Big & Rich: Album of the Decade?

My girlfriend (who says Big & Rich's harmonies in "Rollin'" always remind her of Metallica, of all people): "Drain STH, I think. Abba. I guess they may have more than two parts though."

Also finally saw the CMT awards on rebroadcast over the weekend. It was really entertaining for the first hour-and-half, then my wife got home and I told her how good it was and then, bam, Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban and other snoozes. I insisted we keep it on until the Gretchen Wilson/Big & Rich thing, though. I wonder what Ray Price thought about multiracial cowgirl hoochie dancers?

But, as energized as I am by the country-as-classic-rock/ country-as-dance-music, genre-hopping stuff Chuck is pumping, I think "Remember When" (that's Alan Jackson) is about the loveliest thing I've heard in a long time.

Okay, so now she says the harmony intervals in "Rollin" (and apparently a few other Big & Rich songs) are exacly the same intervals used in "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas and parts of "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. Which would seem to be some kind of medieval interval, used in European folk music and some bluegrass, but rarely in mainstream country..assuming, as an entirely interval-illiterate person, I am repeating/understanding this right. (Most of the harmonies on Big & Rich's album apparently use the more usual country intervals.) Also, the Bee Gees and other people have apparently have used constant harmonies, so maybe it's not as rare as fact-checking cuz suggests above. Or maybe it is. (I find this topic fascinating, partly because it makes me feel completely stupid and incompetent as a critic who never even notices such details!)

The suggestion upthread that this isn't totally new is OTM, of course. It seems like Nashville has been building to this for years, but the fact that Horse of a Different color still feels so fresh and like a storming of the gates is a real testament to how good it is. Or something like that.

Me too! And it's really beautiful. I hadn't thought medieval, but the Metallica comparison is a good one. The upper part (is that Rich?) is constantly changing his harmonic attack, sometimes in standard thirds, sometimes, um, other stuff, and sometimes going to an octave apart, I guess for extra impact. The album only exists as a tape in my car right now, so I'm not sure, but I think my current favorite is the note on "TON" in "feelin' like TONto."

My fave is "er" in "take me farther" on Holy Water. It soars.

And whoever thought anyone'd mention Metallica as vocal harmony forerunners? Fuckin' sellouts!

the bee gees use a bit of everything. lots of solo singing, lots of two-part and lots of three-part. they mix it up, like almost all normal harmony bands do. even the classic two-singer bands tend to blend a variety of approaches, from solo verses to call-and-response bridges to close two-part harmonies to lead-line-plus-wordless-backup-vocal part.

the thing that intrigues me about the big & rich album is how relentlessly and obsessively it features one of 'em directly harmonizing with the other on nearly every word of the entire album. they don't switch to call-and-response. they don't take solos (save for a minuscule number of lines, like the first line of the verse in "live this life" and a stray line here and there in "drinkin' 'bout you"). the singularity of the approach is maddening and brilliant.
it's high concept. (or high lonesome concept, if you will.)

It's that later they're going to introduce their orange one, then their green one. (I am quite jealous of y'all, in any event.)

yeah, them and cowboy troy, and they were all really nice guys, and they kept thanking me for my voice review, and they complimented me on my cowboy shirt and stuff, but we didn't have time to do any kinda in-depth interview about their lifestyle proclivities or anything....

Hey, nice!

so are there any other ny shows, or did they just go right back home, dammit?

and, speaking of dammit, i wish i'd known about that after party. sigh.

Has this actually vibrated your eardrum, Chuck? I'm intrigued...

As to whether anything has surpassed this as my own album of the year, I can respond in one syllable: no. I've moved from song to song and vibe to vibe on it and still love it. Doesn't get as much play as back in June, but it's still tops.

Based on the five tracks I've heard, this seems to be among the most OTM notes on this puppy.

I'll be buying this week.

>Big and Rich Save A Horse, Ride a Cowboy.

This is not country--it is on country radio, country music television,the country station on Yahoo Launch, and reviewed as country by Chuck Eddy in the Village Voice. I am glad that it is well liked, that it is getting notice and that it is the Video to Watch according to Yahoo,and the most requested on my local country radio station. The thing is that the whole thing is too camp, too sexy, too artificial, too glam to be country. It shows off too much, its all about the egos of Mr Big and Mr Rich. A a real cowboy doesn't give out 100 dollar bills to random bar patrons, there is a New York reference and no cowboy ever came to NYC--Joe Buck excepted.

This is country. It quotes Willie Nelson who is always automatically country. Not only does Willie come in to play, so do horses and that makes it doubly country (see Beer For My Horses by Toby Keith and MrNelson). It features getting drunk and making out in the back of apick up truck (not fucking, the fucking is implied, no this is just a little touch football). The title is that slightly risque pun that has been done since the beginning. As well, there are the fiddles...country has fiddle solos, nothing else does. Plus it combines sex and salvation--Jesus and Jezebel have been recent development, but they are there--Jason McCoy's Born Again in Dixieland is the only one that comes immediately to mind.

It might be hip hop. The highly self aware samples that are found through out the track and what begins it. (anyways aren't horse samples in, what with the newish noisy Missy Eliot). Then the handing out random money and buying rounds as a way to win games of masculine performance, would fit in quite well. As well, the mention of the phrases Bling Bling, Escalade, Freak Parade and Getting Buzzed. Then there is all the talking in the third person "having as big and Rich time", and some of the fiddle solos are thoroughly electronic.

Looking at the video, and how Big and Rich look like a fagged up Brooks and Dunn--if Brooks and Dunn weren't fagged up enough as it is, plus all of the heavily sexualised weirdness(Drag Queens, Dwarfs,Chorus lines of business suited girls in elaborate garters) , plus how they use the same bridge that Kenny Chesney used for the Young video, which couldn't be more earnest, and this couldn't be less. Maybe it is a conflation of pop and country music trends, a careful, ironic gloss on the nature of where things are, but that care is taken to make sure that it is more fun--its like he is countryfying the same shit that everyone else has been listening to in the last few years (ie Crown vs Kristal, the girls drinking long necks, etc.)

I wonder if this cross pollution is worth doing...country took from the alt boom a new traditionalism in subject matter, but not musically in a way that makes anything interesting. This might be a thumb nose to how fucking boring things have become, how treacly and how poignant. We used to have big summer anthems that came blaring from sexy boys in pick up trucks, and there hasn't been one in a long time-- this one isn't the most usual sense but it might just work until we get something really new tweaked.

Anthony Easton