Rolling country 2007 thread

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New album by David Olney, One Tough Town, is kicking my butt; alternating awesome cynical country songs with Tom Waits-like thumpers which still somehow work even though I'm pretty much over Tom Waits imitators. Guest guitar by Richard Thompson on at least one track, but real star are the actual songs. Title track talks about how Earth is the toughest gig: "They'll put a hole in you they could drive a truck through / And if you don't like it ... " (well he doesn't actually say anything there but guess what rhymes with "truck through"?)

― Dimension 5ive, Saturday, 21 April 2007 16:52 (nineteen years ago)

I've got the Olney too, I'll check it out. Remember him on Austin City Limits 30 years ago, swaggering through this b-movie-boxer-as-primo-Graham-Parker-of-Nashville thing; the audience was laughing,as he strutted among them spouting 100 words per barline (so in that sense like the Brooce of several years previous, but the voice and arragement were as compressed as GP & The Rumour, only it was a Southern Thing too! WooHoo!)(the band might have been The X-Rays, or maybe that was later) Cool, but somehow I've never picked up (or even seen) an album. Also, last night I heard this song, "No Regrets, " which I thought was Tom Rush, suavely melancholy with early-Joni changes, and Rush was one of the first to record her songs, but turned out to be--Waits! From an album he made in 1969. I'd always thought of Closing Time, from maybe '71, as his first, with "Old '55," which The Eagles covered. Pretty good songs, and not really the faux-Satchmo bit yet, but this '69 bit was even better. (And the DJ said he did cover Joni on there, but think this was an original; anyway, might be worth checking out; fairly often did like his songs, but not the full-on vocal thing, usually). Yeah, Edd, Prine with Melba Montgomery and Iris Dement etc. is prob the keeper. Elzabeth Cook's new Balls is tickling me, for the most part. Just pitched it, so I'll hold my enthusiasm for the moneyshot. Not feelin' the new Dale Watson, he begs comparison with Cash and Waylon, who had more emotional range (Cash's "Sam Hill," snarling on the gallows, but Dale's killers are too nice, at least on this album(BTW, the"Yellow Mama" he mentions is Alabama's electric chair, so named for its paint job and a streak of piss-stain, but he's too nice to tell you that)

― dow, Saturday, 21 April 2007 18:51 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, the Tea Leaf Green live is conventional jam band, with guitar cranking all possible interest for the first half or so; the others pull their weight eventually, but the studio album was much better, more distinctive, with the translucent, android vocals and keybs up front, the guitar like lighting in the background, suitable for the songs about growing up way back in the mountains, and hazards and beauty of that, and of gradually venturing out.

― dow, Saturday, 21 April 2007 18:55 (nineteen years ago)

Good new version of the Rednex' techno-country version of "Cotton Eyed Joe" on the Pretty Donkey Girl album (Pretty Donkey apparently this year's model to carry on the hamster dance/crazy frog zany zoo tradition.) Discussed further on the teenpop thread. Have not listened to "Holly's Farm" yet.

The "D-Bop Radio Edit" of Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Girl" that Frank burned for me on his most recent mix CD would've fit pretty well on the Pretty Donkey CD, probably, but I still like a bunch of tracks on Gretchen's new album more (closing time boogie "You Don't Have To Go Home," Southern rocker that quotes Billy Idol and Bob Seger "There's a Place in the Whiskey", "Okee From Muskogee" soundalike "If You Want a Mother," "Gold Old Boy"). Basically, again, the rockers. Which are better than her debut album's ballads ever were, and the first album's rockers return the favor to the new album's ballads. Though midtempos "The Girl I Am" and "There Goes The Neighborhood" are fine. She's totally consistent; it's not her fault that fickle fans overrated her when she first showed up.

Tea Leaf Green live is conventional jam band ...the studio album was much better, more distinctive

In retrospect, I would probably agree with this.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

"Redneck Woman," I mean.

Biggest surprise on the first few tracks I tracked through on the new Nick Lowe apparently-all-covers-of-songs-I-never-heard-before album: How flat his voice has become over the years. Not sure why I expected otherwise; haven't paid close attention to the guy since 1979 (guess I've listened to a couple albums in the interim to write quickie reviews, but they're long gone from my memory banks), and my assumption has always been that he turned dullard years ago. Well, he still is one. Albeit a tasteful dullard, apparently. And one whose vocal chords have done what most vocal chords do in 28 years. For whatever it's worth, the song choice seems okay (and even his flatness seems passingly pleasant.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:42 (nineteen years ago)

(Another possibilty: Yep Roc simply brings out the dullard in people. See: Ian Hunter above.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:45 (nineteen years ago)

Haven't heard those particular albums, but might well be the hazards of being a pub rock label, in the sense that pub rock is basically a geezercore thing, though it involves youger art-rowdies too: I like Th' Legendary Shack Shakers and Chatham County Line on Yep Roc, and John Doe too, speaking of geezercore. Ian and Nick seem pretty insular, basically, so at this point the dullard might not need much bringing out.

― dow, Sunday, 22 April 2007 03:32 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think Yep Roc is much involved in production.

― dow, Sunday, 22 April 2007 03:41 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, most likely not (though I wonder if the blandness is part of what attracts the label to these sorts of oldster projects in the first place?)

Anyway, I wish this fellow had more interesting things going on singing-wise, lyric-wise, melody-wise, and rhythm-wise (seeing how he seems to see himself as a disciple of Dylan, or at least his harmonica parts do) but I still think the idea of a concept EP dedicated to the concept of Levittown (the Long Island one, where I've never been, though Billy Joel mentioned it in a song once, not the Pennsylvania one, where I lived when I was in Kindergarten) -- apparently commissioned by the archetypal 'burb for its 60th Anniversary, no less. And it's only eight songs, so who knows, maybe a few will kick in despite their plainness. (I've long been a sucker for suburb rock, though maybe he should've gotten Fountains of Wayne to help him out? Or the Pet Shop Boys, or Rush? Or better still, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw?) I wonder if he knows "Little Boxes" is the theme of Weeds:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/koenigbob

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 12:37 (nineteen years ago)

"I still think the idea of a concept EP dedicated to the concept of Levittown..." is an overdue idea, I meant. (My dashes and parentheses lost me there.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

Also, not an EP -- 12 songs, duh, with only the first two-thirds Levittown-related. (Though my as yet untested guess is that keeping the project pure, just the Levittown 8, might've been wiser.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 12:42 (nineteen years ago)

Bob K is a really nice guy. He's also written songs about Mineola. And holy cow, he put "Backroad Pond" on the CD. That's from years ago. I play the electric guitar parts.

― Thus Sang Freud, Sunday, 22 April 2007 13:42 (nineteen years ago)

He seems like a nice guy! And I will listen to his CD more. But I dunno, right now his sound is seeming antiseptic enough to mirror every ignorant suburbaphobe myth you've ever heard, which might defeat the purpose, since it means he doesn't really bring suburbia to life. And if Levittown is like lots of other first-generation suburbs these days, I'm not really convinced by his bourgeois utopianism, either. Yeah, GIs came home after WWII and bought GE refrigerators. And decades later, where the appliance store used to stand there's now a crystal meth factory, unless the appliance store was on Main Street or it'd qualify as lucrative waterfront property, in which case it's been replaced by a quaint crafts boutique or crab shack. Maybe not in Levittown, but that's what would make make suburbia and exurbia interesting to do a talking blues about now. (Enter here: rant about what some country singers should be singing about these days, from the current Dust Bowl-like flght by Montanta-and-Wyoming-bound Detroiters to high fructose corn syrup spawned by farm subsidies making obesity inevitable among impoverished kids {great piece about the latter in today's Sunday Times magazine}. But it won't happen.) (Are many off-Nashville alt-country guys writing about those sorts of topics lately? That'd be much more likely, I'm guessing. Though their singing might not put the lyrics over, so I probably wouldn't notice.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

(Unless the guys on the G.I. bill got the fridge from the Sears catalog, or a department store in the city, or wherever. But you get my point.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

well, Don, my take on Cook's new one is that she got a little coy about how much she wants to be a star...success narrative...and so you get a bunch of lines like "the options are endless, so it seems" and "I'm not a has-been, I'm still a gonna-be." the guitar playing--the stuff that sounds like rock and roll Fender playing is probably by her husband Tim Carroll--makes some of the record come alive. other times I get not a whole lot from her voice. so I dunno. the uptempo stuff is good and "Sometimes It Takes" a minor classic of sorts, a song Nick Lowe would like. dunno about Lowe's voice these days, or how Yep Roc can make anyone sound bland, can believe it's true from the evidence of a lot of their stuff.
far as Dale Watson goes, Don, I've said this before on here, but I think he's onto something with that record and it might have to do with the aural quality of the thing itself and not the songs. the keepers are "You Always Get What You Want" and "Time Without You" and the rest of it is a bit pro forma, and yeah, "Yellow Mama" is about the 'Bama 'lectric chair but they don't tell ya that so you wonder what sort of miscengenist or eugenecist song it is.

― whisperineddhurt, Sunday, 22 April 2007 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

xp: I'm guessing James McMurtry (in "We Can't Make It Here" and/or elsewhere) has maybe come close to meeting some of the lyrical requests I made in that last rant. I just wish I liked his music more.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 14:22 (nineteen years ago)

xxpp: Decided I like quiet one "Pain Killer" better than loud one "You Don't Have To Go Home" on the new Gretchen. So my rule does have exceptions. (And D-Bopped "Redneck Woman" beats the latter as well.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

Have not listened to "Holly's Farm" yet

It is "Old McDonald Had a Farm." Good version, too! EIEIO's go well with bubbletechno beats, turns out.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 19:18 (nineteen years ago)

What is the "D-Bopped" "Redneck Woman"? I'm one of those who thought Gretchen's first album was just perfect, so I'm in for inevitable letdowns, but I think I like this one better than the second. I hate the opening track, where she sings about how she never says she's sorry or gives apologies, and "I don't give a damn--I guess that's just the girl I am." I don't like refusing to apologize when it's my wife doing it and I don't like it any more when it's Gretchen. But the album picks up from there. I do hate that it's only 11 songs, which is SonyBMG's CD-era equivalent of the nine-song limit in the LP era. (Only Brad Paisley seems to be able to get a longer song list past Joe Galante.) So Gretchen's album ends with a sad ballad, which would sound okay if it weren't really the only song of its kind on the album and an odd finale. She needs to end her albums with "Pocahontas Proud"-type cappers, not the least characteristic song on her record (also true of the Billie Holliday cover last time, but bothering me more this time for some reason). Then again, I may be one of the few country music fans alive who really gives a shit about album song sequencing. Actually, "You Don't Have to Go Home" is my least favorite, because it pretty much takes one line out of Supersonic's "Closing Time" and makes a whole lyrical hook out of it, as if it were presenting something original and clever. But I like the rest of it, especially "Pain Killer" and the funny one about being her lover's mother.

― Willman, Sunday, 22 April 2007 21:45 (nineteen years ago)

The thing I hate most about Nashville songwriting is the repetition of a clever title at the beginning AND end of the chorus, as if people might not get it if they didn't hear it twice in 30 seconds. Which is why I really don't like Elizabeth Cook's "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman." She's supposed to have joined the insurgent side now or something, but the song not only plays by that hoary Nashville rule but takes it a step further: She not only begins and ends each chorus with the adorable line but also ends each verse with it, too, for good measure. By my calculations, that's roughly 3,412 repetititions. Is the rest of the album any good? I don't know--I'm "supposed to" like her, I know, but sometimes it's hard getting past one tune that's a major turnoff.

― Willman, Sunday, 22 April 2007 21:56 (nineteen years ago)

What is the "D-Bopped" "Redneck Woman"?

Chipmunk/hamster-voiced Eurotechno remix Frank Kogan burnt for me. I'm not sure where he dug it up.

. I do hate that it's only 11 songs,

Ha ha, I almost always prefer short albums. (If I had my way, most acts would just put out EPs.) (One reason I like way more country albums than hip-hop albums at this point in history.)

I may be one of the few country music fans alive who really gives a shit about album song sequencing

Yeah, this wouldn't be me. I hardly ever listen to songs in the order they're on the album anyway.

"You Don't Have to Go Home"...takes one line out of Supersonic's "Closing Time" and makes a whole lyrical hook out of it

Really? That wasn't even the closing time I was thinking of when I said "closing time" up above. I was thinking more that she took a sign about a bar she (or whoever the songwriter was) drank in and made a whole lyrical hook out of that, which seems a pretty dang country thing to do. (Also, the song is way better than anything I ever heard by Supersonic. Whose words I've long forgotten.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 22:03 (nineteen years ago)

Well, last fm has it, at least:

[Removed Illegal Link]

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

(Oh well; it's googlable.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

(Last.fm Has the D-Bop edit, that is.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 22:09 (nineteen years ago)

And a sign above a bar, I meant. And I have never used last.fm; that was just one of sites came up when I googled "D-Bop" "Redneck Woman," and I was impressed that 24 people had listened to the remix there in the past six months. And I hope this post fixes that annoying italics problem, and maybe a moderator can delete the last few wasted ones.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

The Supersonic song has the line "Closing time - you don't have to go home but you can't stay here," which I always liked. Hearing Gretchen take it and repeat it over and over as the chorus of her song kind of bugged me. Truth is, this line is probably uttered by thousands of bartenders every night, and I just haven't been in enough of 'em at 2 a.m. to recognize it as not original to Supersonic. But I guess in the general scheme of egregiousness, it's not as bad as Merle uberfan Toby Keith naming a song "Get Drunk and Be Somebody," after Merle's "Drink Up and Be Somebody," etc.

― Willman, Monday, 23 April 2007 02:24 (nineteen years ago)

Guys, your objections to Elizabeth Cook helped me improve my pitch; thanks! xxhuxx, xxcellent ideas for/challenges to songwriters. Reminds me of a New Yorker short story by E. Annie Proulx, if I've got her name right. (Also wrote the short story basis of Brokeback Mountain.) In the one I'm thinking of, ranchers denounce the trashing of the contemporary West by nouveau riche immigrants from Burbia, without noticing that they're trashing it too. Much amazing detail here, since backed up by my googling, alas. I don't like that it's from viewpoint of Burbian zombies, but hopefully she'll continue to explore this turf. (Has she written lyrics? Maybe for the Brokeback soundtrack? Or am I thinking of somebody else; several novelists turning songwriters these days.)

― dow, Monday, 23 April 2007 22:05 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know why there hasn't been some sort of biodiesel commune narrative set in West Tennessee with some ex-'60s radicals thrown in there --speaking of country's expanded subject matter. they're doing a lot of biodiesel in West Tennessee, the Coöp newsletter says, big bucks in the making for the right person...
as far as "Sometimes It Takes Balls," I mean it sounds like a typical Nashville songwriter's trick in that they find a few different ways to set that title phrase within the structure of the thing, very formal. I think it's a good song. to me, the whole album is a sort of new wave move, a throwback to hickabilly country music, we're so country we're cool, if not weird, and rock and roll is just a joke to us. yet they're trying to rock in an odd way, it's that old trick. it's a mild record, could've been more urgent but then part of what's interesting about the record is how unsure it really is and how the various games they play attempt to hide that unsureness, and how obviously they fail. insurgent it's not. strange.
xps

― whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:12 (nineteen years ago)

what's with these i-talics?
just thought I'd mention, speaking of insurgents, that the new Johnny Bush record is out of hand--it's out there. big-band shit and horn arrangements and steel guitar. ferocious groove and some great electric guitar. I haven't fully absorbed what he's doing here, but he really pushes his voice, and I mean he sounds like a big-band singer. Moon Mullican's "I'll Sail My Ship Alone" just fucking swings, cat daddies and mommas. the sense of sheer release Bush gets here in his singing puts a lot of what I've been listening to to bed, and the music is dense. pretty great.

― whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

[/i]ITALICS BEGONE

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:46 (nineteen years ago)

haha whoops

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:47 (nineteen years ago)

hello

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:47 (nineteen years ago)

sorry it's stuck on italics

by the way this isnt 2007 but i think the nightwatchman album is pretty good for springsteen-derived angry populist folk music

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:48 (nineteen years ago)

aw hell it IS 2007, started to say one thing and said another

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 01:49 (nineteen years ago)

don't know the Nightwatchman. semi-populist mutant folk music: the new Dave Olney, One Tough Town. the first two tracks are sort of his swamp/Excello/rockabilly move, and his voice is right on the edge. third track uses this dixieland 'bone and clarinet ricky-ticky two-step and he makes like your old uncle jazz singer. "I'll be giving orders from now on/I'm just a chunk of wood/Listen up good/Get yourself together or get gone." Somehow he's convincing on this one, so maybe his rockin' moments aren't him to a T. I don't think he's much of a singer but he tries, and he's going after an avant-blooze thing about ten years too late, or thirty years, since "Who's the Dummy Now?" is like Beefheart's Spotlight Kid. Hard to get a handle on how "literary" his lyrics are--he sounds like the usual hard-boiled Gaelic Shamus. In other words not bad but I fear the inevitable Tom Waits comparisons and frankly I've never much liked Waits' supposedly avant-garde Rudy Vallee imitations. and when Olney sings how love is a long-shot gamble/roll of the dice/you burn with fire/walk on thin ice, I turn the goddamned thing off.

― whisperineddhurt, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 19:23 (nineteen years ago)

the nightwatchman album isn't bad but it would help a lot if he could sing. it sounds eerily like dave alvin. who also can't sing.

― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

Gretchen Wilson's One of the Boys confirms my suspicion this is a deeply interesting feminist moment in country music--strong records from Pam Tillis, Miranda Lambert, Elizabeth Cook and Wilson, and I'd put Amy LaVere in there because she's also one Strong Woman plus she's the best-lookin' of all of the artists I list. I figured out, if she had the voice for it she could blow all the punkabilly female singers (Kristi Rose, and Elizabeth Cook's voice is essentially characterless other than she sounds tough and reeeal country, therefore Pissed Off, except she's not pissed off enough, thus she loses in this particular feminist moment. Carrie Underwood, whose record I still feel is in that odd category of Too Much but whose passion and real feeling for the exhilaration of success I probably underrated a bit (still think Underwood is the greatest interpreter of Diane Warren--and hey, Diane Warren is another strong woman, has done well), is in here too. But anyway, Wilson's record starts off with her shrinking away from herself and from success and she sounds a bit lost on "Pain Killer" and does better with the wordless chorus of the rather strangely non-verbal "One of the Boys" (so, she or someone understands something about rock and roll--cf. the Stones' Metamorphosis, and if I wanted to get cute I'd say this is Gretchen's Flowers or "I'd Much Rather Be with the Boys" move). Plus, is it just me kind of getting off on this particular feminist moment or does a song like "There's a Place in the Whiskey" really take some of those old notions about sleazoid rock riffs turning into something more calculated and turn them on their heads? Anyway, the backing here throughout sounds perfect for the concerns about identity Gretchen is playing off of, with the slightly rushed beginning of "There Goes the Neighborhood" and the relish she sings "mobile home" and the chorus expressing something she can't get to in the songs themselves. So, this is crafty shit and there's not anything as remotely and deeply, fuck-you feminist or unselfconsciously avant as Nashville country, maybe.

― whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 19:17 (nineteen years ago)

should be, Amy LaVere could blow all those singers away if she had the voice. those parentheses got me, and plus I'm enjoying the Wilson record too much. plus she moves to the city in "There Goes the Neighborhood" and the city people "are playing possum while I'm living high on the hog," which makes me laugh a lot.

― whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 19:21 (nineteen years ago)

Some songs on the Bucky Covington debut are clicking with me right now. A surprise after hearing the horrible first single "A Different World" which has a guy born in 1977 singing about growing up in a time before all that modern stuff like video games. (Dude, the Pac Man Fever album came out when you were five!) When he was on American Idol I thought he had a nice .38 Special style voice--especially when he was doing Gary Allan & Skynyrd songs--but when I heard the single I thought some producer (apparently someone from Sawyer Brown) had sanitized him beyond all hope. Luckily the single seems to be just an attempt to get Country Radio spins (it's working) and the rest of the album is fairly kick ass Southern Rock.

I sorta like how "Back When We Were Gods" is a rewrite of "When We Were Kings" by Brooks & Dunn, but a generation later (with one of the buddies going to Desert Storm instead of Vietnam.) Speaking of rocking country, it's unfortunate (for him) that his release date is so close to Miranda's, since I'm sure her album blows his away.

― mulla atari, Thursday, 26 April 2007 12:54 (nineteen years ago)

has anybody else heard "Good Kinda Crazy" by Amy Dalley? She's talking about her goofy guy dancing around like Mick Jagger and putting on a Latin accent in the bedroom, that he's super-impatient but still waited in line for hours to buy Toby Keith tickets for her and her friends. I went to her web site and so far I've only listened to one other song but it was great too, I think it's called "That's All I Have to Say About That" and it's about her and her friends having a wild night out, doing body shots and seducing mama's boys. Lots of flashing too, apparently. Fun stuff.

― JoshLove, Thursday, 26 April 2007 15:44 (nineteen years ago)

Amy Dalley had a hell of a single a few years ago called "Men Don't Change." I credit it as the single that really got me listening to country radio (the late KZLA in L.A.). Bizarrely, it and every other Amy Dalley single (and there've been a bunch of them) have never been commercially available. Curb has had an album of hers in the can for years, and I'm sure she's recorded at least a subsequent album's worth of material since then. But until she has a top 5 hit, it's apparently not worth their while to put actual product out there.

― Willman, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, I just listened to that one too on her Myspace and it was also terrific (there's another great one on her web site called "Gossip" where the rumors in question concern a slutty cheerleader, a grocery store tryst, and exchanging sex for good grades). I found an interview online where she says the album's coming out this year, so hopefully that's a good sign. tracking if and when this record is coming out may end up turning into an obsession.

― JoshLove, Thursday, 26 April 2007 18:29 (nineteen years ago)

The video, which I wrote about on that year's Rolling Country, seemed perfect, and CMT played the hell out of it, and yes, album's still in the can, and the same thing is happening to Ashley Monroe (they did manage to send out a promo early last year, then noticed it needed some more work, so they did that, and meanwhile the vid kept showing up, and album's gotten pushed back, pulled fwd, last Sony told me, might be this fall)

― dow, Thursday, 26 April 2007 22:23 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think I've ever heard an Amy Dalley song! And I clearly need to. Sounds like she'd be great.

Chronic insomnia (no longer a laughing matter, to be honest) has made me fall behind on this thread this week, among others. I'll catch up eventually, I'm sure. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to grasp the appeal of that Amy LaVere record. I mean, it's okay -- or at least "That Beat"'s Slavic two-beat and "Washing Machine"'s laundry rock are okay -- but beyond that, I'm either drawing a blank from it (most of it) or outwardly cringing at it ("People Get Mad" and "I'll Remember You," the latter of which takes her way too pervasive shrinking-violet routine to an extreme I just can't stomach.) (Not sure why Edd thinks she's so gorgeous, either, to be honest -- I mean, she looks comely enough on the CD cover I suppose {actually, how she looks on the CD cover reminds me of Neko Case, which makes me wonder whether her sound should also remind me of Case, who I've never gotten the appeal of either}, but then lots of ladies look comely on their CD covers, right? Martina McBride's a lot cuter, in my book, and I'm still not convinced her crummy new album isn't better, to be honest.) All in all, as folky girly country goes, I'd say I'm preferring the new album by Jan Bell & the Cheap Dates, Songs For Love Drunk Sinners -- especially "January Morning" and "Given" so far, which have a prettiness LaVere just can't touch.

Also in my CD changer this sleepy morning: The Best of Acoustic Jethro Tull (which seems quite useful in this freak-folk/jig-metal age) and Big Al Downing's XM Satellite Radio Live, which I just got, and is the closest thing to a Big Al best-of I own, not that it actually has any competition.

Links to the latter two:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/jbcheapdates

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bigaldowning2

― xhuxk, Friday, 27 April 2007 11:54 (nineteen years ago)

"a doomy prettiness" (in re: Jan Bell, I should say).

As for LaVere, maybe the great songs just aren't coming up in my fickle and picky CD changer? Always a possibility. Which ones are they, Edd?

― xhuxk, Friday, 27 April 2007 11:59 (nineteen years ago)

Oh yeah, I like LaVere's "Overcome" polka, too. Probably a good chance I'll wind up keeping the album despite my misgivings, which means it is probably better than McBride's after all (unless I wind up keeping that one, as well, though it'll take me longer to decide.) And Amy's fetchiness may well me on par, too -- I've never seen her (or McBride, actually) in person, so what do I know?

Also in yesterday's mail, btw: Advance of new Big & Rich album! Complete with Wyclef Jean and John Legend guest spots and AC/DC remake! But it's one of those daunting looking copy-protected and water- marked (so I couldn't file-share it even if I knew how) Warners advances that never play in my stereo, so I haven't even bothered to try to put it on yet.

― xhuxk, Friday, 27 April 2007 12:05 (nineteen years ago)

(And it should also be noted that Jan Bell's got her own wallflowery vocal tendencies that bug me sometimes as well, so I'm not dead set on the winner of that contest either. I do think, though, that Jan has a knack for dark melodies -- as demonstrated on both her 9-11 single from a few years back and her Maybelles album from a couple years ago maybe more than her new one -- that I'm not hearing from Amy, who does seem to be trying.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 27 April 2007 12:15 (nineteen years ago)

i've expressed my disdain for the new fountains of wayne album on their own thread, but seeing them perform the song "I-95" the other night sent me back to the album which made me realize what an utterly fabulous ballad that is, and it sounds very much like a classic country love song. it's full of great local detail, dry humor and longing.

coffee mugs and tees
that say 'virginia is for lovers'
but it's not
'round here it's just for truckers who forgot
to fill up on gasoline
back up near aberdeen

also onstage, chris collingwood switched to an acoustic guitar after two or three songs and said something like, "see, it didn't take very long to go all country on your ass." at which point they played the new "fire in the canyon." which is kinda pretty but also kinda goes nowhere.

― fact checking cuz, Friday, 27 April 2007 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

agreed on the McBride, it seems like the ones with interesting words ("House of a Thousand Dreams," "Love Land") are dull musically while the more melodically engaging ones ("Everybody Does," "How I Feel") are lyrically inane.

much much better is Sarah Buxton's album; we covered her in the Stylus Jukebox a couple of months back with the terrific "That Kind of Day," which to me sounded more like teen-pop than country (even though she's at least in her mid-to-late 20s), just typical girl-pop stuff that's rich in specifics, about maxing out credit cards and hearing that mom thinks you've gained five pounds. the rest of the record holds up too - the concepts behind the songs might be fairly generic, but her verses are full of great details and a lot of humor - references to Kansas Jayhawks basketball, grandma watching Sex and the City, not to mention a ridiculously delightful song about crazy dreams brought on by too much wine, chocolate and pizza, one of which involves making mud pies with Kevin Spacey (?!).

she also wrote Keith Urban's hit "Stupid Boy" and tacks on her own version here, which is fine, though Urban's is still better.

― JoshLove, Friday, 27 April 2007 12:29 (nineteen years ago)

the latter two:

well, not exactly the LATTER two.

Amy's fetchiness may well me on par

= Amy's FETCHINGNESS may well BE on par.

(blame the lack of sleep.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 27 April 2007 13:01 (nineteen years ago)

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