Rolling country 2007 thread

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I think you have to bracket your links now. Check formatting help at bottom of screen

I see "hyperlink" instructions, but no just plain regular link instructions.

But nope, I will not complain about how damnedably unreadable and user-unfriendly this board has become. That would be unseemly. Though I do have a headache, regardless.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 22 February 2007 02:47 (nineteen years ago)

I couldn't get it to work when I first tried it on the SXSW thread, but if you ignore "My Link Title" in the formatting instructions, you can make links:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/lantanamusic

― Roy Kasten, Thursday, 22 February 2007 04:51 (nineteen years ago)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/littlerachelcd

cool! assuming this works.

and i am sitll liking little rachel despite my reservations about such retrofied stuff. she has a voice! and hooks, and bawdy words. and gurls singing such stuff is almost always by definition more fun than if boys were singing it.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 22 February 2007 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

oops i mean:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/littlerachelcd

― xhuxk, Thursday, 22 February 2007 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

Miranda Lambert's "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Like her voice--she really sounds like the manager of the Fresh Foods section of the Dollar General store, and the backing seems about perfect for it. Like the one about being stuck in a dry town without a beer, and she seems sensible, maybe even essentially secular in some ways on the waltz "Love Letters." And I find it cool that the coolest song, aesthetically, on the record is called "Desperation," which advises "there's danger in frustration." She just seems like a total natural to me, which means I'm probably being fooled. Doesn't seem frustrated in the least, buy this woman a six-pack and the most she'll allow is that it's "Guilty in Here," but wonders "is it just me," since she apparently just wants to get out and have a good time in a world where the old 'uns all have a wedding ring and the young ones are just too dumb. She ain't crazy, needs to find a new and better club that suits her really fucking snazzy beats and great bridge on "Guilty in Here," perhaps move out west and make really good sandwiches in a nice, clean health-food joint in a resort town, and keep on shaking it. Fine record.

― whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 22 February 2007 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

Charlie doesn't really seem to develop his own real vocal personality until a few songs in. I guess what I'm saying is that, judging from this collection, I prefer him doing soul, blues, jazz (even "Pictures and Paintings," on now, which people on the ILM thread seemed to have mixed feelings about), countrypolitan, maybe even gospel, than rockabilly. In general anyway

to get a full appreciation of charlie rich's rockabilly years, i highly recommend the 2-LP set original hits and midnight demos. not sure if it ever came out on cd or not. but it's loaded with early nuggets demonstrating that he had has his own thing going on even when he was in full-on elvis sun records mode.

― fact checking cuz, sort of, Friday, 23 February 2007 02:34 (nineteen years ago)

Okay, some updated thoughts on sundry stuff:

Little Rachel: Her retro-kitsch meter (including for "Bartender Baby," one of the songs I'd thought I was liking) is starting to inch, maybe inevitably, into the red. I think I will put her CD on the bench for a bit then get back to it.

Lantana: Not as consistently poppy and boppy as I'd hoped (or as their Shania Twain Times Three looks would suggest), but they definitely have their moments. The REO Speedwagon cover is fun. More interesting, though, might be their ability (in "Ride 'Em Cowboy" for instance oddly enough) (Save a horse ride a cowgirl?) to incorporate (often downbeat even) blues sounds without signifying remotely as "rootsy" or "retro". In fact their bluesier numbers frequently seem to be some of their best songs. Hmm...

Sunny Sweeny: Just got this. First impression is that she's got good melodies and some good specifics in her lyrics (right now she's busted down in Lufkin, wherever that is, and her baby is waking up in Morgan City, wherever that is, and I probably got the names of the towns wrong, and she's heading out to Abeline etc etc), but her voice might be a little too small and squeaky a bit too often. Though not in the Lufkin Morgan City Abeline song come to think of it (which would be "East Texas Pines.") Also not in her good cover of the great "16th Avenue," previously associated (at least to me) with the still-underrated (and never small and squeaky) Lacy J Dalton.

Renegade Rail: Another cdbaby band (link below), blistering Missouri hard rock country. Maybe even blistering grunge country -- "Need For Speed" makes a riff similar to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (i.e., feels more like Nirvana than like the Kingsmen or Boston or Sisters of Mercy to me) swing; vocal chorus in "Crazy" seems to possibly owe its grunty technique to Alice in Chains or Temple of the Dog or somebody, though I can't think of any Alice or Temple songs I like this much. So far I'm thinking: great guitar player, great rhythm section, passable singer. Who has yet to get in the way.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/renegaderail3

― xhuxk, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:23 (nineteen years ago)

oops, I will get used to this eventually I promise. (I'm adaptable!)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/renegaderail3

― xhuxk, Friday, 23 February 2007 12:24 (nineteen years ago)

Renegade Rail's "Evening News" (sad lovely Southern Rock, closer to Marshall Tucker than to grunge) is intriguing: Seems to be maybe pro Iraq war, sung from the point of view of a soldier who's been overseas two years and is counting his "five days and a wakeup" (that's real Army short-timer talk! I remember!) til rotating back to the States (must've been written before tours of duty were extended?), and how the TV news never notes that they're doing a good job over there. "We fought the fight, we're almost done" seems somewhat deluded, to say the least. "We made the good guys free and the bad guys turn and run" also. But I like the mood of the song, and how it's probably better than Husker Du's "Turn on the News," and how the line "without my soldiers angels we're all done" reminds me of Beyonce'. (Also, it never mentions Iraq, so why should I read that into it? Hard not to.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 23 February 2007 13:19 (nineteen years ago)

A couple final notes about 2000's Rebecca Lynn Howard (most of the copyrights on which are 1997 or 1998, I now notice -- maybe it took the CD a while to hit the streets?): I also like "You're Real," pop-country r&b with Motown bassline and smooth-jazz sax parts and " Move Me," fun big-voiced Urban Cowboy-style country pop about looking for a guy in blue jeans. Also, one of the bubblecountry tracks raved about above, "When My Dreams True," turns out to have a light but undenaible funk lilt to it. Lyric that kinda creeps me out: "Jesus, Daddy and You," about three kinds of love.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 24 February 2007 18:39 (nineteen years ago)

Little Rachel ...is considerably more engaging and less offensive than, um, Cherry Poppin Daddies ... Meanwhile, on a related topic, "Candyman" by Christina Aguilera...

...turns out to be the song that mentions cherries poppin'. Decided I like it about equally with "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne, and more than "Bird Flu" by M.I.A. But it's more Bette Midler doing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" than Dr. Buzzard doing "Cherchez La Femme," I think. Which is to say: Not all that far from Little Rachel after all. Best thing about Christina's song is the "sippin on a bottle of vodka double wine" chant done by the soldiers in the video at the beginning and in the middle; they've got more punch than she does (which is not to suggest she's punchless.) Avril's song meanwhile is hey hey you you get off of my cloud get into my car Mickey you're so fine you blow my mind hey Mickey, but not nearly as good as that implies, and not as good as most of the songs on Skye Sweetnam's debut album, either. (Not that this has anything to do with country, I guess.) M.I.A.'s song is...a confusing mess. I dunno, maybe I need to hear it more. As of now, I'd say it doesn't rank with her best stuff. I guess I'd prefer if had more of a tune to it.

Back in country country, Sunny Sweeney's album is growing on me quickly, and though I have reservations about her little girl voice, it's bigger than I'd thought. "Next Big Nothing" is funny. Lacy J Dalton cover is really great.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 02:04 (nineteen years ago)

(Though to the Christina song's credit, its sound does seem to open up beyond retro kitsch as the song progresses. So yeah, it's better than Avril's, I guess. Which is probably the most reigned in of the three. M.I.A.'s song hits me as art grandstanding, basically. Albeit art grandstanding bombarding you with beats, which counts for a lot, obviously. I do like it, just don't love it. Though I can imagine I might if it catches me by surprise in some public setting.) (And yeah, this all belongs on the teenpop thread. But I lost that thread's plot ages ago, and every time I try to catch up, it loses me again.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 02:24 (nineteen years ago)

So anyway, has anybody heard Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" yet? I'm not finding it on cmt.com, and the live performance from the Dunkin Donuts Center (!?) on youtube is inaudible. Very promising title, though!

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 03:07 (nineteen years ago)

Can't contribute to the country musings herein, and should probably just stay off this altogether (and WILL stay out of it after this, promise), but I feel like saying something about the Aguilera/M.I.A./Avril records Chuck discusses above (in part because I'm trying to properly "review" them and am struggling). "Candyman" is the sort of song I feel I should hate on principal, but in fact, I do like it. It's the first thing I've even been able to listen to by her since "Genie in a Bottle," probably because it does remind me so much of Bette's version of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (with funnier words), and I guess because, similarly, it sounds like a glam-by-assocation kind of song (though I guess you'd have to say glam-twice-removed-by-association) in that Midler made the Andrews Sisters seem like glam icons (Roxy Music's backup singers even dressed like them). It was like boogie woogie (as a sub-genre, I mean) very briefly became one of glam rock's many sideshow attractions, similar to how Cabaret made the Weimar Republic seem totally glam. (This would probably be a good place also to say something about Mika's "Grace Kelly" and the Killers's "Read My Mind," which fall into yet other wings of glitter rock--not to mention Fergie's wonderful "Glamorous"--but I digress). Like Chuck, I thought the M.I.A. was a complete mess at first, didn't hear any melody, etc., but now it's totally working for me. Chuck says, "Though I can imagine I might if it catches me by surprise in some public setting." This happened for me, sort of--the video actually provided that context in a way (not quite the same as hearing it outdoors amongst real people, granted), and it warmed me up to the song a lot. Not only is there almost no melody, there's also no chorus--it's a pretty outrageous song, all beats and artillery and bird sqwawks. I'm coming around to the Avril song, too, but don't have much to say about it--I think i just really like the delays on her voice in the chorus, and I imagine it'll be a pretty huge wedding anthem this year, and for me that's a very good thing.

(Sorry to butt in. Back to the country talk, which I enjoy reading btw, not that I'm even remotely successful at keeping up with it all.)

― sw00ds, Sunday, 25 February 2007 06:09 (nineteen years ago)

It's the first thing I've even been able to listen to by her since "Genie in a Bottle,"

Me too! I liked "Ain't No Other Man" or whatever it was called last year "in theory" (i.e., the beats) (i.e., I totally understood why other people liked it), but really could've taken or leaven it myself. Didn't get "Beautiful" at all.

Avril's bleacher beats sound more glam to me than Christina's bugles though.

Now if somebody could hijack this thread back for country, that'd be great. (Which reminds me: Where are Don, Edd, Matt, Andrew, etc. this week?)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

So anyway, has anybody heard Toby Keith's "High Maintenance Woman" yet?

it's billy joel's "uptown girl"! as sung by dwight yoakam!

it's good, not great, on first listen. then again, inasmuch as he's probably human, there was no way he was going to follow up white trash with money with anything but a disappointment. and it's not a crushing disappointment at all. it rocks and it's catchy. it's just a bit by-the-numbers and ordinary.

― fact checking cuz, Sunday, 25 February 2007 15:54 (nineteen years ago)

by "ordinary," i mean (a) as plumbing-as-sex-metaphor songs go, you've heard it a thousand times before and you know exactly where it's going, and (b) it's missing some of the ambition of the arrangements of both the rockers and ballads on white trash.

but it's a good country-rock song.

― fact checking cuz, Sunday, 25 February 2007 16:02 (nineteen years ago)

Thanks, FCC. And so, speaking (in most cases) of "just a bit by-the-numbers", here are some album-tracks-that-sound-like-album tracks that have inexplicably (for the most part) hit the country chart as singles in recent weeks, and the order in which I like them (I just re-listened to them all):

1. Montgomery Gentry – “Lucky Man”
2. Eric Church – “Guys Like Me”*
3. Little Big Town - “A Little More You”**
4. Taylor Swift – “Teardrops On My Guitar”
5. Kellie Pickler – “I Wonder”***
6. Alan Jackson – “A Woman’s Love”

* - this would actually be better if it weren't for the sappy stuff about rich girls like you who like poor guys like eric (speaking of "uptown girl').
** - sleazy porn-photographer subtext with this one, I'm now noticing.
*** - thought this was about her dad; apparently its her mom instead

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 16:04 (nineteen years ago)

(Mom-who-abandoned-her, in the Pickler song's case. I think. In the youtube clip from The View, she can't make it through the song without crying.)

(And no, the Little Big Town song does not hold a candle to Andrea True Connection's "More More More," Van Morrison's "Blue Money," or the Fabulous Poodles' "Tit Photographer Blues." But I still like it pretty well.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 16:13 (nineteen years ago)

I'm here...I'm here. They axed me to re-register, so that's me, "whisperin' edd." my tribute to bill anderson. wonder if anyone else has heard the miranda lambert, which I really like. just got something new by martina mcbride but haven't had the heart to play it yet. and the new nashville-recorded jorma kaukonen record, stars in my crown is nice, the old jefferson tuna picker can't sing a lick but sure plays nice, does a good original called "fur piece rag" on which he doesn't sing, and does all right by rev. gary davis.

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 25 February 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

6. Alan Jackson – “A Woman’s Love”

Also, I just wanna say that it was boring-assed generica like this (mostly on the second half of the record) that made me underrate AJ's album last year.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

Haven't heard the Miranda; is there somebody I can ask me to send me one? And yeah, Martina McBride came yesterday, and I haven't worked up the nerve to put it on, either. (I didn't like her covers album at all, for one thing.)

More highlights of Renegade Rail's album: "Just You and Me," marriage song, apparently the "single" (by Frank Kogan's reasonable definition) since it's first on their myspace page -- melody swiped from "Let Your Love Flow" by Bellamy Brothers; "If This Ain't Texas" chunky fuzzy riff at start swiped from "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits (still the best thing about that still-annoying song); "Time Machine," Commander Cody/CDB-style talking blues about going back in time to hang with Marilyn Monroe and Jesse James and Johnny Cash and Ronnie Van Zant and get high with Jimi Hendrix; "Moonshine," tough Southern rock about what its title says; "Fat Girls and Weed," both of which they are in favor of (the latter in other less woozy songs too), and unlike Toby they're not a wingman taking one for the team; "Red Dirt," funky Skynyrd-woogie rock about going town to town on the road where "you won't hear no Mr. Mom, or songs about buying shoes" (the former clearly a Lonestar swipe, right? not sure if the shoe-buying line is aimed at Kellie Pickler or who, however); "Not Here For a Long Time," more good outlaw country-rock with excellent guitar parts. Like I said, Mike Munsterman's voice is just average, but I still like this album a whole lot.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 20:44 (nineteen years ago)

More Lantana highlights, often complete with high-maintenance-woman personality: "Country As a City Girl Could Be", she watches "Hee Haw" (do reruns even exist anymore?) on her satellite TV and drawls in French and teaches her friends how to honky-tonk ballet, cute though the music in this particular cut could afford to be cuter; "I Ain't Your Jailer," interesting denial-of-roleplay title, basically don't blame the gal singing if you feel tied down, buster; "Everything," high-maintenance (or not?) Shania rip where they've got simple needs but if you wanna buy them a brand-new house they won't complain; "You Know How It Is," one of my favorites, a more blatant Shania rip with powerchords topped by a unison shouting chorus that almost reminds of "Tubthumping," I swear; "Savin' It Up For Saturday Night" working-for-the-weekend two-step dance country with slight cajun undercurrent maybe; "What Turns Me On," starts with a really tough Muddy Waters style blues riff then turns into the best faux-Shania on the album, about a perfect guy who's "a marathon shopper/A coffee bar hopper/he can sit through the ballet or even the opera...Put the toilet seat downer/Serve supper, do the dishes even clean the kitchen up/He can't do enough" then back and forth between Shania-pop mode and blues-mama mode; "Feel Like Rockin' Tonight," blatant hair-metal glam-pop move with a party going on in the background. Plus lots of attractive photos to look at on the CD cover.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 25 February 2007 23:00 (nineteen years ago)

So I'm watching this Dixie Dregs Live At Montreux 1978 DVD that came in the mail this week (I'll be surprised if I actualy get through the thing --music DVDs are hard to get through in general, especially the live ones; what the hell are they for, anyway? and they make even less sense in the age of youtube than they did before), and the bald bassist (I guess -- they never shine the camera on him when the music's going) with the beard, whoever he is, just introduced a song called "Patchwork" as "avant-garde country music, something that's unique to us." Sound like, um....bluegrass jazz fusion, I guess. So how unique was it, Don or Matt or somebody? And in this band, is that a fiddle or a violin? And who was their audience? (The well-behaved audience on the DVD, older than I would've guessed inasmuch as its been shown, may well be more a Montreux audience than a Dregs audience, but what do I know? Did these guys reach Southern rock fans? Or were they more likely to hit prog fans?) (Which intersects at...Kansas fans?) (Next song, bald dude introduces as "a couple old country melodies that we stuck together to give the guys something to jam on." Sounded like he said it was called "The Wabash," but the DVD cover just calls it "The Bash" instead.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 26 February 2007 00:28 (nineteen years ago)

right now she's busted down in Lufkin, wherever that is

Uh, in the Piney Woods, duh. Which explains the song title being "East Texas Pines." Seeing how I was just IN Lufkin the week after Xmas (true story -- Lalena's got family down there; we went four-wheeling and thrift-shopping), you'd think I'd have remembered it when Sunny Sweeney sang it.

― xhuxk, Monday, 26 February 2007 00:52 (nineteen years ago)

Next to the Piney Woods one and the Lacy J one, my favorite on Sunny's album (which comes out March 6 on Big Machine, apparently, though its self-release has apparently been on cdbaby since at least late last year) is probably the auctioneer-tempoed fast-talk hoedown "If I Could." I also like "Slow Swinging Western Tunes" (especially the lovely instrumental jam at the end), and the Iris Dement cover "Mama's Opry" has enough lyric details to make me kind of understand for the first time why so many people like Iris Dement (who I don't remember ever having Sunny's energy, though this is not one of Sunny's more energetic songs, and I'm not going to pretend I've ever tried all that hard with Iris). "Here Lately" is nice too. "Next Big Nothing" and "Heartbreakers Hall of Fame" are okay, but somehow wear their cutesy classicist country cleverness on their sleeves too much not to grate on me. Worst song may well be the Jim Lauderdale duet.

― xhuxk, Monday, 26 February 2007 01:18 (nineteen years ago)

let's see, the Dixie Dregs. They were plenty popular down south when I was growing up, Chuck. I suppose they were unique, I believe you mention Kansas and I know I had albums by both groups. I knew plenty of people around here, southern dope-smokers into bluegrass and so forth, who loved the Dregs. And David Grisman. But what was the first hip southern-fried instrumental post-fusion group, marketed as a group? Because I'm tellin' ya, Buddy Emmons on his solo shit from around '70 where he jazzes it up, that's certainly much the same thing. You had Barefoot Jerry, and Charlie Daniels was thought to be somewhat "jazzy" and "progressive" because he had those fiddle-guitar interlude things (again, the Kansas comparison is apposite), plus people knew he had played with Dylan so he was a dope-smoker. That Crazy Backwards Alphabet Soup or whatever that record is, with those former Beefheart musicians, the one where they cover Z.Z Top, is the spiritual descendant of the Dregs' efforts. And yeah, CMT or someone apparently still runs Hee-Haw reruns.
xp

― whisperineddhurt, Monday, 26 February 2007 14:42 (nineteen years ago)

Did these guys reach Southern rock fans? Or were they more likely to hit prog fans?) (Which intersects at...Kansas fans?)

that intersection was literal, as dixie dregs guitarist steve morse joined kansas in the '80s. (or is that what you were saying?)

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 26 February 2007 16:14 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, I thought I remembered that about Steve Morse. and now I remember another kind of similar group--Sea Level. but they were more about piano, right, sort of Charlie McCoy Tyner shit I think. And the Allman Brothers' instrumental on "Eat a Peach," the side w/o Duane, was also "fusion." They weren't strictly from the south but Little Feat did a cool instrumental on Time Loves a Hero, "Day at the Dog Races" I think it was. I don't own those original Charlie Daniels records--did he do instrumentals? And then there was Area Code 615, too. Clarence White tripping out on "Ode to Billie Joe" is cool, too. What other southern-fried boogie instrumentals from the '70s and early '80s are there, there have to be more.

― whisperineddhurt, Monday, 26 February 2007 19:43 (nineteen years ago)

New Martina McBride, which I'm trying to digest in small doses, appears to have at least a couple commendably detailed story songs ("Beautiful Again," about a girl I think; "Love Land," about a lady I think) with a likeably spare piano-based sound that's not hitting me as particularly "country." In the background, they sounded sweet, catchy, not off-puttingly timid. Not sure if I'll like them more or less when I pay more attention to the actual words...

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 12:17 (nineteen years ago)

Charlie Daniels was thought to be somewhat "jazzy"

Well, isn't it "The South's Gonna Do It Again" that has sections that sound exactly like Glenn Miller?

And then there was Area Code 615,

I know nothing about these guys except for "Fox Chase," which a popular sample on some old-school rap records*. Were they otherwise any good?

* =

http://www.the-breaks.com/search.php?term=area+code+615&type=0

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 12:32 (nineteen years ago)

btw, song I still love on Little Rachel's album: "Panic Attack," appropriately crazed-sounding wild-dame rockabilly with Jerry Lee boogie piano, Little Richard screams, Hasil Adkins cigar-box guitar clank, and funny words.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 12:47 (nineteen years ago)

...or a funny title, anyway. As Tony Soprano could surely tell you, there are not nearly enough songs about panic attacks in the world. And I'm realizing that one thing that sets Little Rachel apart from the Cherry Poppin' Royal Crown Big Daddy Voodoo Nut Zippers (or even from Hot Club Of Cowtown, who I always wanted to like but who let's face it sound way too polite and reserved for their own Western swing good, even when covering Aerosmith's great "Chip Away At the Stone" for crissakes), is that I can actually imagine the Gore Gore Girls or Detroit Cobras or Texas Terri liking and identifying with Little Rachel for her big raunchy voice (which is capable of doing the sweet jazzy numbers justice as well. Sounds like she might appreciate Keely Smith or Anita O'Day as much as Big Mama Thornton.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 13:31 (nineteen years ago)

More flip-flopping on the flat-foot floozy like a floy floy!: Um, not sure what Keely/Anita-style jazz-vocal tracks I was referring to when I made that last post over 12 hours ago (during which time nobody else has posted on this increasingly lonely thread, sigh); going back tonight and listening to Little Rachel's album front to back, closest any cut comes to that is maybe "Talk To Me," and even that one doesn't quite cut it, I don't think. "Broken" and the promsingly titled "I May Be Trouble" sound more like typically who-cares Billie Holiday attempts; "Take This Love and Bury It" more like a typically who-cares finger-snappy torch attempt, though at least that one picks up a little. I don't have any more use for those cuts that I have for Amy Winehouse or k.d. lang, to be honest. And also, to be honest, some of those other retro-swingsters I named had big and maybe even raunchy voices too. Though I don't remember of any of them rocked like "Panic Attack" or "It's Always a Blonde" or the bawdy country boogie of "Bull Ridin' Mama" (or maybe even "Bartender Baby"'s saxes amidst cornball words), which is reason enough for me to keep Rachel's album, if maybe not for you to buy it.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 02:22 (nineteen years ago)

retro-swingsters I named

meaning the Cherry Poppin etc bands, not Little Rachel's other songs

I don't remember of any of them rocked

rocked = rocking

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 02:24 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, where is everyone on rollin' country '07?? frank and chuck esp. might kinda like sunny sweeney's heartbreaker's hall of fame, as her voice cuts right through, and she might be "stuck in these east texas pines" as she sings on the song of the same name, but seems to me she just about splits the diff between a cartoon voice and a real one, and she sounds as though she might actually even have a sense of humor. I like the way she underplays, and the tracks are standard-issue-plus swingin' honkytonk. really a lot better than I woulda thought. (you mention swingin' country, chuck, and seems like for ex. "next big nothing" [which is kind of like an "act naturally" rewrite] just swings so easy. in a way, this has the tone of that great elizabeth mcqueen pub-rock record of a couple years ago.) and as far as k.d. lang and all that--well, she does have one hell of a big voice. nice mood music. I like to call it all "remedial Billie" (as in Holiday, who's still just unbeatable, so sexy and sneaky). anyway, sunny is maybe my second-fave country record of the moment after dale watson's, and somewhat similar. anyway, also super-cool song selection, like keith sykes' "lavender blue" suits her fine, and she does iris dement's "mama's opry."

anyone heard the new johnny bush record, kashmere gardens mud? john morthand gives a good review in no depression.

― whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 28 February 2007 19:31 (nineteen years ago)

Edd, didn't you see my comments about Sunny Sweeney's CD only a few posts up? I do like the album -- though not the Jim Lauderdale duet so much (dullest track on the record, I think), and I'm mixed on "Next Big Nothing."

Meanwhile: the new Martina McBride is...interesting. More soon, I bet.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 1 March 2007 01:35 (nineteen years ago)

I've been off thinking about writing "something I've always wanted to write" and pitching it to the Las Vegas Weekly, and I find myself avoiding working on it and doing time-wasting things instead because, er, maybe I'm bored with ideas of mine that I actually thought up 25 or 35 years ago and what I'm thinking about instead is Bald Britney (in regard to ideas I thought up about 25 or 35 years ago except of course not about Britney and baldness back then) and why Taylor Swift is the best singer in the world right now (which doesn't mean that she does the best music, since of course a lot more goes into that than being a great singer), just that the warm ache in her voice box is just about perfect and "Teardrops On My Guitar" may be my favorite song of hers I'm deciding even though it has a fairly normal country-pop in-one-ear-out-the-other it also has her warmest achingest ache in the verse, starts right off with "Drew says..." and a breath of warm air across her sensitive larynx, though the song seems not a hit type, I'm afraid; the natural hit as in Hit You With Impact would be "Should've Said No," but there's no radio format that it matches up with, I don't think.

Listening right now on AOL Listening Party to a stream of the Pagoda album, which is not country at all, just mentioning it so this thread doesn't feel lonesome. Nice background music (that's not its intention at all; 'tis rock; AOL says "The New York City quartet releases its self-titled debut album of grunge rock led by actor Michael Pitt's Cobain-esque vocals," which does not sound promising until one remembers that Cobain was pretty good, even if the Esques generally aren't). Melodies OK. Probably won't do any followup such as listening a second time, though it might be worth attention. Just didn't feel like listening to what Slim Thug is up to now. Good night.

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 1 March 2007 08:04 (nineteen years ago)

That's "Drew looks..." not "Drew says..."

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 1 March 2007 08:11 (nineteen years ago)

Interestingly (or probably not), "Teardrops On My Guitar" (which always just hits me as by-the-book confessional shemo-pop), is easily one of my least favorite tracks on Taylor Swift's CD, an album I otherwise like a lot.

Picked up from the free table at work this sampler from Cleopatra Records that takes six songs each from an upcoming covers album called An All-Star Tribute To Lynyrd Skynyrd and an upcoming double-disc compilation called [/i]Southern Outlaws: The Ultimate Southern Rock Collection[/i] (which will apparently also include Steve Earle, Merle Haggard, Drive By Truckers, Kentunky Headhunters, Wet Willie, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, "and more"). Two best tracks far and away on the tribute half of the sampler are the two heaviest -- Pat Travers doing "Gimme Back My Bullets" and Great White doing "Saturday Night Special," both of which I love. Outlaws and Blackfoot's LS covers are completely fogettable; "Free Bird" has boring singing from Charlie Daniels, whose voice appears to be shot, and competent guitars from Molly Hatchet; Atlanta Rhythm Section show off a suprisingly funky rhythm section on "Call Me the Breeze". On the half of the sampler from the compilation, once you get past the givens of Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and .38 Special's "Hold On Loosely" (which I'm happy to say still totally holds up), the real surprise is the Rossington Collins Band's "Don't Misunderstand Me," with their female singer -- I'd forgotten how great they sound; I've got that album by them on vinyl and should dig it out one of these days. Johnny Van Zant Band and Steve Gaines tracks are okay, I guess; Artimus Pyle track pretty much sucks.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 1 March 2007 12:13 (nineteen years ago)

Still really digging the new Miranda Lambert. The last song is by Guy Clark's better half, Susanna Clark, and Emmylou Harris. Real nice. Yeah, I did see yr. Sunny Sweeney comments, Chuck, but I kinda like "Lavender Blue" with Lauderdale. They shoulda gotten her to harmonize with Charlie Louvin on his new record, she's better than Tift Merritt. Had lunch with Geoff Himes at Swett's Tuesday--old-tyme Nashville African-American meat-n-three I hadn't eaten in years, and the fried cornbread was just as good as it ever was. Anyway, he has done a piece on Louvin for somebody or another and his take was that Charlie just can't sing any more, which I don't totally agree with. He sounds like what he is, an 80-year-old man surrounded by some younger people...and George Jones and Bobby Bare, both of whom I could listen to singing the phone book. I think the Louvin record really works, as a folk record, almost like the kids singing along to "The Great Atomic Power" are just at summer camp with Uncle Charlie.

And what about the new Patty Griffin, which has gotten raves? I haven't gotten a copy; can it be as good as, say, Michael McCall says it is?

― whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 1 March 2007 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

Is Griffin really supposed to be any good? I'm pretty sure I got that, no idea where my copy is. Maybe I'll hunt through the hallway box this weekend.

Initial thoughts on the new McBride CD: After two big Adult Contemporary hits off her last real (i.e.: pre-useless all-covers kiss-up) album ("This One's For the Girls," "In My Daughters's Eyes"), she's clearly and blatantly trying to step beyond a country audience. Or at least that's how it sounds to me so far. First two songs on the new album are among her most "rock" (as in "Sheryl Crow" mainly) cuts ever; "If I Had Your Name" ("...I'd be changing it right now"), especially, packs a tough boogiefied punch, and the more Cali soft-rocked "Cry Cry (Til the Sun Shines)" has a real guitar solo and a lyric that sounds like Art Alexakis could have written it. Most of the rest of what's jumping out of the disc seems less rock but still pretty AC so far: "How I Feel" nicely radio-ready with an '80s-Police-ballad-style bassline and words that rhyme "Christmas Eve" with "standing up for what you believe," yikes; "Love Land" another spare-sounding after school special (Martina is after all the Queen of The Soccer Moms of course) where either a baby or a mom dies (or maybe not) and words that rhyme "Thomas Edison" with "modern medicine"; "House of a Thousand Dreams" probably better than those, kinda gloomy and literally about the house itself (as a metaphor for a broken home how much you wanna bet), and there's cracks in all the windows and flies come in through the screens, but Martina (or the working class mom she's pretending to be here) will find some yard-sale curtains and make some yellow trimming for the seams. All in all, as I said, I'm still trying to figure out if the album's any good. But it's probably the most interesting country album I've heard so far this year, in the sense of giving listeners like me something to sink our minds' teeth into.

― xhuxk, Friday, 2 March 2007 12:26 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, Michael McCall raved about Griffin in the N-ville Scene last week, and the reviews have generally been really favorable. I see what Chuck means about Martina; the modal "rock" twin geetars on the opener is very interesting, and that song is "harder" and more rockin' than I would've expected. I am not sure if she's convincing in this mode, but I shall see.

― whisperineddhurt, Friday, 2 March 2007 15:17 (nineteen years ago)

[linkhttp://cdbaby.com/cd/hollybeth2[/link]

There is nothing audibly country about Holly Beth Vincent's new solo album, but she recorded five tracks of it with musicians in Nashville, and she's not metal, and she hasn't been a teen in years (though, okay, Holly and the Italians were sort of from the Go-Gos/Tony Basil era which might connect them to the current Avril Lavigne single but who cares since everybody always ignores what I write on the teenpop thread anyway), so I guess this is the best place to talk about it. What's standing in my way from liking it more, strangely, is Holly's voice, which seems to have become much smaller and more quiet and held-back over the last quarter-century. The singing doesn't especially bug me, but it never really seems to grab me either, and I wish it was more in the forefront. What keeps me listening anyway is the abundant variety of lively dance-pop backing: dancehall days wang-chunging ("Behind 4 Walls"), straight-up Paula Abdul ("Sparkle," where Holly's voice sort of does an squeaky little A'Me Lorain thing inasmuch as I remember what A'Me Lorain sang like), Hombres letting it all hang out ("Arlington"), Nirvana smelling like teen spirit ("I Hate You"), smooth jazz getting lite-funky ("King of Fat"), Roxette doing whatever Roxette did (other places). It's not bad. Maybe the goal is to appeal to Gwen Stefani or Goldfrapp fans or something? But I keep wishing it was hitting me more.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 04:58 (nineteen years ago)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/hollybeth2

You know, creating links here has become a real pain in the butt.

Been listening to Tim McGraw's All I Want from 1995 tonight, too. Never liked the hit, "I Like It I Love It," very much; just always seemed really stupid or something. And not much of the rest has been hitting me -- seems like, early in Tim's career, part of him was trying to pull off a macho post-Bocephus/proto-Montgomery Gentry country-boy-can-survive thing, and he's totally unconvincing at it in tracks like "That's Just Me." Oddly though, the one song I do like a lot so far is "Renegade," convincingly tough and well-riffed biker rock. I think I prefer it to the Jay-Z/Enimem version.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 05:07 (nineteen years ago)

Okay, here's another good cut: "I Didn't Ask And She Didn't Say," "Fogged in in Dallas on my way to L.A...Does she think about the nights we spent on Crystal Lake...I wonder if she thinks about Jackson Hole..."), with a melody very nicely anticipating Tim's later sensitive suburban side, and a riff coming in from...Jackson Browne? Seger's "Against the Wind"? Something like that.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 05:27 (nineteen years ago)

So seeing how Lantana covers them on their new album I can talk about REO Speedwagon (who always had some country in their flying turkey trottage and Kevin Cronin's southern Illinois drawls, truth be told) here right? New album (REO's not Lantana's) Everyone Loves a Happy Ending has two songs I like: "Dangerous Combination," tuff Babys-style hard pop about drinking too much and thinking too much, and, more notably, the opener "Smilin' In The End," which from the hysterial hyper singing to dance-rock beat to goofy lines about "Leave me alone, I'll recover/say nasty things about my mother" and "You can beat me/mistreat me/but I'll be smiling in the end" sounds so much like the Electric Six I'm halfway convinced it's intentional. The rest isn't awful -- a vaguely pompy ballad, a closer with lyrics about the spirit guiding you that could be either born-again or new-age, and a couple cuts ("Lost On The Road Of Love," "Born To Love You") that half-palatably do a whitewashed '80s sort of Robert Palmer/Peter Gabriel/Stevie Winwood/Phil Collins/Joe Cocker fake funk thang, sometimes with soul sisters backupping. No country though, sigh.

New Jenni Rivera album Mi Vida Loca (see also: Ricky Martin, Pam Tillis), meanwhile, seems as run-of-the-mill border-pop as the new album
by her likewise formerly more hip-hoppy Fonovisa labelmate Yolanda Perez, with just two exceptions: an English language cover of "I Will Survive" more notable for its tuba-disco arrangement than for its Gaynor-clone singing, and the one track I really love, "Yo Era Su Reina/Dama Divina," which has this crazy Xuxa-playing-Dixieland-jazz'n'roll-at-the circus sound. (Maybe only the second half is the actual title; I'm not sure. Jenni has spoken parts before almost every song, which might be entertaining if I spoke Spanish, especially if they're as off-the-rocker as some of her previous CDs' liner notes, but as is there's nothing interesting about her speaking voice I can hear, and it's as irritating as the spoken parts you get on watermarked promo advance CDs.)

― xhuxk, Saturday, 3 March 2007 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

HOLY FUCK THIS MIRANDA LAMBERT ALBUM IS SO GREAT!!!!!!!

Feels like a hard rock album! "Getting Ready" might even sound more like the Screaming Blue Messiahs than "Kerosene" did (except her voice is reminding me of some old new wave cowpunkgal, I forget who). "Down" rocks even harder maybe. Damn she knows how to ride a big blues riff.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 02:34 (nineteen years ago)

A dance album too! "Dry Town," "Famous In A Small Town," "Guilty in Here"... I'm gonna go out on a limb and make my first album-of-the-year prediction of the year. Maybe not, but way up on my list, easy. I can tell.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 4 March 2007 03:07 (nineteen years ago)

Holly Beth Vincent rhymes "Paris" with "bare ass" (unfortunately referring to the city not the reality TV star who made my second-favorite album of 2006), though does it several times too often thereby cutting the impact. Pretty good songwriting, on about half the songs really needs deep Gary Numan synths rather than guitars.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 4 March 2007 04:18 (nineteen years ago)

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