Chain," though this emphasizes to me how much more intense "The Chain" and "Gold Dust Woman" and "Go Your Own Way" and "Dreams" are than anything on The Road to Here. That said, those four Rumours tracks were as intense as anything else from 1977 that wasn't "I Feel Love" or "Anarchy in the U.K." (or "Bodies" or "EMI" or "God Save the Queen"). (That I can think of off-hand.) ("Complete Control" was 1978, wasn't it?) So this is not to denigrate Little Big Town too much, but there is something missing, lack of a killer instinct, so far. But I'm enjoying the heck out of the album anyway, if not the hell, and I like "Boondocks" a lot even when its pandering to the prime audience's insecurities makes me say "Damn their lies."

Yeah, this was a good example of the comic overloading of preposterous metaphor that I was praising last week:

Cold as a concrete
Tough as a back street
Like a fratboy in hell week
Babe with a mean streak

Also:

Tough as a dry creek
Sharp as a hawk's beak
Comin' fast as a stampede
Babe, you got a mean streak

Probably deserves inclusion on The Rough Guide to Co-Dependent Relationships Vol. 2. "How to have fun as the victim in an abusive relationship. A special report at 11:00."

This is the song that has the line, "Hey what's the deal with your Jeckyl and Hyde?" Also, if I heard correctly, they go "Hot as my Harley/Burns like a dry heave." Whew! She's really up against it!

Oops. Guess I should've said: The covers of songs I heard before are almost all better than the covers of songs I didn't hear before.

So the high-voiced Drive By Trucker is Patterson Hood, right? At least that's what Xgau tells me. Only place on the new one where his Neil Young and Crazy Horse beauty really hits a dust-storm of paydirt, to my ears, is "A Blessing and A Curse." I've decided not to vouch for "Goodbye," which he might not even sing, or "A World Of Hurt." "Daylight" seems to be an awful attempt at Radiohead (via My Morning Jacket?) style nothingness; "Wednesday" is rote bland alt-country; "Space City" another bore. "Gravity's Gone" is a passable second Stones rip (also mentions coke I think -- actually, seems to be about some sort of high-fallutin schmooze party), but not nearly up to the level of "Aftermath USA," probably the only great cut on here (though I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this).

Bon Jovi "Have a Nice Day." Doesn't seem particularly country to me, though I wouldn't mind if country did drift in this direction, since this is far better than "You Can't Go Home," and more Shanksy, since this one he co-wrote as well as co-produced. I think - or hope - the title is meant sarcastically, though it will be taken straight by the listening audience, since most people will just ride with this sound and not register irony. The only line I jotted was "We're livin' in the broken home of hopes and dreams." Uh, John/Jon, perhaps you need to call on Ashlee, who can write this family-drama stuff for reals, with feeling (but in that case, you might as well have her sing it).

Newsflash: eventually the bowls of cocaine start to work against you. When he gets his nose out of the party favors, Patterson is the high voice singer. I've only heard that Feb 14th track, which I thought was OK but kind of unrealized as southern fried power pop, and I like southern fried power pop.

Yeah, I'm kinda amazed that hasn't happened to Shooter yet!

Avett Brothers *Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions* makes me sick to my stomach. What is it, "old timey" music for Barenaked Ladies and Moxy Fruvous fans or something? Or maybe the singer got drunk and is wearing a lampshade on his voice. God this thing sucks.

Let's see, according to the bio on his Webpage, "Before he even graduated [high school], he was in pop queen Teena Marie's band." Then he did whatever he did, which included producing "Breathe" for Melissa Etheridge (I don't even think I've heard this song, but my general feeling is that Melissa oversings songs to their ultimate demise), and from there started writing, playing, producing for a whole lot of others, including co-writing co-producing "Steve McQueen" for Sheryl Crow, a song that is nice but ho-hum in comparison to most of what she'd done previously. Anwyay, songs he's written or produced that one could vaguely call country-related include SheDaisy's "Come Home Soon" and Stevie Nicks' "Trouble in Shangri-La" (which I used to own and right now can't recall, so I don't know how country it is, but it's, you know, Stevie), and maybe can include Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway," which could have been country if it hadn't already been something else. And - now this is where Shanks starts to have a serious country impact - Keith Urban's "Somebody Like You," which lived at number one on the country charts for a couple of months in 2002. Shanks wrote but did not produce it; being Urban's, it's done with an easy touch. Just skips along, rides a nice breeze, probably a lot harder to do well than it appears, but only catches fire for me during Keith's guitar rave-up at the end (which I suspect most radio listeners didn't get a chance to hear). But then, it's not trying to catch fire. It's way more palatable than most sap in the pop country range. Nice. But it has little to do with why I'm now trying to find out whatever I can about Shanks. The why is "Fly" by Hilary Duff, which would have been my single of the year in 2004 if I'd been giving Duff much attention; "La La" by Ashlee Simpson, which was my number three this year and would have been number one if Shanks and Simpson hadn't tried too hard to make it sound tough; and a whole bunch more: all of the crucial Ashlee tracks, and the woman has yet to put out a bad or merely so-so single; "First" and the other tracks that broke Lohan onto the radio; "Come Clean," Duff's first great single; and back in 2001, Michelle Branch's "Everywhere," which preceded Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me"* and Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" onto the airwaves and helped to set a pattern: personal (or personal-seeming) lyrics but with, no matter how pensive the rest of the song, a chorus that wails. So far Shanks seems to do best with the young women (and when Kara DioGuardi is on board as one of his co-writers); he doesn't have just one sound. He's gotten delicate beauty from Hilary and hot fire from Ashlee. I'm not sure what to make of his Bon Jovi involvement. I'd call "Have a Nice Day" below-average for a Shanks single, but Shanks has done worse. He's still a subject for further research.

(*On his Webpage he gives himself credit for "additional production" on Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me," but this is not listed on the album notes, which credit Dallas Austin.)

Shanks-related songs I haven't so far heard include Fleetwood Mac's "Peacekeeper," Vertical Horizon's "I'm Still Here," Alanis Morissette's "Everything."

http://gritz.net/

but their new record
is quite fun and bluegrass-pop
I am in favor