2 hours is A LOT to wade through, so this is an admittedly rushed take, but I'm completely floored by/enamored with it -- the sheer industry is a marvel. Albums like this -- Sandinista, 69 Love Songs, The White Album, Emancipation?? -- are usually made by established, successful artists and say something about their restless, relentless artistic energy and talents. They communicate an ability to do anything.
While all these tracks slot within established country and heartland rock traditions, this is no less wide-ranging or ambitious. There are arena-ready rockers, acoustic sketches, radio sing-alongs, red dirt Americana numbers, and a cover of "You Are My Sunshine" for good measure. That he appears to have written every note and lyric aside from that one cover is so incredibly at odds with the vast majority of two decades' worth of male-dominated country...it makes me giddy.
I also like most of the production and playing -- the restraint especially. A lot of it just lets Bryan be, with his vocals and guitar front-and-center, instead of stuffing the thing with too-bright drum fills and the like. But there's also a free-spirited, "try everything" approach throughout, with fiddle, horns, electric guitar, backing vocals, and even a song with auto-tune, and hell, most of it works pretty dang well.
The most obvious antecedent to my ears is Turnpike Troubadours. His earnest rasp can sound awfully similar to them at times, especially on those more Americana-tilted tracks. I'm also reminded of Tyler Childers in places. But Bryan isn't nearly as literary or pretentious as those artists can be. His lyrics are more rudimentary, but I guarantee they are far more relatable to the average kid in rural America than a lot of what else they're spoon fed.
― Indexed, Tuesday, 15 November 2022 20:07 (one year ago) link
Caitlin Rose finally released her long-time-coming third album. More country-adjacent, but figured some of you would know her and be interested.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/caitlin-rose-cazimi/
― Indexed, Friday, 18 November 2022 14:16 (one year ago) link
oh man this is so good, thank you
― sean gramophone, Friday, 18 November 2022 15:07 (one year ago) link
This song came out in February (album in April) but is new to me, and I don't believe she has been mentioned in this thread -- it is the most stunning country song I have heard this year. The patient way it builds to its ripping climax, her fiery vocals percolating throughout.
Whole album is very very good -- crazy sharp lyrics and stories, super well constructed songs. Dabbles with cosmic country and outlaw country; lots of twang; produced by Oran Thornton who co-produced Angaleena Presley's Wrangled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSeCpIg6llI
You go too farAnd you get too closeAnd you hide your scarsWhen you put on your showThere's nowhere to runYou run through my veinsAnd I hold my tongueSwallow my prideAnd stayBlood you're the jury and judgeThe tie that bindsAnd pushes and shovesForgives and forgetsBonds and cementsA counterfeit loveBlood, merciless floodDraggin' my name through the mudAnd awful things swept under the rugFor blood
Blood you're the jury and judgeThe tie that bindsAnd pushes and shovesForgives and forgetsBonds and cementsA counterfeit loveBlood, merciless floodDraggin' my name through the mudAnd awful things swept under the rugFor blood
― Indexed, Saturday, 19 November 2022 15:22 (one year ago) link
sounds great, thanks for the tip
― corrs unplugged, Sunday, 20 November 2022 11:05 (one year ago) link
Been listening to this on repeat, and cannot get enough. Could one word -- "stay" -- do any much work in telling a story? The way they use the double-instrumental solo instead of a bridge stretches time and allows her to start the final chorus from a lower dynamic before building up to the utterly righteous Draggin'.
― Indexed, Monday, 21 November 2022 16:06 (one year ago) link
this is nice
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Monday, 21 November 2022 21:43 (one year ago) link
holy shit
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 21 November 2022 22:53 (one year ago) link
that's a good song but it didn't really hit me until i clicked through to this live version. man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWmkCdCXLOM
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 21 November 2022 23:44 (one year ago) link
Ah that's great and didn't know Angaleena cowrote it!
― Indexed, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 16:01 (one year ago) link
Think the verse melody is more or less a lift from "Happy Xmas (War is Over)"
― Indexed, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 16:04 (one year ago) link
We don't usually talk about reissues here, but this is worth a mention (Steve Young could sometimes *over*-over-sing-mebbe incl. title track of this 'unbut I still 'ppreciate that he pushed past the boundaries of taste, unlike what the tag of "singer-songwriter" was so often soft-selling in late 60s & 70s especially). From Real Gone Music:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0810/5567/products/fe3df88f429a2ffe5f2bdc188b0e86c5_1024x1024.jpg?v=1663960284
Folks can argue if Steve Young’s debut Rock, Salt and Nails is the first “outlaw country” album, but there is no argument that it’s one of the best. Featuring a star-studded line-up of like-minded players like Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, James Burton, Chris Ethridge, and Bernie Leadon, this 1969 record starts out with Young’s impassioned interpretation of the O.V. Wright/Otis Redding classic “That’s How Strong My Love Is,” which offers an emphatic bookend to Parsons’ own country-soul masterpiece “Dark End of the Street,” recorded the same year with the Flying Burrito Brothers. The rest of the record (produced by Tommy LiPuma) is a beautifully-paced blend of covers and originals, highlighted by Young’s immortal “Seven Bridges Road,” memorably covered by The Eagles among many others. Rock, Salt and Nails has somehow never been reissued on vinyl in the U.S.; our pressing comes in natural, “rock salt” vinyl.
― dow, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 19:41 (one year ago) link
Whoah---Oklahoma Red Dirt Country Singer Jake Flint, 37, Dies A Few Hours After Getting Married! Was he good? And what is a Red Dirt Country Singer?
― dow, Tuesday, 29 November 2022 22:34 (one year ago) link
Red Dirt Country is contemporary Honky Tonk Country from Texas/Oklahoma, named for the soil in the latter state.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 30 November 2022 00:17 (one year ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dirt_%28music%29?wprov=sfla1
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 30 November 2022 00:20 (one year ago) link
Saw that Caramanica picked American Heartbreak as his AOTY. Would be interested to know if anyone else here took to it (or not) and why.
― Indexed, Wednesday, 30 November 2022 16:12 (one year ago) link
He loved it. I still need to listen to Zach Bryan more.
Not from an end of year list , but in a concert review Washington Post ‘s C Richards calls Kelsey Waldon his fave country album of the year
https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/12/06/kelsey-waldon-concert-review/
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 6 December 2022 20:28 (one year ago) link
About half of the new Waldon is seeming pretty strong musically, but the rest tends to be settings for tired platitudes (making her Appalachoid voice go positively quaint at times), which she seems to regard as hard-won wisdom, shared with us in a down-to-earth way: she's always had that likable manner, and whatever gets her through the night--she's mentioned problems with the bottle---but as a listener, I'd rather she didn't rely entirely on what sound like originals. Previously, as discussed on Rolling Country over the years she's had a way with covers, even did an all-oldies EP: a tad uneven, as always w her, but bracing enough, and certainly more substantial than typical quarantine stopgaps.
Good melding of covers and originals on Melissa Carper's Ramblin' Soul: yes, she's ramblin' through Nashville (with for inst. Chris Scruggs and Sierra Ferrell), Memphis, NOLA, Austin, Houston, and San Antone (or anyway I can imagine Doug Sahm singing all of this): musically, and that's where it counts. Her voice and the overall honky tonk shothouse living room space heater indie budget atmosphere keep it ramblin' country soul. She sounds *kind of* like Parton w/o the hard sell, relaxing on the axis, but reflecting, even yearning a bit, with memories and insights all coming back around to the present,swirling like whatever's in her glass. I'm also thinking about the better originals of Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks, Asleep At The Wheel, although there are a couple of clunkers, pro forma retro. But most of it works for sure, without reaching the sneaky imaginative peaks (among other peaks) of last year's Daddy's Country Gold. Strong closer and theme song: "And when we're holdin' each other so tight/It's like a romantic old movie/That only comes in black and white/No, they don't make 'em like they used to/That's why I'm holdin' on to you."https://melissacarper.bandcamp.com/album/ramblin-sou
― dow, Thursday, 8 December 2022 21:26 (one year ago) link
sorry, here's the link: https://melissacarper.bandcamp.com/album/ramblin-soul
― dow, Thursday, 8 December 2022 21:33 (one year ago) link
Also greatly enjoying current Willie, Miranda, Caroline Spence, (most of) Sunny Sweeney. The very consistently sombre-to-low-key production style of Humble Quest pulls even one of the best songs, "Background Music," toward the background of my attention/sympathy span(yes, Crisso/McCain and I value her poptastics of yore)(or at least get a little louder, faster, something, sometime).
― dow, Thursday, 8 December 2022 21:44 (one year ago) link
"sombre"? Sombrero? Oui, but make it 'somber."
― dow, Thursday, 8 December 2022 21:49 (one year ago) link
As Tipsy Mothra posted on Rolling Obits:
Longtime Nashville country music writer (and musician) Peter Cooper, at just 52 from a head injury.https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2022/12/07/peter-cooper-acclaimed-country-music-journalist-and-musician-dies-at-52/69707124007/
https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2022/12/07/peter-cooper-acclaimed-country-music-journalist-and-musician-dies-at-52/69707124007/
I previewed the show when he and Eric B. came to Columbus OH in 2010---good, and good alb"
Eric Brace and Peter Cooper Saturday @ The Red Door TavernSinger-songwriters Eric Brace and Peter Cooper have fancy resumes in journalism, but don’t hold that against them. You Don’t Have To Like Them Both finds the intrepid reporters tracking a community of frequently melancholy, always observant and opinionated souls, walking space and time after midnight. The vocal and instrumental harmonies of Brace, Cooper, and others gleam like headlights, while their rolling country stroll can get droll, though never really laid back. “We used to fly like we had wings/When we were easier to please.”
― dow, Friday, 9 December 2022 01:09 (one year ago) link
Brennen Leigh did nice old school duets record w/Jessie Dayton back in the 2000s.― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, September 15, 2022 10:01 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglinkshe also just made a good western swing album with Asleep at the Wheel: https://brennenleigh.bandcamp.com/album/obsessed-with-the-west― alpine static, Thursday, September 15, 2022 10:54 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglinkThat Brennen Leigh & A@tW album is fantastic; she did a whole album of Lefty Frizzell covers a couple of years ago, too, and it was definitely worth checking out. And I've been a Willis fan since her major label run in the early 90s. She's long been one of the very best there is.― jon_oh, Friday, September 16, 2022 7:26 AM
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, September 15, 2022 10:01 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink
she also just made a good western swing album with Asleep at the Wheel: https://brennenleigh.bandcamp.com/album/obsessed-with-the-west
― alpine static, Thursday, September 15, 2022 10:54 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink
That Brennen Leigh & A@tW album is fantastic; she did a whole album of Lefty Frizzell covers a couple of years ago, too, and it was definitely worth checking out. And I've been a Willis fan since her major label run in the early 90s. She's long been one of the very best there is.
― jon_oh, Friday, September 16, 2022 7:26 AM
― dow, Saturday, 10 December 2022 00:14 (one year ago) link
Leigh and Carper's hooks have been duking it out in my head all weekend--time to set them both against xpost Live Forever: A Tribute To Billy Joe Shaver Sandy voice x adhesive accompaniment of the pop master in hobo's clothing were adequate & then some on his original tracks, so this is one of those tribs where it's more about what the songs can do for cover artists (incl. those who could use some better material) than vice-versa/just wanna hear something new by reliable faves. In the first category, Edie Brickell and Nathaniel Rateliff are so far seeming a tad too merely modest & hopeful; in the second, Miranda's kinda close to that vocally, but does present quite rollicking studio band. Amanda Shires seems like she's going to do likewise, but after the pickers launch into a yowly tomcat hoedown, she jumps on top, getting louder and stronger.Willie Nelson's fiery, exhorting his fellow organisms and himself all through "Live Forever" and "I Been To Georgia On A Fast Train," ditto Margo Price & Joshua Hedley, on the subtly building "I'm gonna rig up my old truck," and take ass to town, to carouse or whutever: point is, agency is refound, or looked up in the phonebook of mind, at least.Deepest takes: Rodney Crowell's fluid "Old Fivers and Dimers," Allison Russell's slow burn "Tramp on Your Street."
― dow, Monday, 12 December 2022 20:15 (one year ago) link
absolutely terrific album just recently released ... surprised to see no mention of it here, given the recent feature story in the New York Times:
https://adeemtheartist.bandcamp.com/album/white-trash-revelry
this is gonna cause late-season trouble in my 2022 top 10!
― alpine static, Monday, 12 December 2022 20:53 (one year ago) link
^ nice. Thanks for the tip.
― Indexed, Monday, 12 December 2022 23:00 (one year ago) link
damn - definitely into this. Thx!
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 13 December 2022 01:11 (one year ago) link
Yeah---and even if the songs weren't good, the autobio is excellent in itself.
― dow, Tuesday, 13 December 2022 01:31 (one year ago) link
Also thanks to this thread, I just now listened to all of xxxxetcpost(s) Zach Bryan's American Heartbreak for the first time. 34 songs, 2 hours and 1 minute by Spotify's count, so I thought I might break it up into two (or more) sessions, but no prob. Detailed turns of words and music---sometimes plot twists, ripping the Band-Aid off---replenished and pulled me right through it all, like it does the semi-beautiful loser narrator---sometimes alarmingly, when I get the impression that he's throwing himself once again at and through (also at) a bright blue winter sky wall---with relationships like vines, and space heater electrification: country as hell, and with a musical valentine to closing time itself, "when the world gets close," looping through "a wild man's weary ways" to a spot of morning light when you're always/so far looking good and "The Road I Know" as his final reward (on the album).
― dow, Tuesday, 13 December 2022 22:24 (one year ago) link
And I 'ppreciate that he doesn't blame other people more than himself--it's much less about brooding on a barstool than keep a-goin', one hand on the wheel, the other holding a drink (phone on in holder, so can record life's demos on the fly).
― dow, Tuesday, 13 December 2022 22:28 (one year ago) link
From Big Ears Festival newsletter:
Rarely do we find Big Ears Festival artists featured in year-end lists for best country albums. Adeem the Artist is an exception, landing on many end-of-year lists including Billboard Magazine staff picks for 2022 for their new record "White Trash Revelry." As a resident of Knoxville, Adeem's singular talent captured our attention a while back and now the whole world is catching on. A couple of weeks ago, Grayson Currin penned a wonderful profile for the New York Times.
― dow, Wednesday, 14 December 2022 03:22 (one year ago) link
xp+xxp, great posts! It's sprawl is a big part of its appeal for me. Unruly in the best sense of the word. Take its 12 best tracks, and it may not make my top ten of the year. As it stands, it'll definitely rank.
― Indexed, Wednesday, 14 December 2022 15:17 (one year ago) link
Wilson's 2021 album is one of the decade's best.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 14 December 2022 15:43 (one year ago) link
Who Wilson? Lainey Wilson? Or someone else I'm overlooking?
― alpine static, Wednesday, 14 December 2022 23:46 (one year ago) link
Lainey's 2021 album was def. in my Top Ten, as I think I listed and described way upthread. still gotta check this year's follow-up. Also need to find my copy of this 2012 Top Ten pick, which got its Tenth Anniversary reissue this fall:
James Hand's Mighty Lonesome Man tracks the fine print white line of life's little ups and downs with mighty fine timing--unafraid to venture beyond deft wordplay into details that could easily keep him orbiting in mental and emotional rituals eternally--but 12 items, 34 minutes, as Windows Media Player sums up, hand him off, pass him along in the alone-together jukebox of honky tonk pop (where he can be alone-together with Billy Joe Shaver, for instance). Good in the background or foreground; I'm tempted to say he'll be there when you get there--he's a stand-up guy--but whatcha say James? "Let's do it now, before they use a plow, 'cause then I won't be no earthly good to you."
― dow, Thursday, 15 December 2022 03:21 (one year ago) link
Oh yeah: came out Oct. 14, up to 15 tracks now, and he's also on this Johnny Cash trib, with Austin Lucas, Chuck D feat. Bob Log III, Left Lane Cruiser, Charlie Parr, and a bunch of people I never heard of, which isn't unusual for tribs:https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/johnny-cash-tribute-james-hand-reissue-coming-from-hillgrass-bluebilly/
― dow, Thursday, 15 December 2022 03:35 (one year ago) link
Another one that works in the foreground and background (somewhut simultaneously, since headphones suddenly expired and I'm listening on tiny laptop speakers), is the new Lainey, whose voice thrives on rockin'-country/not country-rock sound designs, which also inform well-paced ballads, poignant enough despite titles like "Weak End"(with "leak in" and "bleed in" enhancing been-there tone), "You And Me and Jesus," and even "Heart Like a Truck."
― dow, Thursday, 15 December 2022 20:47 (one year ago) link
Yeah, Lainey.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 15 December 2022 20:53 (one year ago) link
the new Lainey, whose voice thrives
― dow, Thursday, 15 December 2022 21:12 (one year ago) link
Pony Bradshaw has an album coming out 1/27/23, will tour---more info, links here:https://mailchi.mp/eca127076fe9/new-album-north-georgia-rounder-15596832?e=57613df00dWhat I said last year, on the first annual not-ballot (since Himes fucked up)
For Further Study (everything here, but especially this)Pony Bradshaw, Calico Jim: "I'm a time-traveling bush in a barrel of poo"? He could be singing that, in this context, but he doesn't sound worried about it, maybe because he's still traveling; he does mention "wrecked in a tireless life" a couple of times soon after, but doesn't say who's wrecked, though maybe he means it in a vehicular, not narcotic sense; one is likely as the other here, but he always sounds lucid, in a usually murmury way, but also like a more dynamic Jackson Browne, usually with toe-tapping, fingerpicking melodies (while insisting that the counterpoint under those "has to breathe": not hearing any in the usual sense, think he's thinking about a stubborn way of life, counterclockwise even to itself at times, it seems). Voice and arrangements can rise, grow drums, hard chords; steel and/or slide answers the call for a "Sawtooth Jerico." The people in these songs of shamelessly flamboyant Southern Gothic environments, seeing and raising expected themes and terms, try not to fall off of or slide down "Dope Mountain" 'til they want to, and it's a real place, with stolen copper wire stashed in the old mine, finally good for something again, and lots of vines and lines and lives to get tangled. Spirituality is another common interest. A hillbilly preacher sucks poison from the ankle of the young widow, as their faces turn different colors—he's a snakehandler, and apparently prepared to do that in certain cases, although seems like it defeats the point in church? But they're on a date,, and I guess she just stepped where she shouldn't have been stepping (further study needed; all this precarious detail makes me want to be careful too).Things get ecumenical in "Guru," where we start out bonded "in the bowels of a coma." Must be good stuff, also leaving room for (true-to-life)'billy self-awareness: "Stretch out your vowels, son, and show your pedigree." But soon enough, maybe by the next course, "We got high as Heaven, tweaked on God and crystal meth," oh yeth. Also mellow moments of romance, out under the North Georgia stars; "I ain't no shaman, " but bring it on babe. Hmm. So many lines, images rippling by, it seems impossible to bring up a satisfyingly representative dipper, so far.
Pony Bradshaw, Calico Jim: "I'm a time-traveling bush in a barrel of poo"? He could be singing that, in this context, but he doesn't sound worried about it, maybe because he's still traveling; he does mention "wrecked in a tireless life" a couple of times soon after, but doesn't say who's wrecked, though maybe he means it in a vehicular, not narcotic sense; one is likely as the other here, but he always sounds lucid, in a usually murmury way, but also like a more dynamic Jackson Browne, usually with toe-tapping, fingerpicking melodies (while insisting that the counterpoint under those "has to breathe": not hearing any in the usual sense, think he's thinking about a stubborn way of life, counterclockwise even to itself at times, it seems). Voice and arrangements can rise, grow drums, hard chords; steel and/or slide answers the call for a "Sawtooth Jerico." The people in these songs of shamelessly flamboyant Southern Gothic environments, seeing and raising expected themes and terms, try not to fall off of or slide down "Dope Mountain" 'til they want to, and it's a real place, with stolen copper wire stashed in the old mine, finally good for something again, and lots of vines and lines and lives to get tangled.
Spirituality is another common interest. A hillbilly preacher sucks poison from the ankle of the young widow, as their faces turn different colors—he's a snakehandler, and apparently prepared to do that in certain cases, although seems like it defeats the point in church? But they're on a date,, and I guess she just stepped where she shouldn't have been stepping (further study needed; all this precarious detail makes me want to be careful too).
Things get ecumenical in "Guru," where we start out bonded "in the bowels of a coma." Must be good stuff, also leaving room for (true-to-life)'billy self-awareness: "Stretch out your vowels, son, and show your pedigree." But soon enough, maybe by the next course, "We got high as Heaven, tweaked on God and crystal meth," oh yeth. Also mellow moments of romance, out under the North Georgia stars; "I ain't no shaman, " but bring it on babe. Hmm. So many lines, images rippling by, it seems impossible to bring up a satisfyingly representative dipper, so far.
― dow, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 03:48 (one year ago) link
I expect us to get burnt out on the road. I even welcome it. The edge is where we find truth. I always seem to be looking for a human/mankind truth more than a personal truth. Personal truths are shaped by our own ego, our own wants and needs, and I just don’t find myself that interesting or trustworthy. I hope to see y’all out on the road next year. We’ll be carving out these songlines across the country, singing our world into existence.
― dow, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 03:57 (one year ago) link
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-country-americana-albums-2022-1234648516/kane-brown-different-man-1234648559/ A fairly wide-ranging round-up, and some of these I agree with, some I really really don't, several that I haven't yet heard seem implausible, based on previous offerings, but several more are intriguingly described, will check.
― dow, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 18:03 (one year ago) link
A few more appealing possibilities I hadn't heard of, w reminders of others, and some I have heard: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/19/1134907922/the-best-roots-music-of-2022
― dow, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 19:56 (one year ago) link
One of the Stone picks, Paul Cauthen's Coming Down Country. does have the "funk 'n' twang" arrangements, as promised, but these usually seem earthbound, keeping Cauthen's wobbly Waylonisms on a short leash, though he manages to sound out of breath anyway. 10 songs in 30 minutes usually seems like a good idea, though here it may be that the tracks aren't given enough time/pressure to develop--either that or they're mercifully brief. However, "Til The Day I Die" works as what I think of as International Country, with *kind of* a Romance Language 50s-60s phrasing brushing by, as written, but the short leash keeps it from being lavishly oversold, and Cauthen is poised here, in an unpretentious way---ditto on "Roll on By," with Elton-McCartney piano hooks, and "Country Coming Down" relaxes the Waylonism into warm, sing-along descending melody. But usually, he's fronting. "Country as Fuck" seems to work alright, though, wobbles in the trailer park-associated imagistic entrophy and all (he sounds old or worn here,but still got tattoos and whiskers by cracky.)
― dow, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 20:24 (one year ago) link
Have not heard the Crockett album at 2 on the RS list. Any good?
― Indexed, Wednesday, 21 December 2022 14:10 (one year ago) link
https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/the-best-mainstream-country-albums-of-2022/
― Indexed, Wednesday, 21 December 2022 14:42 (one year ago) link
― Indexed, Wednesday, December 21, 2022 bookmarkflaglink
Yes, it's good. Given how prolific he is I have other albums by him that I like a lot more, though it might just be that I heard them first and the novelty is beginning to wear off. I don't think the actual quality has dropped off at all.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, 21 December 2022 17:57 (one year ago) link
Some of these lists are the EOY content I was most looking forward to. But they also are coming at a point where my ears might be a little too burned out on binging other lists to give any of it a fair shake.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, 21 December 2022 18:11 (one year ago) link
xpost The Charley is very good in its way but yeah, I feel more detached from this particular set than I want to be, so far (will listen more). Variations on, maybe scenes from the fantasy life of someone who would kinda like to be The Red-Headed Stranger, but mainly he's thinking about heading to/through Texas (he's from Waco, but passing through Atlanta etc.?). with this Pioneer Days/rocking horse Western cadence (at one point singing about "Cowboy Candy"), and I like the way his gruff voice rolls around in his head, not that tight dry Texas thing, and sometimes he goes sideways into a 60s-type Black jazz-blues-folk groove like Oscar Brown Jr. meets terse Ramsey Lewis and makes it fit thematically---but the revenge-ish themey-ness is very persistent and something I have limited interest in to start with.
― dow, Wednesday, 21 December 2022 18:13 (one year ago) link
Although the protagonist's limited enthusiasm is entertaining and credible (in a mostly conceptual, limited way): sounds like he knows he reallly isn't gonna get any satisfaction from this relationship, even if he goes through with his plan of sorts
― dow, Wednesday, 21 December 2022 18:19 (one year ago) link