Rolling Country 2006 Thread

Anyway, this should be used for reference, obviously, or fun. It's best to start at the bottom, perhaps, and answer those questions here. Or there. Or wherever you want:

Rolling 2005 Country Thread

I'm still wondering if any of our Canadian friends have any thoughts about Bocephus King.

>The rolling 2004 country thread didn't even start until 2004, so i figured it best to get an early start...

yeah that anthony
hamilton errs mightily,
so not country now

the title track is
the best song on there but it
falls when it should rise

I still love his voice
and his lyrics aren't bad
but they've gone downhill

(Dang, three posts into the year, and we've always derailed it from country. It should be pointed out here that Anthony Hamilton's previous CD was one of Matt's '04 c&w faves.)

yeah happy new year
to you and everyone
who posts here. FURTHUR!

er, that should read: "The rolling 2004 country thread didn't even start until October 2004..."
-- john'n'chicago (econjoh...), February 4th, 2005.

I'm listening to two tracks from Rosanne Cash's new one (a concept album about losing her parents) on her website. Has anybody heard the whole thing? So far, it sounds ok, loose drums on a song about the Cash house on the lake, Levenoisisms more taut than pillowy, and the other song, a very sweet piano ballad, about her mom and dad, "I'll Be Watching You." Chet Flippo says she's been listening to Arvo Part. I hope there are at least a couple rockers--because she's too good a singer to just do ballads.

I was wrong toward the end of the other thread in listing Eurodisco as part of Bocephus King's mix; really his extended synth parts are closer to a sort of techno space music, though not without a dance pulse (Joe McCombs compared those parts to Erasure in his AMG review.) Only a couple cuts seem to c&w per se, and those are more western than country -- Canadian cowboy music, maybe. Sometimes the rhythm goes reggae, and one song lilts a lot like "Lola" by the Kinks. The extended instrumental track is a sort of Sergio Leone soundtrack twang thing, and riveting. Really who B.K. most reminds me of maybe Garland Jeffreys (though maybe that's because I can't remember what Hirth Martinez or Andy Fairweather Low or whoever sounded like; I'm sure there's a more accurate precedent than Garland, just can't think of who it is.) Some songs seem to be about drug casualties, and the album clearly has some kind of ambitious overriding concept, too; Joe says it's about corrupt hucksters of religion (it's called *All Children Believe in Heaven*), but following concept albums has never been one of my skills; to me, it's just a bunch of great beautiful songs/tracks/whatever. Would've had a shot at my top ten had I heard it on time. Came out in Canada a year ago; if it comes out here some year, maybe I'll still vote for it.

The Carrie Underwood track I really like that I didn't mention toward the end of the '05 thread is "The Night Before (Life Goes On)." And "Jesus Take the Wheel" is indeed a stellar car-crash song about being, um, saved. Edd Hurt signals out the Dianne Warren tracks, which I agree have a certain physical power to them, but I'm not sure if they have much *more* than that.

>The rolling 2004 country thread didn't even start until 2004, so i figured it best to get an early start...

simple really. i do no fact, spell, grammar or punctuation checking before posting. nor do i ever re-read what i've typed to ensure that it makes any sense.

Comes out Jan 24th, so I guess I should get on the phone to get an advance.

From Geoff Himes at the Nashville Scene:

This is a friendly reminder that the deadline for the Country Music
Critics Poll is Wednesday, January 4, 2006, at 11 p.m. A few of you have
already voted, but I'd like to encourage everyone else to vote as soon
as possible. If you have voted, you should have received a confirmation
from me that I got your ballot.

Several people have asked about eligible recordings, so I am including
Billboard's list of the year's best-selling country albums and singles
as well as the poll's leading vote getters in the early balloting.

BILLBOARD'S BEST-SELLING COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2005:
(* released in 2004 or 2003)

1. * Shania Twain: Greatest Hits
2. * Rascal Flatts: Feels Like Today
3. * Toby Keith: Greatest Hits 2
4. * Gretchen Wilson: Here for the Party
5. * Tim McGraw: Live Like You Were Dying
6. George Strait: Fifty #1s
7. * Keith Urban: Be Here
8. Toby Keith: Honky Tonk University
9. * Big & Rich: Horse of a Different Color
10. * Sugarland: Twice the Speed of Life
11. Kenny Chesney: Be As You Are
12. * Kenny Chesney: When the Sun Goes Down
13. Faith Hill: Fireflies
14. * Alison Krauss & Union Station: Lonely Runs Both Ways
15. Various Artists: Totally Country Vol. 4
16. George Strait: Somewhere Down in Texas
17. * Brad Paisley: Mud on the Tires
18. Larry the Cable Guy: The Right To Bare Arms
19. Gretchen Wilson: All Jacked Up
20. Brad Paisley: Time Well Wasted
21. LeAnn Rimes: This Woman
22. * Blake Shelton: Barn & Grill
23. * Brooks & Dunn: Greatest Hits Collection II
24. Kenny Chesney: The Road and the Radio
25. * Martina McBride: Martina
26. Dierks Bentley: Modern Day Drifter
27. * Montgomery Gentry: You Do Your Thing
28. Trace Adkins: Songs About Me
29. Martina McBride: Timeless
30. * Jimmy Buffett: License To Chill
31. Jo Dee Messina: Delicious Surprise
32. Lee Ann Womack: There's More Where That Came From
33. * Toby Keith: Shock'n Y'All
34. * Josh Gracin: Josh Gracin
35. * Alan Jackson: What I Do
36. Brooks & Dunn: Hillbilly Deluxe
37. Miranda Lambert: Kerosene
38. Van Zant: Get Right with the Man
39. * Reba McEntire: Room To Breathe
40. * Alan Jackson: Greatest Hits Volume II
41. Trisha Yearwood: Jasper County
42. * Various Artists: Blue Collar Comedy Hour Rides Again
43. * Sara Evans: Restless
44. Craig Morgan: My Kind of Livin'
45. Cowboy Troy: Loco Motive
46. Sara Evans: Real Fine Place
47. * Terri Clark: Greatest Hits 1994-2004
48. Jason Aldean: Jason Aldean
49. * Dierks Bentley: Dierks Bentley
50. * SheDaisy: Sweet Right Here

BILLBOARD'S BEST-SELLING COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2005:

1. Craig Morgan: That's What I Love About Sunday
2. Toby Keith: As Good as I Once Was
3. Rascal Flatts: Bless the Broken Road
4. Sugarland: Something More
5. Rascal Flatts: Fast Cars and Freedom
6. Josh Gracin: Nothin' To Lose
7. Sugarland: Baby Girl
8. Keith Urban: Making Memories of Us
9. Faith Hill: Mississippi Girl
10. Montgomery Gentry: Gone
11. Brad Paisley: Mud on the Tires
12. Brooks & Dunn: It's Getting Better All the Time
13. Kenny Chesney: Anything But Mine
14. Jo Dee Messina: My Give a Damn's Busted
15. Keith Urban: You're My Better Half
16. Dierks Bentley: Lot of Leavin' To Do
17. Montgomery Gentry: Something To Be Proud Of
18. Andy Griggs: If Heaven
19. Sara Evans: A Real Fine Place To Start
20. George Strait: You'll Be There
21. Joe Nichols: What's a Guy Gotta Do
22. Brooks & Dunn: Play Something Country
23. Jamie O'Neal: Somebody's Hero
24. Brad Paisley: Alcohol
25. Craig Morgan: Redneck Yacht Club
26. LeAnn Rimes: Probably Wouldn't Be This Way
27. Trace Adkins: Songs About Me
28. Blake Shelton: Some Beach
29. Keith Urban: Better Life
30. Josh Gracin: Stay with Me (Brass Bed)
31. LeAnn Rimes: Nothin' 'Bout Love Makes Sense
32. Tim McGraw: Do You Want Fries with That
33. Gretchen Wilson: Homewrecker
34. Alan Jackson: Monday Morning Church
35. Lee Ann Womack: I May Hate Myself in the Morning
36. Darryl Worley: Awful, Beautiful Life
37. Billy Dean: Let Them Be Little
38. Tim McGraw: Back When
39. SheDaisy: Don't Worry 'Bout a Thing
40. Lonestar: You're like Comin' Home
41. Gretchen Wilson: When I Think About Cheatin'
42. Van Zant: Help Somebody
43. Kenny Chesney: Keg in the Close
44. Rascal Flatts: Skin (Sarabeth)
45. Gary Allan: Best I Ever Had
46. Toby Keith: Honky Tonk U
47. Blake Shelton: Goodbye Time
48. Jason Aldean: Hicktown
49. Reba McEntire: He Gets That from Me
50. Neal McCoy: Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On

ALBUMS GETTING SUBSTANTIAL SUPPORT IN THE EARLY VOTING (in alphabetical
order):

Ryan Adams: Jacksonville City Nights
Gary Allan: Tough All Over
Bobby Bare: The Moon Was Blue
Dierks Bentley: Modern Day Drifter
Big & Rich: Comin' to Your City
Deana Carter: The Story of My Life
Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell: Begonias
Rodney Crowell: The Outsider
Robbie Fulks: Georgia Hard
Mary Gauthier: Mercy Now
Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Come on Back
The Hacienda Brothers: The Hacienda Brothers
Merle Haggard: Chicago Wind
Shooter Jennings: Put the O Back in Country
Miranda Lambert: Kerosene
Patty Loveless: Dreamin' My Dreams
Martina McBride: Timeless
Delbert McClinton: The Cost of Living
James McMurtry: Childish Things
Brad Paisley: Time Well Wasted
John Prine: Fair & Square
Tom Russell: Hotwalker
Marty Stuart: Soul's Chapel
Gretchen Wilson: All Jacked Up
Lee Ann Womack: There's More Where That Came From
The Wrights: Down This Road
Dwight Yoakam: Blame the Vain
Adrienne Young: The Art of Virtue
Neil Young: Prairie Wind

SINGLES GETTING SUBSTANTIAL SUPPORT IN THE EARLY VOTING (in alphabetical
order):

Gary Allan: The Best I Ever Had
Dierks Bentley: Lot of Leavin' To Do
Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell: Don't Make It Better
Rodney Crowell: The Obscenity Prayer
Robbie Fulks: Georgia Hard
Mary Gauthier: Mercy Now
Merle Haggard: Where's All the Freedom
Shooter Jennings: Fourth of July
Toby Keith: As Good As I Once Was
Miranda Lambert: Kerosene
Patty Loveless: Keep Your Distance
Shelby Lynne: When Johnny Met June
James McMurtry: We Can't Make It Here
Joe Nichols: Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off
Brad Paisley: Alcohol
Keith Urban: Makin' Memories of Us
Gretchen Wilson: I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today
Lee Ann Womack: I May Hate Myself in the Morning
Lee Ann Womack: There's More Where That Came From
The Wrights: Down This Road
Dwight Yoakam: Blame the Vain

REISSUES GETTING SUBSTANTIAL SUPPORT IN THE EARLY VOTING (in
alphabetical order):

Terry Allen: Silent Majority
The Band: A Musical History
June Carter Cash: Keep on the Sunny Side
Johnny Cash: The Legend
David Alan Coe: Penitentiary Blues
Emmylou Harris: Heartaches & Highways
Charlie Poole: You Ain't Talkin' to Me
Doug Sahm: The Complete Mercury Masters
Shel Silverstein: The Best of
Son Volt: Retrospective
Various Artists: Good for What Ails You
Various Artists: Night Train to Nashville, Volume 2

From: "Frank Kogan"
To: "Geoff Himes"
Subject: Re: Country Music Critics Poll Ballot
Date: Monday, January 02, 2006 7:37 PM

Hi Geoff - I either will or will not send along comments in a couple of days. I enjoyed the agony of having to eliminate great stuff more than ever this year. Obviously I didn't listen to a lot of reissues, and my oddball choice belongs predominantly to some other country than this one, but there was room, so why not? It's an amazing record.

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2005:

1. Deana Carter -- The Story of My Life
2. Miranda Lambert -- Kerosene
3. Bobby Bare -- The Moon Was Blue
4. Jamie O'Neal -- Brave
5. Shooter Jennings -- Put the O Back in Country
6. Gary Allan -- Tough All Over
7. Lee Ann Womack -- There's More Where that Came From
8. The Mighty Jeremiahs -- The Mighty Jeremiahs
9. Little Big Town -- The Road to Here
10. Dierks Bentley -- Modern Day Drifter

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2005:

1. Deana Carter -- "The Girl You Left Me For"
2. Miranda Lambert -- "Kerosene"
3. Shooter Jennings -- "4th of July"
4. Miranda Lambert -- "Bring Me Down"
5. Dierks Bentley -- "Lot of Leavin' Left to Do"
6. Miranda Lambert -- "Me and Charlie Talking"
7. Kentucky Headhunters -- "Big Boss Man"
8. Jo Dee Messina -- "Delicious Surprise (I Believe It)"
9. Toby Keith -- "Big Blue Note"
10. Little Big Town -- "Boondocks"

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2005:

1. Various Artists -- Guitars of the Golden Triangle: Raw, Rare & Forgotten Archival Recordings from 1970's Shan State. Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) Vol. 2
(believe it or not, this has a folk-rock, c&w, rockabilly, garage-rock influence)
2. Charley Poole and others -- You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music
3. David Allan Coe -- Penitentiary Blues
4. --
5. --

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2005:

1. Gary Allan
2. Gene Watson
3. Toby Keith

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2005:

1. Miranda Lambert
2. Deana Carter
3. Jamie O'Neal

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2005:

--

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2005:

1. Deana Carter
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Odie Blackmon

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2005:

1. Big & Rich
2. Little Big Town
3. The Mighty Jeremiahs

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST INSTRUMENTALISTS OF 2005:

1. Deana Carter
2. Greg Martin
3. James Wright (since you don't have a special spot for producers, I put him here)

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2005:

1. Miranda Lambert
2. Shooter Jennings
3. Shelly Fairchild

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2005:

1. Deana Carter
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Bobby Bare

"If only I was the president, I'd paint the white house pink and never have to pay the rent."

I will say that Dierks' being on a major meant there was money to throw at the recording, which may ultimately have been why his record held up for me more than the McQueen or the Maybelles, whose ideas were at least as interesting as Dierks'. Dierks' album had a nice round easy professional motion, and this motion spoke to my body.

xpost (as usual)

The Jeremiah alb is a killer guitar album, too.

In general I like music that overspills its container, though for this to work well there has to be a good container in the first place.

It's like Black Oak Arkansas meets a (white) booty video with the Skynyrd 'turn it up' at the start and a bit of a techno backing thing. I've only seen it as a video and am wondering how it stands up as a song.

and yeah, I did kinda like Carrie Underwood's "The Night Before" (that's the one about the girl leaving home, rhymes "Baton Rouge," "LSU" and "in my rearview?), but for me, that song demonstrates where that whole record falls down--every chorus just seemed *too* overblown and mannered to me, always going for the big place-name drama. She kind of gets around that on "I Ain't in Checotah" but it still feels like a couple of songs tacked onto each other to me, it almost works. I think the Diane Warren songs are better than the other ones they found for her, and seem to be about what happens after she gets successful, with the overblown drama a bit more, uhm, aestheticized I guess. "Wasted" isn't bad either, but I would've liked the record even more if they'd tried to lay back just a little bit. But that wouldn't have played into the whole drama of her ascension.
xps

Huk-L: I hope you give the Bocephus King album a listen. My tastes don't align well with Xhuxk's, either.

woah, xp!! I swear I wrote my entire post before seeing Roy's!!

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2005:
>
> 1. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, Souls' Chapel
> 2. Gary Allan, Tough All Over
> 3. Deana Carter, The Story of My Life
> 4. The Del McCoury Band, The Company We Keep
> 5. Ezequiel Peña, Nuestra Tradición: La Charreria
> 6. Jon Nicholson, A Little Sump'm Sump'm
> 7. Marty Stuart, Badlands
> 8. Freddy Fender & Flaco Jimenez, Dos Amigos
> 9. Dallas Wayne, I'm Your Biggest Fan
> 10. Jessi Alexander, Honesuckle Sweet
>
> TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2005:
>
> 1. Gary Allan, "Best I've Ever Had"
> 2. Jo Dee Messina, "My Give a Damn's Busted"
> 3. Dierks Bentley, "Lot of Leavin' to Do"
> 4. Intocable, "Aire"
> 5. Lee Ann Womack, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning"
> 6. Del McCoury Band, "She Can't Burn Me Now"
> 7. Grupo Montez de Durango, "Quiero Saber de Ti"
> 8. Robbie Fulks, "Georgia Hard"
> 9. Bon Jovi, "Have a Nice Day"
> 10. Carrie Underwood, "Some Hearts"

i think he and bruce
were more "influential" than
the eagles (or kiss)

plus xhuxk if he did
you would be 'i hate his voice,
it is SO LEADEN'

sort of gentry or big and rich lite, sentimental, the usual problems with women, playing way beyond their leauge, and arythymic singing, an inability to keep the energy up and wow are the lyrics just awful:
for some red heat real fast picken turbo grass areosmith or cootton eyed joe a little star light moonshine down home party time and let it go with my countrfied show...

these people are from grand prarie alberta, i thnik, which means all of the (innumerable) southern/small town signifers strike me as posing without committing

grand prarie has got 60k people.

(where is the coutnry about being broke and homeless even if you are a rig pig making 100k a year, i mean grand prarie is prime oil country, and with the insane prices, the drinking, the lack of housing, the fucking and the gambling, plus working 70 hour weeks, and thousands of people from newfoundland, you would figure there would be a whole subculture of oil songs...there is one by corb lund, but there should be more)

They're all now on the Rum Sodomy And The Lash CD. I used to own the EP on vinyl, and got rid of it somewhere along the line; nice to have those tracks again. I thought I had another EP, too, with "A Pair Of Brown Eyes" and "Muirshin Durkin" (one of their best tracks ever, now on the Red Roses CD), but AMG doesn't seem to list that anywhere, so it must be long forgotten. And I associate those two EPs with two Fear And Whiskey-era Mekons EPs I had copies of way back in my Army days (whilst reviewing both Red Roses and Fear and Whiskey for the Voice in my spare time): Crime And Punishment and Slightly South of The Border (not to mention the even greater and I assume rarer English Dancing Master, from a few years before, when not even critics cared about the Mekons) Why was I so quick to purge my shelves in those days? Sigh. I will likely never see them again.

I really really wish those faceless dolts would go away.

Now playing: my sleeper pick for country (absurdly broadly defined) album of 2006: The Memory Band, Apron Strings on DiCristina. They've zenned into the Fairport tone and soul, the fiddle player is beyond awesome and "I Wish I Wish" is a beautiful transformation of a traditional ballad that's also the best possible fuck you to re-virginizing evangelicals everywhere.

there first album cover featured shotguns...

i dont know the memory bands

One still bumps into those old Sin Records era Mekons things over here now and again, I haven't played mine in forever, though I think fondly of them. I don't think I've ever even seen a copy of "The English Dancing Master", I don't think many of those CNT things ever made it far south, the indie distribution networks in early 1980s Britain weren't what they later became. I had half an idea that there had been a reissue of CNT-era Meeks stuff, perhaps that was just "The Mekons Story".

It seems that Greil Marcus was the only person alive who cared about "The Mekons Story" when it came out.

And, will point out that the entire Mandrell tribute "She Was Country....Cool" is pretty fine, LeAnn Rimes does fine with the filthy "If Lovin' You Is Wrong" (kinda skips over the line about "married men," like she didn't want to get into that too much!), Sara Evans avows how her gardener or dance instructor or husband, even, can eat "Crackers" in her bed any time, and Blaine Larsen sounds great too. Only clinker is Randy Owen, whose Alabama shit stunk up an otherwise great show, that Cropper tribute I mentioned upthread. Never could abide that stuff.

anne mccue's record, finally gave it a good listen. about a B. sometimes she rocks out and it works, sometimes it just sounds constrained and polite. pretty good overall but nothing to write home about that I hear. more hooks, baby, you got the looks...

Not familiar with Original Sin. I've got a couple hodgepodgy odds-and-sods CDs (I Have Been To Heaven And Back: Hen's Teeth And Other Lost Fragments of Unpopular Culture Vol. 1 and Where Were You: Hens Teeth Etc Etc Vol. 2 that include sundry rare early tracks among sundrier live ones and so on; somewhere in storage I also have Punk Rock, I think it's called, where they entertainingly re-record a bunch of their punk-era stuff -- my Fear and Whiskey CD leaves that great album intact; a few of those early tracks also show up on the two-disc Heaven And Hell: The Very Best of the Mekons, which also has all I'll ever need of their widely acclaimed '90s and '00s stuff, which I've honestly never really understood the appeal of), but anyway, I think with those early EPs, I also miss the actual objects, you know? Though I do think they were doing their best music back then; my favorite album by them {used to have it on vinyl, now on CD} is 1980's The Mekons, a/k/a {for no reason I've ever figured out} Devils Rats and Piggies. And I actually found The Mekons Story fun back in the day; wish I'd kept my vinyl copy of that one too. I assume Lester Bangs liked it too, since he wrote the liner notes, in which he claimed it to be the best album in the world this side of Metal Machine Music and/or something by Black Oak Arkansas, I forget which. So blah blah blah. After Edge of The World, for me, they had more trouble holding my attention.

pretty good, a bit genteel in the vocal department. really gets going about track 10 with "san franciscop mabel joy" and "you've always got the blues." who can tell me what the best newbury record from the '70s is? xgua gives neither one he grades in his '70s guide above B-. He says, "Never trust meteorological symbolism," and sure enough kacey jones' record has these rain sounds in it...

speaking of nashville humanist songwriters, bobby braddock has a new autobiography coming out, "down in oberndale," (pretty sure that's spelled correctly) which is pidgin southern for auburndale, fla., where he grew up. what are the great *songwriter* autobiographies?

And Pitbull's El Mariel didn't make the ballot in the "Hip-Hop" category. And Ms. Peachez "Fry That Chicken" didn't make the ballot under videos.

The Kentucky Headhunters – Flying Under The Radar (CBUJ reissue)*
Becky Hobbs – Best Of The Beckaroo Part 1 (Beckaroo reissue)
Shawn Camp – Fireball (Skeeterbit)
Hacienda Brothers – What’s Wrong With Right (Proper)
Terry Lee Bolton – American Man (MRC)
Alan Bros. Band – Brick By Brick (Alan Bros. Music)

New Bill Kirchen album sounds pretty dang good so far, too. Kentucky Headhunters just made the top 10 (not just country, everything) album list I submitted to the poll for my current employer. As did Leanne Kingwell's album, but we decided she's not country despite being indie right? As did Victory Brothers, who are definitely both, but they are not from A to L in the alphabet. As did Montgomery Gentry and Toby Keith, who are country but not indie (and Huck Johns, who may or might be country and/or indie, but probably not). And so on.

Bill Kirchen's album is more rock and soul and blues than anything I've heard by him before. Great title (and rocking title track): Hammer Of The Honky Tonk Gods. He does "Devil With A Blue Dress On" as a slow shuffle, closes with an Arthur Alexander song.

Oy vey. Me upthread:

I finally listened to this here Kasey Jones album of Mickey Newbury songs. Uggh. Useful if only to have all the worst versions of Newbury's songs in one place.

I think genteel is the best thing you can say about it. To my ears it's basically Mancini Americana, with a vocalist who may as well be parsing a phone book from Kazakistan, for all she seems to understand what she's singing.

The best Newbury album from the '70s remains Frisco Mabel Joy (and the tribute to that album that came out a few years ago >>>> than this Kacey Jones record). Most of his '60s and '70s stuff gets swamped in confused, faux-Sherrill arrangements (and I love real Sherrill), so buyer beware. But Mabel Joy is classic. Also, the double album, Live at Montezuma Hall anticipates his most intense and purely beautiful album, from the late '90s, the solo/live Nights When I Am Sane. This is not background music; he sings the living fuck out of every line.

Alejandro Escovedo - The Boxing Mirror (Back Porch)
Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time (Sub Pop)
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Letting Go (Drag City)
Calexico - Garden Ruin (Quarterstick)
Califone - Roots & Crowns (Thrill Jockey)
Drive-By Truckers - A Blessing And A Curse (New West)
Eef Barzelay - Bitter Honey (SpinART)
Horse Feathers - Words Are Dead (Lucky Madison)
Jenny Lewis w/ The Watson Twins - Jenny Lewis w/ The Watson Twins (Team Love)
Jolie Holland - Springtime Can Kill You (Anti-)
M. Ward - Post-War (Merge)
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (Anti-)

(the Plug Independent Music Awards link, if you're interested in voting.

Well, actually...Freaky Friday must be over now because the Kirchen album's sounding a lot duller to me today than it was a couple days ago. Just kinda stodgy and slow and colorless, and the title track doesn't really kick all that hard after all, and why the hell would anybody want to slow down "Devil With a Blue Dress On," come to think of it? So right now, I'm on the fence, but maybe it'll kick back in, or maybe it won't. What basically keeps happening is, well, it's in the five-disc changer now with the Game (clunky rap voice, ocassionally tasty and tasteful retro-soul backup, sounds very Dr. Dre a lot of it no matter what Dre's involvement was or wasn't, but I never gave much a shit about Dre give or take a couple songs so I doubt I'll have much more patience with this thing), Yabby You (who sounds warm and dubby and greater than I would have guessed), Borat (just saw the movie, which was slightly disappointing though still frequently hilarious but maybe the disappointment was just that it had been built up so much by so many people, but at any rate i also just realized today that the soundtrack is a compilation, and track #7 is beautiful, and i think it's by o.m.f.o. but it's hard to tell because there are not the same number of titles on the cover as tracks on the cd, since some of the tracks are just snippets of dialouge and stuff, so you can't just count down to the seventh title, which is "grooming pubis", and also "o kazakhastan" which ends the movie sounds more like laibach than most of the national anthems on laibach's own new album) and joe gruschecky (ex of the iron city houserockers, and his new album features bruce springteen on a few tracks and while i have no doubt that this album must blow out of the water that springsteen seeger covers album which must be the most boring idea for an album of the year even though i didn't listen to the thing since life is too fucking short, but gruschecky is still not writing them like he was in 1980 or 1981 and his band barely rocks at all, dude really needs to befriend kenny aranoff or somebody, though sometimes there's some passable drama in joe's oily sobersided sincerity and the guitar buildups in a way that a couple of the tracks like "safe at home" for instance might sound decent in a "rescue me" episode or perhaps a scene from "the wire" with mcnulty fucking up again), and oftimes when a kirchen song comes on i think it's gruschecky by mistake, which is frankly not a good sign.

and the more I hear of the new Intocable album Cruce de Caminos a.k.a. Crossroads the more I fall in love with it. Johnny Lee Rosas might have the best voice in America, because it's not quite perfect but DAMN he delivers the goods. hilariously, when they do a "pop" version of huge hit single "Por Ella," it lays on the country signifiers so thick that I think maybe they actually consider modern country to be the real sound of "pop" in the U.S. but sadly for y'all, it's all in Spanish, so you won't really care about it. (P.S. I am an asshole tonight.)

The Game and Gruschecky now replaced in the changer with Fairyland (French-I-think metal band on Napalm) and new Ying Yang Twins.

"One More Day" on the Kirchen album does have a nice Dock Boggs era white country blues feel to it, I guess. And I do like the Arthur Alexander cover. So I haven't written the thing off quite yet.

I've been considering springing for the Intocable CD, actually. I probably won't mind the Spanish of it if the tunes are catchy enough.

Sounds like a hell of a lot of work to get through...(What do they think they are, a hip-hop group or something?) (I hate great values!)

Kirchen's "Hammer of The Honky Tonk Gods" title cut kicks (or at least "signifies kicking") in a Junior Brown kind of way, I guess. There's something sorta deluded about it -- half of Nashville rocks harder; hell, Kellie Pickler might rock harder -- but it's not bad.

kirchen's record has the same faults as his show i saw this fall. he's real good for about two songs. his supposedly awesome guided tour of pop where he interpolates all the licks he knows is actually pretty great, but seemed empty even with a couple beers in me. you kind of wish he'd go johnny guitar watson and write more songs about more interesting and perhaps raffish reality. the songs blur in my mind. the curse of reverence and "americana" and all that, but he's been at it for a while just like nick lowe, who used to write about more interesting and raffish reality but now is a very good genre artist. we all love arthur alexander, man. (i love nick lowe, but the last record of his i found remotely interesting was "party of one," which is what, 1990?)

(Hey Frank brought the album up! I guess I should put all this on the world music thread too. I'm not sure what it has to do with country, though yeah, there's a twang in the music now and then, and didn't one of you guys vote for Gogol Bordello in a Nashville Scene poll once? This CD belongs on a shelf near them, Kultur Shock, Balkan Beatbox, etc, unless like me you file in alphabetical order.)

And my new maybe-favorite on Kirchen's CD is "Skid Row in My Mind."

ha ha, for me it was labour of lust in 1979! (though i guess i gave nick the knife or whatever a fairly mixed review for my college paper in missouri when it came out, a few years later.)

ghostfinger, a nashville (actually murfreesboro, tn.) band, does really cool country-rock pastiches. the singer sounds like jagger or arthur lee or some white guy trying to be soulful, and it's mostly funny. they get doleful and sometimes the rockers don't quite work, but "moon" alternates sections of fake-rock and country-rock quite effectively. can't make out what it is they're exactly trying to express, but get the feeling they're a bit more than the usual history lesson. it's been a good year for nashville pop bands--lone official, the features, ghostfinger and i guess lambchop, too, have all released good records. certainly, lone official's "tuckassee take" made my no depression top 20 new releases.

and i have to say that i've listened to neko case's record (which also made my ND list) as much as i have anything this year; the songs are better than i initially thought, and she sustains a *mood* throughout that sorta skirts desolation--the line about driving past the beautiful flooded fields resonates as they say with my experience. and it's one of the great records in 6/8, a time signature she manipulates savvily and which suggests, i guess, the timelessness (or the immersion in memory) she's going after.

So this Dixie Chick flick, Shut Up and Sing, is playing in town. Should I go? That whole brouhaha seems like decades ago.

did the ND Ballots go out already?

Do we know yet if the Scene poll is dead? Is Himes gonna do it elsewhere? I mean, he's got the rolls...

And I know this has been chattered about elsewhere, but I never got a clear answer: what's to become of Pazz n Jop?

New George Strait album Twang. The First single "Living For The Night" is so classic. Any thoughts?