Big & Rich: Album of the Decade?

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what was wrong with the gourds?

― Turkey versus Eagle, McCauley is my Beagle (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

x post
I like the riffs, too, though they seem more big-rock 80s AOR than country (different discussion). Something about the singing/"rapping" and overall tone holds me back from loving B&R. But there's something compelling about 'em, so I keep listening.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Big & Rich: first pazz/jop poll favorite to be influenced by music on beer commercials!

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Dom told me I would hate Big & Rich with a passion and so I have avoided them at all costs. I trust him implicitly.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I clicked on the link for don allred's two cents but all I got was the main page. I searched on "allred" and didn't find it either. I did find something intriguingly titled Bear Tamer's Music Ladies, or so I thought.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 15:38 (twenty-one years ago)

"Big & Rich: first pazz/jop poll favorite to be influenced by music on beer commercials! "

This made me laugh, but wait, what about Andrew WK? (And maybe "Get Low" and "Whoomp There it Is"? And probably a hundred other things.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I was about to say, it all intertwines somehow. (See also Steve Winwood's "Roll With It," which appeared as a beer ad soundtrack simultaneously and had a video that gained controversy because some judged it clear that Winwood was drinking a Michelob in the video though no label appeared on the bottle.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

" that fat Gretchen Wilson"

This made me laugh harder, though, I have to admit. I won't name names, but some critic already sent in a Pazz and Jop comment to the affect that maybe Gretchen has a great voice, but she'd be better off singing with the Wilson singers than singing country. (Hey, they have the same last name! And one of them is fat too! {Though I don't think Gretchen is, and Fonda didn't have a motor in the back of her Honda etc.) Plus Heart put out a really good album this year! Not that the P&J voter said that, I don't think.) Which I guess = lovebug's "they seem more big-rock 80s AOR than country" above. Though of course I'm not sure why that is supposed to be a bad thing (or why big-rock 80s AOR/Heart and country shouldn't be allowed to overlap, as they long have in both directions. Or why, if somebody thinks B&R and Gretchen are "not country", they can't *love* them as not-country; i.e., since when is country automatically better than not-country anyway? But I am having too much fun repeating myself and will hereby stop now.)

― chuck, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

For some reason the beer talk is reminding me of a spurious genre a friend invented some years back to talk about music he hated:

'country-fried beer rock'

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I love to watch Chuck intellectualize over middle of the road poop

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

You're a stranger in these parts, aren't you, son? Why don't I buy you a drink and then escort you to the local Greyhound station?There's an outbound dog at 3PM.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:46 (twenty-one years ago)

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This talk of beer commercial music reminds me of a phrase I picked up from advertising agent licensing folks: "truckrock"

Apparently it refers to the kind of spray on powerchord macho jinglemusic used in pick up truck ads.

Remember: "Get on your Pontiac and RIDE! Pontiac Ride!"

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry...i didn't realize comments were limited to pretentious writer whores...my apologies

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost

― Space Is the Place (Space Is the Place), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I was just testing you, son. You seem to have the right stuff to me. Do you remember that scene in the Alaska bar when they went to fetch the Wolverine in X-Men? Well, we got ourselves one of those bustups right here tonight, and if you can stay in the cage long enough against all comers, you might take home a nice little purse for yourself.

― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:57 (twenty-one years ago)

space is the place all up in yo face!

― blount, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I was reading the "Why I Love Country Music" thread yesterday and found this entry from Mr. Raggett where he gets all Miss Cleo on our asses and predicts the rise of B&R:

Bubba Sparxx may have something, but that Daft Punk thread got me thinking that we need some sort of hip hop space cowboy for the new millennium -- and I'm not talking about Steve Miller, I'm talking about twang with disco squelch with beats that fucks everything up.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), December 5th, 2003

*ques X-Files theme*

― darin (darin), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

you'll hear more hip-hop lingo in a half-hour of southern sports tonight than the whole b$r oeuvre so i don't know why people make such a big deal out of that on the b$r record.

― blount, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 20:44 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe because b&r have a better sense of rhythm than most sportscasters?

― chuck, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

there's gold in the "rapneck" demographic, I tell ya . . .

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Big and Rich actually remind me a lot of Roxette for some reason.

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

that's the first thing anyone's said that's actually made me want to hear the record.

― Turkey versus Eagle, McCauley is my Beagle (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I love Roxette, but I don't hear the B&R comparison. Please explain!!

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

something about their NYE performance on that Strokey McGee countdown reminded me of them. The rhythm was "Joyride"-ish.

― Riot Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

i dont like how they let the midget on stage the whole time but cowboy troy has to sit backstage most of the show

― chaki in charge (chaki), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

That Ned quote...

...actually made Phoenix's "Funky Squaredance" spring to mind when I first read it (which I like much more than anything by B&R which I still don't understand).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I always wonder what I would think of Big & Rich if my first exposure to them had been on CMT rather than ILM.

― Mike O. (Mike Ouderkirk), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 06:54 (twenty-one years ago)

four weeks pass...

Did anyone else catch the episode of Muzikmafia TV where Big & Rich are going to Willie Nelson's house to meet him and they ask what Willie's impression of them is and their friend sez: "He thinks ya'll are gay". hahahahaha! it was funny. they thought it was funny too. The Kanye West stuff in that episode was good too.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 03:48 (twenty-one years ago)

what is muzikmafia tv?????

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 04:04 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.cmt.com/shows/dyn/muzikmafia_tv/series.jhtml

they showed back-to-back episodes tonight.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 04:06 (twenty-one years ago)

damn you time warner cable for not giving me cmt!

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 04:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I saw that! Hilarity. I was flipping channels and saw Willie Nelson & then had the standard OMGWTFLOL reaction to anything the Big & Rich guys do. Don Imus keeps playing the "Kick My Ass" song on his show. (What can I say, my dad and his friends like Imus, and so I decided to investigate.)

― daria g (daria g), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 04:54 (twenty-one years ago)

B&R were up there in the Nashville Scene's country critics' poll thing. So were Tift Merritt and that Jack White Lynn record.

I was hanging out with a friend of mine who had never seen or heard B&R. We watched some CMT. He just snickered and laughed at that B&R video shot on one of the bridges in Nashville over the Cumberland River. "What the fuck is this?"

I think it's OK, I've grown to somewhat appreciate it. I don't know any other person here in town who takes them seriously at all, they all go "goddam, those New York critics will take *anything* we do seriously." And I don't totally agree, that's just some kind of picque. B&R don't make me laugh or jump up and down or anything, but I think it's good fun, something to think about, significant enough in the evolution of Nashville--maybe Gretchen Wilson is more significant, or Monkey Gentry, you know, in terms of shifting weirdo demographix and all that. As music, well, I am not sure, again--sometimes I quite like it and other times I go, hmm...think I'll just watch Shania Twain ride and sing on her horse in a field of agave or something, she's so lovely...

― es hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

when is that damn poll out, eddie? already?

― The Obligatory Sourpuss (Begs2Differ), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

damn you time warner cable for not giving me cmt!

comcast does the same to me! wtf?!

while i'd *love* to see this, my wife is very glad we don't have it.

― john'n'chicago, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

okay I see it: www.nashscene.com

― The Obligatory Sourpuss (Begs2Differ), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

nine months pass...

REVIVE!

in honor of the release of the new album, let us revisit what is still the best album of the half-decade, shall we?

― my name is john. i reside in chicago. (frankE), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 04:41 (twenty years ago)

I like not love the new one. Second half's better than the first. I do think it's smart of them to ease back on song-times--most of it is under 4 minutes, sometimes even under 3. Looser, rangier, the pieces of the puzzle broken up more but still mostly there. A lot less Cowboy Troy on this one. My favorite is "20 Margaritas," a goofy two-step.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 05:42 (twenty years ago)

their difficult second album

― gear (gear), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 06:14 (twenty years ago)

I'm for law and order, the way that it should be.
This song's about the night they spent protecting you from me.
Someone called this outlaw, in some ol' magazine.
New York sent a posse down like I ain't never seen.

Don't you think this outlaw bit has done got out of hand?
What started out to be a joke, the law don't understand.
Was it singing through my nose that got me busted by the man?
Maybe this here outlaw bit has done got out of hand.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 16 November 2005 11:00 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

how's that decade working out for ya?

― gershy, Friday, 4 May 2007 03:30 (nineteen years ago)

anyone heard new single "Lost In This Moment"? New album in June, apparently ...

― etc, Friday, 4 May 2007 04:18 (nineteen years ago)

Man, I saw a special where they went back to Vietnam with some vet, in order to bury his buddy's boots there, and it was the most amazingly earnest and silly thing imaginable, with Big Kenny traipsing about in his fucking cigar-store Indian garb, doing his best Jim Morrison-at-40 schtick, and Rich struggling to write the most obvious song possible about, you know, how hard it is to deal with, like, losing a friend to the 'Nam, man, and having to bury his boots because his body never came home.
It was so tacky that I wondered if the producer for the Country Music Channel had been deranged by over-indulging in some aerosolized irony.

― I eat cannibals, Friday, 4 May 2007 04:48 (nineteen years ago)

Debut is still my favorite album of the decade.

New album is not. From the rolling country thread:

So, sad news: First cursory listen (or "tracking through," I guess you'd call it -- I only played a couple of the songs from start to finish, so I could well be missing something) to the new Big 'N Rich album on my better half's stereo (as expected, it wouldn't play on mine) pointed toward a MAJOR fucking disappointment. The Wyclef Jean collab "Please Man" (rhymes with "don't call the policeman") reminded me of some jokey reggae-rap-inflected sub-Sublime '90s "alt rock" act, like, I dunno, Cake or whoever, with rap where Wyclef compares himself to Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers and Charlie Daniels that's so clumsy it's embarrasing. And that's followed by the bluegrassed slowed-down de-rocked AC/DC cover, which I guess is supposed to be cute, and winds up being as dumb as when doofus nonentities like Hayseed Dixie or whoever do the same thing. (I mean, it's not even remotely an original idea for crissakes.) The actual AC/DC-like hard rock riffs in "Loud" and (if I'm remembering right) "Radio" seemed more useful, and also as loud as anything then band's done, yet not half as rocking as they've often been; the momentum (and the songwriting) just didn't seem to be there, though maybe it'll kick in. One of those two had some pretty blatant wah-wah; the other one, unless I'm getting mixed up with a different track entirely ("High Five" possibly? I wasn't taking notes), had a dancey, semi-synthesized beat that suggested mid '80s radio rock of some sort; another cut -- "Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace, I think -- had a similar post-disco '80s CHR rhythm with a more light-r&b vocal style, I guess. And there seem to be plenty of dull ballads, though none of them as dull as John Legend's acapella intro to "Eternity." Also a gratuitous intro or two where Big Kenny rails preacher-style against "prejudice in music" or whatever, and by now it just sounds forced and tired. As does, at least on first listen, their whole damn shtick -- it's like they're already well on the way to becoming the joke/novelty band that morons and idiots and nincompoops and retards thought they were when they first came out. Unless I'm being a moron myself right now. Which I kinda hope I am.

-- xhuxk, Saturday, April 28, 2007 6:44 PM (5 days ago)

Second album was somewhere in between, for what it's worth.

― xhuxk, Friday, 4 May 2007 12:13 (nineteen years ago)

Am I the only person who things this is are shit?

― the next grozart, Friday, 4 May 2007 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

the Junior Senior of country

― braveclub, Friday, 4 May 2007 12:20 (nineteen years ago)

I still love this album. A lot. There might be an album or two I'd put ahead of it from the decade, though. I haven't heard "Drinkin' 'bout You" in a couple of years now. Beyond the obvious ones, I still like "Holy Water" and "Deadwood Mountain" and "Live this Life" and even "Saved".

The second album, alas, did nothing for me.

The Wyclef Jean collab
oh my...

― john. a resident of chicago., Friday, 4 May 2007 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks ago i saw a drag king do this song. the crowd went fucking insane.

― Emily Bjurnhjam, Friday, 4 May 2007 14:08 (nineteen years ago)

Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy is long overdue a Poptimism revival I think. The first time I heard it (absolutely off my tits dancing around a flare and a tape player on Sunday night at Glasto 04) still sticks in my head as one of those ridiculously happy moments. I think that was more to do with the booze and silliness and camaraderie and the awesome day that preceded it, but the song helped as well.

― Matt DC, Friday, 4 May 2007 14:15 (nineteen years ago)

seven months pass...

ain't no stopping it now!

― gershy, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 04:45 (eighteen years ago)

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