Rolling Country 2006 Thread

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where was the Moranis recorded, Chuck?

I've decided that I really like the Jamey Johnson record, "The Dollar." great baritone. "Rebelicious" is a good song about the ideal hard-bodied woman who can also bait her own hook. and I think "The Dollar" is excellent, altho "Flying Silver Eagle," about melting down wedding rings, is even better. I just wish it were more of a concept album about money, and funnier. but I'm impressed that he wrote most of the songs, and he seems sane, even-tempered. could be as good as John Conlee or Moe Bandy, maybe.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 20:12 (twenty years ago)

>where was the Moranis recorded, Chuck?<

"by Tony Scherr at his house in Brooklyn"

I mean, Moranis may have talent -- he may even have potential to be Shel Silverstein or Bobby Braddock, for all I know. Maybe someday, in some context, I'll have the patience to listen closer to his demos.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

Moranis and Dave Thomas did this bit on SCTV, a show within the show, called Great White Way (backdrop: a map of CANADA, with the USA squashed around the bottom, but pretty accurate, from that angle), becaue SCTV was produced in Canada, therefore had to include a certain percentage of Canadian Content (seriously, and of course SCTV the overshow was supposed to take place in a low budget cable station, a "network," so complying with actual gov cable regulations was only right.) They'd drink Molson's and cook back bacon and start to gossip about Rush, but then one would accuse the other of stealing his smokes or messing with his tocque or his parka, and they would run out of time for that episode. One minute sketches, but then they left to make a movie of this, natch: Strange Brew, which I've heard is pretty good. Rick and Dave and the others used to do sketches involving music, and musicians (like when they had the Boomtown Rats as the classroom rowdies in To Sir With Love, and they called Lulu, played by Catherine O'Hara [Mary Margaret's actual sister, and the mom in the Home Alone movies] "yer flabbly littul taht!"). But countrywise, the best I remember was Joe Flaherty (the geek sibs' dad in Freaks And Geeks)as Kris Kristofferson, grunting,"Cows. Pigs. Sheep. Goats." That should've been set to music, but they usually left the songs to their guests.

― don, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:23 (twenty years ago)

xpost oh yeah, I got the Redhill too, thanx xhuxx.More pop than I was expecting from Deeetroit, and hard to pull off that kind of smoothness on a small budget, but they did it pretty well. the backing did seem a little distant and times, but just added to the mono single nostalgia, appropriately, on the second track, which was kinda like early Carole King. Edd's right about the singer; she's sensuous, yet down to earth, sounds at home (the girl next door, oh yeah). I could see them in the majors.

― don, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

>Moranis and Dave Thomas did this bit on SCTV, a show within the show, called Great White Way<

Wait, is that what "Take Off (to the Great White North)" featuring Geddy Lee was from? Not to mention the 12 Canadian Days of Christmas single? Who were the artists on those? I am blanking out on them (even though I'm pretty sure I have the "Take Off" 45 at home).

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:46 (twenty years ago)

yep, they were credited to Bob and Doug MacKenzie. I bought "Great White Album" on LP the day it came out, but now I just have it on CD. might be the best album of 1981.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 22:13 (twenty years ago)

Should I move to Fresno (they've got some interesting Latin stations too):

The 20 stations* that are giving "Kerosene" the most spins:

KSKS-FM Fresno 55
S060-FM *SiriusSatellite 51
X016-FM *XM Radio 45
KKCS-FM Colo Springs 43
WUSN-FM Chicago 42
KSOP-FM Salt Lake City 39
KHKI-FM Des Moines 39
KTST-FM Oklahoma City 38
KYKR-FM Beaumont 38
WTQR-FM Greensboro 36
WXBQ-FM Johnson City 36
WIOV-FM Lancaster 36
WGNE-FM Jacksonville 36
WPUR-FM Atlantic City 36
WWYZ-FM Hartford 35
KBEQ-FM Kansas City 35
KUSS-FM San Diego 35
WQBE-FM Charleston WV 35
WPCV-FM Lakeland 34
KTOM-FM Monterey/Salinas 34

She's not even in the top 30 on KYGO in Denver, which means she's getting fewer than 11 spins, if any. Of course, the song has been around for a while, and may be having a different life cycle in different places.

*that are reporting to Mediabase, that is

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:36 (twenty years ago)

Just heard that Charles K. Wolfe, one of the great scholars and writers of American music, has passed away. His books include Classic Country: Legends of Country Music, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly, In Close Harmony: The Story of the Louvin Brothers, The Devil's Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling and maybe the best book about the origins of country music I've ever read: A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry.

The man deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Friday, 10 February 2006 18:29 (twenty years ago)

oh, that's a real shame about Charles Wolfe. he was a great writer, and a very nice man the two-three times I met him. sorry to hear about his passing.

and thanks Roy, for alerting me to Ray Wylie Hubbard! just picked up his "Delirium Tremolos" yesterday. "Choctaw Bingo" is fantastic.

and for the record, for what it's worth, the Wayne Hancock song that Shelton Hank III does on his new one is "Take My Pain." exactly my feeling when I play the fookin' thing...

there's a nice little bit on Moranis in the current Paste magazine. xps

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 10 February 2006 20:16 (twenty years ago)

so, today i hereby conclude with my tail between my legs that my inital excitement (see end of '05 c&w thread, though the CD only just comes out this month) for *spooked* by marley's ghost (produced by van dyke parks, cover art by r. crumb) was mainly just wishful thinking. for folkies they're far from humorless, which is a good thing, but the humor barely ever shows up in their *sound*, which is pretty genteel. actually, they seem better with spooky stuff (like "wicked messenger," for instance) than the stuff with goofy words.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 12 February 2006 01:11 (twenty years ago)

If only they had a different lead singer, I suspect some more of it would work.CMT has continued its recent shit-slide by stealing the x vs. y schtick from ILM: Top 20 Countdown now has this pick vs. click, for viewers to choose from: Jamey Johnson got 70% favorable for something or other, Shooter got 30% for "Steady At The Wheel," so bye bye. Damn, whatever happened to payola? I don't think I would have liked the Jamey anyway. Saw Gretchen and Miranda on Austin City Limits last night. Sets were approx.23" each. Gretchen opened, her band swung and wah-wah'd a bit, songs were 70% new, set was 70% boring. Miranda followed, her band rocked and stomped quite a bit, songs were 80% "old", from Kerosene of course. (Other 20%: a Merle song whose title I dint catch, but it left G.'s Merle collab in the slog, although if he'd showed up, might not have; and Miranda also covered Earle's "Hillbilly Highway," which worked better than if Earle had showed up and attempted to sing along, and I say that as a loyal semi-fan of the old commie). Set was 100% fun. Two of the biggest country singles of recent times are "Jesus Take The Wheel" and "Honkytonkbadonkadonk".So far have not been subjected to pick vs. click, because Armageddon isn't here quite yet.

― don, Sunday, 12 February 2006 05:46 (twenty years ago)

i fucking love jesus takes the wheel, well written, well sung, and avoiding the silliness, it could be.

― Anthony Easton, Sunday, 12 February 2006 07:11 (twenty years ago)

Noticing something on the Billboard country chart: There's a clump of songs in the upper teens/low twenties that have been around for something like four to six months that are still rising but haven't been able to break into the top ten: Sara Evans "Cheatin'," Blake Shelton "Nobody But Me," Miranda Lambert "Kerosene," Brooks & Dunn "Believe," Jimmy Johnson "The Dollar," Van Zant "Nobody Tell Me What to Do," Jack Ingram "Wherever You Are." I haven't heard all of these, so I'll need to check this out. For "Kerosene" alone my speculation would have been that some people like it a lot but that a huge hunk of other country listeners aren't just indifferent, but hostile, owing to the song's hard sound. So airplay would be suppressed at first. But sales and downloads would keep it on the charts, and after a while airplay would rise as support doesn't wane and more and more of the nonsupporters get used to the sound. But I don't know if my explanation is really any good, or if any similar explanation would work for the other tracks I cited. I would have had to follow them all from the start. Mediabase has airplay for "Kerosene" at 16, around where the song places in the Billboard country chart, but it's actually falling in airplay, while it hasn't lost its bullet on the chart. All the tracks I mentioned are getting airplay in the teens and twenties, just like their chart placement, with only Van Zant and Miranda having lost their airplay bullets.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:31 (twenty years ago)

But the fact that one of "Kerosene"'s top airplay stations is satellite must indicate something.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:37 (twenty years ago)

Sirius Satellite's Top 20

1 MIRANDA LAMBERT Kerosene 51
2 JOSH TURNER Your Man 49
3 TRACE ADKINS Honky Tonk Badonkadonk 47
4 MONTGOMERY GENTRY She Don't Tell Me To 47
5 RASCAL FLATTS What Hurts The Most 46
6 SUGARLAND Just Might (Make Me Believe) 46
7 TIM MCGRAW My Old Friend 43
8 KENNY CHESNEY Living In Fast Forward 30
9 SARA EVANS Cheatin' 30
10 JACK INGRAM Wherever You Are 30
11 TRENT TOMLINSON Drunker Than Me 29
12 VAN ZANT Nobody Gonna Tell Me What... 29
13 GARTH BROOKS/TRISHA YEARWOOD Love Will Always Win 28
14 TOBY KEITH Get Drunk And Be Somebody 28
15 ROCKIE LYNNE Lipstick 28
16 LEE ANN WOMACK 20 Years And Two Husbands Ago 26
17 JAMEY JOHNSON The Dollar 24
18 LEANN RIMES Something's Gotta Give 24
19 JASON ALDEAN Why 23
20 RODNEY ATKINS If You're Going Through Hell 23

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:42 (twenty years ago)

I don't even know who Rockie Lynn is, and neither does Allmusic, except to indicate to us that "Lipstick" is a single that won't get its official release until Feb. 17.

"Results 1 - 10 of about 121 for "Rockie Lynn". (0.64 seconds)"

That's even fewer results than you get for "Frank Kogan."

I think Rockie is Canadian.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:53 (twenty years ago)

I meant to type "February 14" as the release date for "Lipstick." Happy Valentine's Day.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 12:57 (twenty years ago)

you were right about the kelly clarkson song, but i think that the best proof of its country tendencies is its obsessive seeking of solution wrt domestic melodrama

We're talking about "Because of You" (most of the discussion was on last year's thread), which I'm now trying to make sense of since it's only been on the charts for half a year and gone double platinum as a single (not to mention the 5 million the album has sold). When I first heard it I pretty much dismissed it as an OK adult-contemporary heartbreak song, suitably quiet and sad but not up to the Kelly's previous three singles. Now, having paid attention to the lyrics and thought hard about where its music is coming from and so forth (and finally doing what I can to study the video on the postage-stamp screen that Launch Yahoo gives you in dialup), I'm hearing a completely different song, something of intensity, something that feels loud even with the quiet accompaniment and the controlled singing. And I think it is out of bounds for country. Which is to say that though I can imagine Faith singing in this style she probably wouldn't go for this melody or these words; and though I can imagine LeAnn going for both the melody and these words and totally nailing it in performance, she'd probably decide that it would be bad for her career at this point to release it.

First the words: it isn't just that they're unremittingly despairing, since you could say the same about country classics like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "The End of the World." But those don't feel like despair, or they take a different approach to despair, or something. (I've always considered "End of the World" a beautiful, sweet delight.) In general, country's "life falls apart" story belongs to its standard romance cycle: "My heart is broken, now I'm drunk, now I'm going to fuck up again and again," is mined for a lot of rue and a lot of comedy. It's something country is comfortable with. Whereas "the relationship was fundamentally pathological and has left me unfit to live" is not standard for country, even if it's fine on Oprah and adult contemporary and Radio Disney.

Also - and this is interesting - I'd never thought of it as a domestic drama until last night when I started examining the video: house in the suburban night, we're looking in through the window at a couple arguing, then we're in with them in the fight, a child watches glumly, a man upends a table in anger; then a different scene, the little girl shows daddy something she's made, daddy burns it on the stove; a woman leaves, a little girl leaves.

Before studying the video, I'd just naturally assumed this was a romance-and-dysfunction song like most of the ones that precede and follow it on the album, that the narrator was addressing a former boyfriend who'd left her devastated. In fact, that's a perfectly good way to read the song; the "you" is never identified. But if we factor in the video, the narrator has to be the little girl grown up, and she's addressing her parents: "I heard you cry every night in your sleep/I was so young/You should have known better than to lean on me/You never thought of anyone else/You just saw your pain/And now I cry in the middle of the night/For the same damn thing/Because of you/Because of you/Because of you I am afraid/Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk/Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt/Because of you/I try my hardest just to forget everything/Because of you/I don't know how to let anyone else in/Because of you/I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty/Because of you I am afraid/Because of you."

Anyway, I don't know of anything like this in country, though that may not be because it's not there but just because I don't know the genre well enough. Haggard's "Hungry Eyes" suggests something difficult (like, maybe sometime mommas are too hurt to try); maybe there's more. (Subject for further research: Hank Snow.) But "Because of You" is more in the territory of Faster Pussycat's "House of Pain" and Everclear's "Father of Mine" and Pink's "Family Portrait" and Lindsay Lohan's "Confessions of a Broken Heart" and Ashlee Simpson's "Shadow." The country equivalent? Maybe LeAnn Rimes' album track "No Way Out" if you decide she's talking about her relationship to her dad. (But didn't the country audience make clear that they didn't consider that album country?)

I'll continue this thought later, but there's also something going on - though subtly - in the sound of "Because of You" that also isn't yet a part of country, and that's goth.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 13:55 (twenty years ago)

>I don't know of anything like this in country<

"A Boy Named Sue"? "Up Againt the Wall Redneck Mother"? ("he ain't responsible for what he's doing 'cause his mother made him what he is")

or okay, maybe not... this deserves much more thought, though.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 12 February 2006 19:15 (twenty years ago)

and duh, "family tradition," hank jr (in fact just about everything he ever sang, maybe)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 12 February 2006 19:30 (twenty years ago)

By the way, the lyricist on Skeeter Davis's "End of the World," Sylvia Dee, had - according to an article by Steve Morley from I'm not sure where that a friend of mine sent me several years ago - been saving some of the lyrics since age 14 when her father had died, and she told Skeeter Davis that some of the words were actual phrases that her mother had used. Arthur Kent, who wrote the music, said that publishers would tell him "Who the hell wants to sing a song called 'End of the World'?" He said dozens turned it down. "I would hear things like, 'Tell Sylvia to stop writing this kind of crap.'"

(According to the article Kent's and Dee's background had been in pop songwriting, and I'm assuming Kent was basically marketing the thing pop, so it's interesting that country producer Chet Atkins was the guy who heard potential in the song.)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:46 (twenty years ago)

I need to hear a lot more Hank Jr.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 20:51 (twenty years ago)

Switching subjects, I may not know much about videos these days, but I know from stupid, and whatever you think about Jessica Simpson's cocktease routine in "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" (shake your impressive tush and get the boys fighting), it's not stupid. (This a reaction to Pink's "Stupid Girls" vid, which I ought to write about on the teenpop thread.) I remember Xhuxk last year complaining about Jessica making her voice small for the song, but it effectively gets under my skin. Cute being a jujitsu move.

Also (again not knowing much about country videos especially, and I'm sure there's lots of precedent here) she's being the girl who walks in and causes T.R.O.U.B.L.E. in that Travis Tritt song.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 21:34 (twenty years ago)

a bunch of early dolly seems to touch similar issues, i think, w/o going to the tape, i may have to rescind this

― Anthony Easton, Sunday, 12 February 2006 22:20 (twenty years ago)

Similar to "Because of You," or similar to cute as a jujitsu move? (Or both?)

I remember Eric Weisbard played Dolly's "Down from Dover" for me, and he told me as he cued it up, "When you get to the end, your hair will stand on end." When it got to the end my hair stood on end.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Sunday, 12 February 2006 22:53 (twenty years ago)

also in the tradition of hank jr's family tradition, of course, are the montgomery gentry songs where they ain't gonna spare the rod 'cause that ain't what they're daddy did. though i'm still not sure if that would count as an example of what frank's looking for.

i'm going to call *Totally Country 5* (which contains the montgomery gentry song in question, not to mention kerosene, homewrecker, dierks's how am i doin', suds in the bucket, van zant's help somebody, i play chicken with the train, god's will (token shitty song from a good album) and blake shelton's goodbye time) a keeper, since it also has xxl and hicktown (which is a DANCE song by the way), and i've yet to see or hear a copy of the keith anderson and jason aldean albums, and it also has craig morgan's kenny-chesney-wannabe redneck yacht club, which i've decided i like despite its strange socioeconomic contradictions even though i forget who the hell craig morgan is otherwise. ray scott's my kind of music is okay, too, at least soundwise -- talking blues with annoying pandering lyrics about how she can't get enough of whitney but he prefers waylon so she's outta there, god what a dumbass. also rans: andy griggs's if heaven (was a town it'd be my town in the summer 1985 and if it was a beer it be my last one), yucko, though i'd still like to hear the album it's from someday since i'm a fan of the more cinderella-style hair-metallic stuff on his '02 *freedeom* album; brooks & dunn's useless it's getting better all the time (which rips off the same beatles song that modern english did once except not even a tenth as well); lonestar's you're like coming home, which i forget what it sounds like even while it's on. helpful CD (despiite its odd chronology -- i.e., nothing from the CURRENT dierks or sara evans albums), since i no longer have cable and live in country-station-less NYC, which means i am sad;y months behind on the current state of hit country singles.

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 00:35 (twenty years ago)

their. freedom. sadly. etc. (i need a proofreader.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 00:37 (twenty years ago)

down to dover is a song that is so good, so tragic, so epic, that it escapes standard critical tools...and ever version i have heard is like an axe to the vitals, (esp. sally timms)

― Anthony Easton, Monday, 13 February 2006 01:00 (twenty years ago)

>i fucking love jesus takes the wheel, well written, well sung, and avoiding the silliness, it could be.<

i like it a lot too. but er..it could be what, anthony?

>nothing from the CURRENT dierks or sara evans albums<

or martina mcbride, either. yet there's hits from the past few months on it by other people. i wonder why that is.

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 03:09 (twenty years ago)

There might be licensing and marketing issues.

I've got the antho but haven't listened yet, but I did let Launch Yahoo run on its own a bit today and among others I heard "My Kind of Music" and "Redneck Yacht Club" and "Hicktown," all three of which I like, in that order I think. My notes on the Ray Scott: "Self-congratulation, singers' names heaved at us like signifiers, but does a good outlaw honky-tonk stomp. Not bad, given the stupid concept." (The concept is no stupider than "Corn Fed"'s, which you voted for, which is also a good stomp, w/ garage rock thrown in) (though I do think that "Corn Fed"'s lyrics are more interesting and must have required more thought, though the resulting narrowness and hypocrisy is even more obnoxious; I mean, I can't say I use criteria that is totally dissimilar to Ray's in evaluating potential love interests, though I might change the artist's names). (Dave Hickey once wrote that he should know better than to date someone who dislikes Robert Mitchum, since it never works out.)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 04:09 (twenty years ago)

Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt
Because of you/I try my hardest just to forget everything/Because of you/I won't date anyone who dislikes Robert Mitchum/Because of you/I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty/Because of you I am afraid

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 04:12 (twenty years ago)

Puttering around in Pazz & Jop today, I noticed that everyone who voted for Deana Carter's Story of My Life posts on ILX. Unfortunately, none of them have vaginas, so I won't be dating any of them.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 04:18 (twenty years ago)

Oh yeah, I was going to say something about "Redneck Yacht Club" and "Hicktown." The first seems to present redneck as not far from fratboy. My favorite part is at the end, where "na-na-nas" enter back in the mix, making this momentarily a crypto sing-along and gangshout. My notes on "Hicktown": "Basic stomp (which isn't altogether far from disco); has something of the slow dramatic walk of 'Heard It Through the Gapevine.' But it doesn't quite break through for me."

OK, getting up and playing "Hicktown" right now, I think the trouble is that it's not slow enough, not spare enough, not obsessive enough. The best part comes 2:15 in, when voice and fiddle shut up and for ten seconds you've got a tough little breakbeat. Someone tell Bambaataa right away.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 04:51 (twenty years ago)

Pazz & Jop
Scott, Raymond (placed # 1773)
My Kind of Music
UNKNOWN

White, Armond

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 04:59 (twenty years ago)

Speaking of not slow enough, not spare enough, not obsessive enough, and the Clarkson country classicism you crave (try some more George Jones, and Willie's "Permanently Lonley," "I Never Cared For You," "Half A Man"), last night, I saw the end of the Bonnie Raitt/Lyle Lovett edition of Crossroads. I was afraid his usually meandering voice would bring out her tendency to sluggishness, but sure didn't, not on the song I heard, her standard (John Prine's credit), "Angel From Montgomery." The problem with this song is that it's way easy to upstage the determindedly bare-bulb, brittle lyrics (a lonely old lady, thinking the same damn frustrated, fearful, despairing-if-pissed-off thoughts, one more sleepless night: "How the hell can a person/go to work in the mornin'/and come home in the evenin'/and have nothin' to say."), by jumping in and getting loud with the moneyshot bravura chorus, over and over. But Lyle, smiling his hideous smile at Bonnie, got her to relax (remember, he was married to Julia Roberts). And the old song creaked and swirled and prowled, the old lady made her rounds, and it was the most effective performance of it I've ever heard.(I'll send you some Hank Jr., but he's usually not like this, past his barely-post-face-erasure songs.)

― don, Monday, 13 February 2006 05:27 (twenty years ago)

Armond White (who's black) voted for two country albums and six country singles. I wonder if anyone else voted for as many country singles. Kandia Crazy Horse (who's also black) voted for at least four (some what she voted for I hadn't heard of and so had no idea if they were country). Actually, looking some more, I see a whole bunch of people voted for four, and Edd voted for nine. So he probably wins.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 05:32 (twenty years ago)

one thing i didn't say in my *totally country 5* notes above is that "goodbye time" by blake shelton (token so-what song from a great album) is probably no more useful than "it's getting better all the time" (which is at least prettily sung, as are most brooks & dunn ballads, and which seems to concern the singer having caught his lady with another man the night before). i can't begin to understand why "goodbye time" would have been chosen as a single; it's got to be one of the dullest tracks on blake's CD. probably THE dullest track.

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 14:30 (twenty years ago)

one of these days when i have more time i'll try to formulate why "corn fed"'s bullshit doesn't bother me; maybe if the raymond scott song stomped or swung anywhere near as hard (honestly, outside of "kerosene," did any country hit rock as hard as "corn fed" last year?) i'd excuse its bullshit too. but shannon brown's bullshit is also way more interesting, way less rote. and what can i say, it really pisses me off when scott takes his stupid dig at the eagles.

as for *totally*'s tracklist, yeah, it occured to me that licensing might be an issue. i haven't checked if the older tracks are less likely to be sony bmg, but maybe that has something to do with it. i totally stink at remembering record labels anyway. but maybe sara's, martina's, and dierk's (and brooks & dunn's, come to think of it - their song here came from their best-of album which i never heard) labels don't want their songs here to cut into sales of their current albums. whereas maybe with smaller acts like aldean and anderson (whose album edd says he's going to send me so i finally hear it - thanks edd!) *totally country* is considered a smart promotional tool.

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 14:41 (twenty years ago)

>Redneck Yacht Club"...seems to present redneck as not far from fratboy.<

Yeah, it's weird; I've never equated parrotheads with rednecks. And I've always assumed that anybody rich enough to afford a yacht *can't* be a redneck. (Though maybe they're not real yachts, just powerboats or something? Can you fire up tiki torches on a powerboat? I should listen closer to the lyrics, but either way, it seems kind of extravagant by Jeff Foxworthy's definition, I would say.) So part of the feeling I get with the song is boatowners lying to themselves.

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 14:45 (twenty years ago)

"hicktown" to me just sounds better and better -- the words (which, as i think anthony easton has pointed out, are really really specific, worthy of a really great rap song) and the beat (which, as frank points out, at least flirts with disco, and includes a quite funky break). definitely should have voted for this (instead of "corn fed"!) on my nashville scene ballot; maybe should've p&j'd it as well. (to anybody who has heard it, how does the rest of his album sound? somebody here voted for it in the nashivlle poll, didn't they?)

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 14:48 (twenty years ago)

bruce robison, *eleven stories* -- not as good as charlie robison (charlie's last album anyway, the only one i've heard -- they're brothers, right?) possibly better than james taylor, who this album reminds me of. but no songs as nearly as good as "fire and rain." (actually, i'd say some of this reminds me of ricky skaggs trying to be james taylor. which might mean it's like john denver? could be.)

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 15:37 (twenty years ago)

xp The Aldean gets decidedly less specific and interesting after "Hicktown," which is the first track. I like the second song about saving the farm (forget the name now) and there's another in the middle, a modern day cowboy song that has a nice hook but the rest sounded fairly generic otherwise (lyrics definitely generic) -- at least that's what I remember of it. It's been a couple of months. I do recall at the time thinking that the album was a weird marriage of trad modern country and something more rockish, propulsive that was "Hicktown."

― werner T., Monday, 13 February 2006 15:58 (twenty years ago)

yeah, a redneck yacht club would use a fishin' boat. altho some of the bass-fishing boats I've seen, with elaborate GPS locators and huge outboard motors--you could sail around the world in one of those things. maybe it's important to understand the typical southern male's love of many motorized vehicles...I mean the other day I was visiting someone who has this farm with cattle, and these guys were out in a snowy field herding up these old cows on these crazy four-wheelers, scooting all over the place. my brother-in-law has a bass boat that costs more than some people's houses--he's fucking serious about it.

anyway, I always saw parrotheads as middle-class good ol' boys rather than rednecks--they can afford to go down to Destin or Ft. Lauderdale or deep-sea fish once or twice a year, and they usually have a Neville Brothers CD and maybe even Lyle Lovett in with their Gentry, Jackson and Urban (for the wife). music, perhaps, aimed at/informed by the coastal Catholic south-- that area in between New Orleans and Pensacola? and of course frats and sororities, maybe they go with their parents to see Jimmy for some controlled drinking.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 13 February 2006 16:57 (twenty years ago)

Is "Totally Country" a good series for someone who (due to geographical reasons) doesn't get exposed to all that much Country? I notice amazon.uk stocks it, which isn't the case with many albums by current mainstream country artists. Since even slsk is very hit-and-miss with furnishing me with the stuff that gets talked about on this thread, would this be a good "Ragga Ragga Ragga" equivalent for Country?

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 13 February 2006 17:57 (twenty years ago)

Vol. 5 is actually the first volume I've heard, Daniel, but if its song selection is any indication, they've got some good song pickers; which other volumes were you considering? What are their tracklists?

― xhuxk, Monday, 13 February 2006 18:01 (twenty years ago)

They have volumes two, three and four.

Volume 2:
1. Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde - Travis TrittMusic
2. I Breathe in, I Breathe Out - Chris CagleMusic
3. Just What I Do - Trick PonyMusic
4. My Town - Montgomery GentryMusic
5. That's When I Love You - Phil VassarMusic
6. Best Day - George StraitMusic
7. But for the Grace of God - Keith UrbanMusic
8. Ten Rounds With Jose Cuervo - Tracy ByrdMusic
9. Ol' Red - Blake SheltonMusic
10. Life Happened - Tammy CochranMusic
11. One - Gary AllanMusic
12. She Was - Mark ChesnuttMusic
13. Wrapped Around - Brad PaisleyMusic
14. Impossible - Joe NicholsMusic
15. I Don't Want You to Go - Carolyn Dawn JohnsonMusic
16. I'm Movin' On - Rascal FlattsMusic
17. Ashes by Now - Lee Ann WomackMusic

Volume 3:
1. Unbroken - Tim McGrawMusic
2. Cry - Faith HillMusic
3. Speed - Montgomery GentryMusic
4. Three Wooden Crosses - Randy TravisMusic
5. Blessed - Martina McBrideMusic
6. Love You Out Loud - Rascal FlattsMusic
7. Beautiful Mess - Diamond RioMusic
8. Baby - Blake SheltonMusic
9. Was That My Life - Jo Dee Messina
10. Not a Day Goes By - LonestarMusic
11. When You Lie Next to Me - Kellie CoffeyMusic
12. American Child - Phil VassarMusic
13. On a Mission - Trick PonyMusic
14. One Last Time - Dusty DrakeMusic
15. Strong Enough to Be Your Man - Travis TrittMusic
16. Life Goes On - LeAnn RimesMusic
17. Tonight I Wanna Be Your Man - Andy Griggs

Volume 4:
1. That'd Be Alright - Alan JacksonMusic
2. Redneck Woman - Gretchen WilsonMusic
3. No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems - Kenny ChesneyMusic
4. Some Beach - Blake SheltonMusic
5. Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy) - Big & RichMusic
6. I Love This Bar - Toby KeithMusic
7. Brokenheartsville - Joe NicholsMusic
8. Little Moments - Brad PaisleyMusic
9. Letters from Home - John Michael Montgomery
10. Tough Little Boys - Gary AllanMusic
11. Desperately - George StraitMusic
12. Let's Be Us Again - LonestarMusic
13. Perfect - Sara EvansMusic
14. Heaven - Los Lonely BoysMusic
15. I Can't Sleep - Clay WalkerMusic
16. Help Pour Out the Rain (Lacey's Song) - Buddy JewellMusic
17. Hell Yeah - Montgomery Gentry

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 13 February 2006 20:16 (twenty years ago)

5 is put out by Sony/BMG in association with Warner Bros, and there's nothing distributed by Universal on it, hence no Gary Allan (though I see he was on a previous). I forget if Capitol/EMI is still standing on its own (weren't they the ones who a couple of years ago paid Mariah Carey millions to depart, since they knew she would never hit big again?) or if one of the others swallowed them; anyway, Dierks' is the only Capitol/EMI track on this, and as Xhuxk points out, it's an old one. Aldean and Morgan are on Broken Bow records, which apparently is an honest-to-god indie (so at least two indie labels - Broken Bow and Equity - are scoring hits in the country market; do you know of any more?).

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 23:24 (twenty years ago)

The big surprise for me was how much I like the Sara Evans; as I said last year, I'd previously brushed her aside. Warm and swinging, with a smart and funny new metaphor for why someone hits the road (leaving the suds still in the bucket). She didn't write the song, but she co-produced it.

A small surprise, not necessarily pleasant, was that I had to admit to myself that Martina McBride's "God's Will" pulls me in, despite my despising not just its clumsy, blatant manipulativeness, but its stupid cheap way of making its point. (Um, the crippled are God's children and they can bring God to us.) And the point is dreadful itself. And even with totally different words I don't like the sound of such ballads. But I guess there was enough in the ballad, and in the words, and her big warm-hearted voice, to pull me in. Not that I intend to play it much, and I still don't feel it sounds good. But there's power in it.

(If she were really going to face the theological issue - assuming there is one? something along the lines of [to quote Loretta Lynn] "God makes no mistakes"? - she'd have to plump for the abusive father in "Independence Day" also representing God's will, right?)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 23:35 (twenty years ago)

jesus take the whell could have been silly but isnt, is what i meant

― Anthony Easton, Monday, 13 February 2006 23:39 (twenty years ago)

What's most offensive in the Ray Scott track is that he doesn't consider reaching out and thinking about what she might like. But the song cooks anyway. The Morgan didn't sound as strong this time, sans video, but I like the fact that it mentions SPF 15. Hey rednecks, got to avoid that redness!

xpost

I need to get back to "Jesus Take the Wheel." I've heard so much "turn it over to God" crap since moving to Colorado that I just may not be able to give it a fair chance.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 13 February 2006 23:42 (twenty years ago)

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