miranda lambert

maybe it's because the tough ass persona is still there, but you have to listen harder for it

it's just so much more shaded and contextualized and detailed and funny, which is hilarious considering it's on an album by PISTOL ANNIES called HELL ON HEELS

"Beige" is such an instant classic. What I would do to hear Dolly sing it.

yeah the tough-ass persona is so great here because it's treated as such, and it sounds fun and funny, whereas in her solo work it has to come across as Authentic and Real because Real Country people only care about Authentic Music. Even though I find something like "I put a bullet in my radio" to be hilarious, it isn't presented as such while something like "ol' what's-his-name I met in a bar" is taking such evident glee in playing a part. But of course I've heard "Baggage Claim" on the radio a bunch, and "Hell on Heels" not once.

really hate the title "Four The Record" btw, yeesh. I hope it follows Revolution's path of underwhelming lead single to secret bangers. DLH, anything as good as Revolution's stretch of two-minute songs? She should do more two-minute songs.

oh man "Beige" is totally a Dolly song

there's a great song on four the record called "mama's broken heart" about her mom calling her up to lecture her about how she's been behaving post-breakup ("word got around to the barflies and the baptists / my mama's phone started ringin off the hook") and there are some other good ones too but nah i didn't think there was anything "me and your cigarettes"-level. it also has way fewer songs with a miranda writing credit than any of her other albums; i think maybe she was concentrating on the pistol annies record? where she co-wrote everything.

Lop off the first and last tracks on that Pistol Annies and it's my record of the year. Honestly, though, I'm a little more impressed by Ashley Monroe on there, not to take anything away from the other two, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the success of this album means Ashley's next one actually gets released.

she sort of looks and sounds a little too much like Lee Ann Womack for me, but her writing is great

Yeah, Monroe and Presley have more to gain from the help.

Checking songs out via youtube and I'm impressed.

Housewife's Prayer is stunning.

"Lemon Drop" and "Trailer For Rent" are my favorites.

Listened to this for the first time over the weekend. Very nice.

I kinda like Ashley Monroe's Satisfied as well. I absolutely love "Hank's Cadillac", and I like her slightly different take on Chamber's "Pony". Kasey sounds a bit too precious when she sings it, but Ashley gives it a slightly sassy feel that really works.

I saw Ashley sing "Has Anybody Ever Told You" on the Ten Out of Tenn tour in 2009. Absolute showstopper. Blew the other 9 off the stage.

last stretch of posts = v good reading

in "housewife's prayer", what's the washing machine a reference to in the second verse? it feels really sinister, especially connected to "i've been thinking about going off the deep end". if the first verse is about arson, what the second verse brings to mind is murder, and she'd need the washing machine to wash away the evidence.

i didn't realise a solo lambert album was also on the way, like others i wasn't really grabbed by the last one, but hell on heels is pretty special imo.

Yeah I just saw that today and was surprised to see it so soon after the Pistol Annies album.

wow lex, I hadn't thought about it that way. To me it sounds like something about hands being faded, due to not having a washing machine, but your reading is certainly more intriguing

also that housewife trick of putting babby on top of washing machine to calm it down? I dunno

My review: http://thequietus.com/articles/07029-pistol-annies-hell-on-heels-review

What exactly does she say after "All I need is a washing machine because..." - something about hands.

She then circles around to all her pills (and alcohol - self destructive) and her sexual frustration. A murder fantasy seems out of place in the middle. Seems like she'd be much more likely to kill herself.

Oh - and nice review!

I knew someone would call me out for my purposely contracting the time b/w Tupelo and Wilco but whatever. Toby Keith >>> Wilco

eh Uncle Tupelo & Toby Keith are up to very different things & you're just buying into the dumb media narrative that UT were "country" & thus that TK is a reasonable comparison. UT were trying to sound like Neil Young circa 1969 with a midwestern leftist lyrical sensibility: would it be clarifying to compare NY with TK unfavorably for the relative lack of clarity in his narratives?

to my ears UT sounds more like Comes a Time-era Neil Young if Young should enter this conversation at all.

you must be listening to the wrong UT album (yeah yeah maybe you're thinking "all of them"). maaaaybe the acoustic record has that sound but the guitars on Anodyne, particularly on Farrar's songs, rage, whereas Comes A Time, no matter how much I like it, is a dinner party album.

Tweedy was mostly a dog in UT, I'll give you that (also think a Wilco / TK comparison misses the point, but I guess you're writing to your audience)

Love the Pistol Annies album.

Maybe that's why the tunes dependent on the aural equivalent of the woman parts in Judd Apatow films are the weakest, the worst of which is 'Takin' Pills', an infrequent example of striking poses instead of commenting on them.

Exactly. Well done, Alfred. "Takin' Pills" is the only one I don't care for, and you pretty much nailed why.

Surprised no mention of "Beige," though, which I think is the album's best tune.

Surprised no mention of "Beige," though, which I think is the album's best tune.

I think it is too. Was discussed earlier, though.

it's weird; at work I usually have to listen to country music radio approx 3 hours a day. I've heard "Baggage Claim" a WHOLE lot, but haven't heard any Pistol Annies songs yet; is the industry giving this a proper push?

It debuted at #1 on the country chart and in the regular top ten; don't know about promotional efforts.

then they should be playing it on the radio here; maybe i'm just not listening closely enough...?

I don't know Lambert's label, and if Pistol Annies are on it too. Could the company be saving its promotional money for Lambert's album?

I don't know what they're putting into the Annie's album, but Ashley Monroe deserves to get some attention out of this project. It feels like the album just snuck up on us.

xp from what I can see they are both released by Columbia Nashville, so that's a distinct possibility, Alfred.

Fully expecting this new album to be amazing, based on what I've been hearing of it.

Listening to the new Miranda Lambert - it's great. I was scared when I heard "Baggage Claim" about a month ago - I didn't expect there to be much versatility on this album, but she's pulled it off. And she covers "Look At Miss Ohio" which instantly won me over.

An improvement on the last one? I found Revolution to be a bit of a disappointment, but the Pistol Annies album has me really excited for this one.

I'm not convinced yet. "All Kinds of Kinds" mentions a congressman who wears dresses on Friday night, "Mama's Broken Heart" wishes her daughter lived a life less dramatic than when JFK's Camelot went down in flames, but the rest sounds tentative – so far.

Revolution disappointed me as well. I love the Pistol Annies album as well, but it's definitely not a continuation of their album. She's let a lot of other songwriters in on this one, and she chose well. I'd say (after one listen) that it's better than Revolution. It feels like the kind of album you slowly sink into.

Revolution's problem was zealous mixing and sequencing, not songs.

I'm going to re-listen to Revolution and see if I notice the same problem with the sequencing and mixing. To be honest, I didn't give the album that many plays - got lost in the shuffle.

I really like the way she doesn't overwhelm us with attitude on Four the Record but it's still very much there.

Decent feature.

Will be buying this tomorrow

I should note that Revolution defines "sleeper hit"; after a tentative start it's quietly become her most successful album -- the one that made her a star. Two #1 singles more than a year after its release, another pair of top fifteens....

i like miranda lambert

yay! I knew you would.

i'm glad you're pleased

I dunno, after two listens this definitely feels like her least successful. It all seems fairly unfocused, though there is a side benefit of it sounding a lot looser and warmer than her other records. I just think the words fail her, and seeing the writing credits is illuminating in that regard; it makes a lot of sense that the overblown and soggy one she does with her husband is partially written by the guy in Lady Antebellum (who also co-wrote my least favorite song on Revolution). But even the ones she has a hand in are mushy and toothless.

Also she's always been good with covers, but does she add anything to "Look At Miss Ohio"? The original sounds defiant, and this one just sounds pretty and aimless.

Regardless of its issues, I do like the way she seems to swing on here. "All Kinds of Kinds" is kind of the perfect opener in its sense of expansiveness and inclusivity, "Mama's Broken Heart" is a total killer, "Dear Diamond" has a nice stark uneasiness, "Same Old You" and "Easy Living" sound totally vintage (in an alternate universe, the latter is a Bessie Smith track). I might be overrating "Nobody's Fool" because of the two songs it follows.

it's sort of telling that "Fine Tune" is her first song that deals explicitly with sexuality as a source of pleasure (as opposed to the rape and murder and cheatin'), and it's pretty goofy. Kind of endearing, but also kind of limp. Much like the record as a whole, but then again Revolution didn't hit me till I played it in a car, so maybe I should get on that.