Big & Rich: Album of the Decade?

-- chuck (cedd...), May 27th, 2004."

am I reading this wrong?

" (My single of the year so far, which may not make my top ten list unless I find out what it is, may well be This remix of some Montgomery Gentry-like hard-rocking country song I heard on Bethlehem PA's Cat Country Radio station featuring a unbelievably hard-swinging '70s arena metal 16th note drum funk break, which eventually turns into an extended rap section by a guy named, um, Cowboy Somebody. I only heard it once. If anybody has ANY idea what it is, I absolutely beg that they tell me.""

Looks like this is "Rollin (The Ballad of Big & Rich)" by Big & Rich featuring Cowboy Troy, first (!!!) song on THEIR album, which means the cut immediately preceding "Wild West Show," which is ANOTHER one of the year's best singles so far. Rap lyrics from the lyric sheet, holy fuck: "BAak home we love to dance/We could be two-steppin' or ravin to trance/And when the party is crunk the girls back it up/We've got the systems in the cars and the 20s on the trucks..."

-- chuck (cedd...), April 26th, 2004.

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actually, listening to the song with cowboy troy in it again, though, i doubt it will make my top ten singles.......and it may not rock as hard as I thought at first....very weird to hear without warning on country radio, though.
(The press release calls Cowboy Troy "the world's only six foot five inch, 250 pound black cowboy rapper, who throws down in three languages and has a degree in economics to boot." "Wild West Show" has a chorus that goes "hey yaaaaa" and guitars that totally sound like a spaghetti western or something, and Big and Rich say that their fans listen to Ludacris and Outkast and Kenny Chesney and Johnny Cash and Kid Rock, and that "Nashville's going to catch up with that"...."Life's as large as you want to make it.")

-- chuck (cedd...), April 26th, 2004.

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Or maybe the song with the rap in it (not the only one on the album, it turns out, though the most blatant one) DOES rock as hard as I thought it di.d (Hey, I just noticed part of it is rapped in Spanish too, cool, and then it goes into a hamsterdance squeak for a second). (And the album verges toward rock en espanol now and then, too.) Well anyway, I got a few months to decide if the song'll make my top ten I guess. Album looks like a top ten possibility for sure. (PS Did I mention Will to Power cover both "Man of Constant Sorrow" AND "The Bottle" by Gil Scott Heron on THEIR new LP? I can already tell this year's top ten is gonna be impossible to whittle down. And to think some people out there still think music sucks now. Jeezus. THEY suck.)
-- chuck (cedd...), April 27th, 2004.

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If I hear one more redneck comment blindly on terrorism (a la that idiot Toby Keith), I'll flip.
-- uh (enochsnowj...), April 27th, 2004.

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That song sounds totally dope, chuck. You know, of course, that Rich of Big&Rich co-wrote "Redneck Woman," right? And that the best song on that Gretchen Wilson album is a gospel song about drag-racing chariots? And you've heard the scratching on "If you ever stopped loving me," right?
And to Eddie: I admire your brave stand; like I said, I used to feel that way, that there were whole segments of the country that I could snub because they weren't as enlightened as me. Then I realized that that is really fucking arrogant so I stopped. I was so much older then, etc.

-- Begs2Differ (cibul...), April 27th, 2004

I just saw the CMT premiere of Big & Rich's new vide, "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)", it was the most delightfully over the top thing I've ever seen.
-- Al (hoteloper...), May 15th, 2004.

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Damn, I turned on CMT, and they showed just a little snippet of it, and Big and Rich had top hats and frilly shirts on and stuff and were being interviewed between SheDaisy and Kenny Chesnesy clips, but I totally missed their video. I'll see it eventually, though, I'm sure. The album is FAR AND AWAY the best album of 2004, though. ANY genre.
-- chuck (cedd...), May 17th, 2004.

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Rollin' is a truly fantastic single that I would love to see performed live at, say, the Illinois State Fair whilst drunk. Thanks to Chuck for the tip.
-- frankE (frankeeeeeeee...), May 17th, 2004.

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It's not Randy Newman's "Rollin'," is it?
-- J0hn Darn1elle (edito...), May 17th, 2004.

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Been watching CMT and a lot of stuff sounds like U2/Police/Simple Minds/Midnight Oil! Is this a new development? In the video of Paul Brandt's "Leavin'" he's 'playing' an acoustic guitar while there's this 'Another Green Joshua Tree World" delay-pedal'd-distortion+huge-floor-tom drone happening!
-- dave q (scrape10...), May 17th, 2004.

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Perhaps it means that beat wise country can only get up to 1979 or so but that guitar wise ye olde 'modern rock' is safe now.
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), May 17th, 2004.

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Big & Rich's beats go well past 1979. (So do Shania Twain's and Leann Rimes's, actually, and probably some other people's.) And Big & Rich's concept of rollin' has more to do with Fred Durst's or *Rawhide*'s than Randy Newman's. (Though their album does have a song about not being the right height for the town they live in, for whatever that's worth. Not to mention a sort of Hoagy Carmichael mint-julep lazy riverboat ballad number that Randy might appreciate.)
-- chuck (cedd...), May 17th, 2004.

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Are Big & Rich the Country Neptunes?
-- The Huckle-Buck (handsomishbo...), May 17th, 2004.

the wierdest thing about the Big and Rich thing last nite, was whoever the girl singer that performed before then (didn't see her just caught her right as she got done)....suddenely raised her hands in a jesus pose and exclaimed "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN....COUNTRY MUSIC.....WITHOUT PREJUDICE!!!!" (George Michael reference?? you never know??) and then fell into the crowd like one of those trust building excerises and they caught her and then Big and Rich came out and the one dude was wearing a weird top hat....
I were very confused.

-- M@tt He1geson (mat...), May 27th, 2004.

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I will now be hearing all Dan's posts in the voice of Cowboy Troy (?)
-- Andrew Farrell (afarrel...), May 27th, 2004.

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Wait, was the girl singer Gretchen Wilson (who now has the second most popular album in the United States, half written by half of Big & Rich)? Did she do "Redneck Woman"?? Must've been. Damn, I missed her..
-- chuck (cedd...), May 27th, 2004.

It also contains a track about how the protagonist is always getting his ass kicked.

Alternatively, just describe in 50 words or less, in clear and simple English, the music of Big and Rich and why it's worth bothering with.

i just picked this up
it is indeed ass-kicking
country hip-hop funk

i'm not sure where it
will end up in my top ten
(or more like top five)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0422/eddy1.php

And this is related (and they're inside a picture frame, too!!):

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0422/eddy2.php

this is even worse than kid rock.

1. That they are a total and long-deserved slap in the fact to the sexless white-bread goody-goody PURITANISM of country, as typified not only by alt-style No Depression horseshit but also by such semi-talented superstar bores as George Strait, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, etc (all of whom have a few great moments, but who cares. Especially now.)

2. That their sudden ubiquitousness on country stations may well represent the most quantum leap taken by ANY musical genre in, I dunno, decades. At least.

3. That the preacher stuff at the beginning and rap in the middle of "Rollin'" always make me think of "Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out)" by the Hombres.

4. That the way they pronounce "sit-TAY" and "prit-TAY" in "Save a Horse" always reminds me of old funk guys, especially Larry Blackmon of Cameo, and I assume this is absolutely intentional.

5. That the way they suddenly exclaim "...and we made LOVE!" in the same song has more sex in it than any country, rock, rap, pop, OR dance song to hit the radio in recent memory. Prove me wrong.

6. That their album could easily wind up being the first album by anybody that I give 30 points to on a Pazz and Jop ballot. Ever.

Disclaimer: What I mean by this is that, since I've owned the album, I've ASSUMED that was only the sixth or seventh best song. But maybe I'm wrong: maybe the A&R people at Warners Nashville know something I don't. I would not have picked this track as one of the most obvious early singles, either. But if all the songs that sounded even better to me the first 20 times I heard the album sound even better than this one when they get released as radio singles, watch out...

I mean "slap in the face," duh.

Also holy fuck the end of Real World!

too "somber"/boring
as a single but on disc
it sounds very nice

good contrast to the
Western Myth song at the end,
but both are like "eh"

my daughter's fave song
is "six foot town", she always
laughs, "he's a giant!"

--and andrew OTM end of 'real world'--

easily best couplet of the year

first it wasn't easy--
Changin' Rock & Roll and minds

I play guitar and I play my songs in the swuuuuuuuunnnshiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

Haha, I just heard this last night for the first time and when "Wild West Show" came on I was like, "is this the Mission?" Roll on goth-country takeover!

Ha, the guy he did the bet with, Adam Gold, is a former editor of mine at the Nashville Scene. He's been loving this hilarity of course.

wonder if he laid a bet on the 2004 pazz & jop results

If anyone's curious at this point, which I doubt, the first album was almost as good to listen to as it was to write about, which is saying a lot; the second one not as much, as tends to happen with second albums (Don: "You have your whole life to write your first album, six months for the second one." Well yeah.) But it did slink into my Nashville Scen Top Ten. The third was ridiculously bad.
Other endeavors soon became relevant to Duos with one member you love and one member you loathe
Big K did some good mixes of his and OPP singles, also I liked this first solo joint (haven't heard others)---excerpted from Voice review of it and B&R associate Lil Jon Nicholson's:
Live a Little, Big Kenny's pre-Big & Rich solo album, finally given a proper release on The Disney Music Group's Hollywood Records, brings the
noise candy, not the nose candy. It's a slowly spinning saucer, serving up a skyful of Purple Planetberries,
bursting on cue, presented 2 U by B.K., a psych-pop-goes-thee-country impresario and aw-shucks-ma'am workaday wizard, bopping through amber waves with his drum machine. Kenny's as much wistful crooner as carny barker when singing through a megaphone-like vocoder
about "a place where dreams come true." He gets his comeuppance in "Cheater's
Lament." Even more so, in "Think Too Much," with virtual drumsticks bouncing off
the cello-and-viola cloud growing around his (Traveling Wilburys-flavored) Orbisonic orbit.
Yet also with a ready tip of his feathered top hat to "Dor-oh-thee, and
Lit-tle To-To," flying by in "Rather Be."

the first album was almost as good to listen to as it was to write about

oh i agree

For the rest of my life I will remain completely baffled by how this awful album became such an ilm touchstone.

I'm assuming even calling it "awful" out loud will get me FPed so I'll add, "so long folks".

No, you're fine. There's room in the manger for all walks of life. As The Big 'un always says, "It Ken be done."

I bought the album four years after this thread sprung to life and liked it quite a lot, but then again, this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

I mean, I love it when ilm coalesces around an unexpected album and pushes me to check it out, but no matter how many times I tried with this, I didn't get it at all. Still don't.

I'm going to guess--maybe I'm wrong--the coalescing had something to do with Chuck's over-the-top swoon at a moment when he was editing the Voice.

I have watched the video in wide-eyed, catatonic horror.

This happens. I never got Moby's beloved Play, much of Radiohead, much of Kacey Chambers, incl. 0 of her beloved Golden Hour ilm is the manger tho.

Musgraves! Sorry Kacey Chambers, although I gave up on you too, to put it nicely.

, this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, December 14, 2020 11:46 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i honestly don't think i am confused at all by big & rich or country music

the whole big & rich thing on ilm basically always felt like like someone handed me a cold big mac and i tried to eat it and spit it out and then i'm told i need to go to culinary school to really appreciate it

i checked out your life as a record by brandy clark this year because of ilm and that was a real treat, just great songwriting

For me, a good example of the complete opposite of this was Last Train to Paris. It took a lot of convincing to get me to care at all about what Diddy was doing in 2010, but the ilm hivemind managed it and I absolutely fell in love with that record.

sounds like a good poll!

this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

there was definitely an element to the ilm big & rich thing of some people giving themselves a permission structure to continue writing off all other country music

xpost - I'd be really curious to see what the list of "ilm event albums" looks like. These two, that Electrik Red record maybe?

for sure

permission structure to continue writing off all other country music

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Monday, December 14, 2020 12:37 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i see zero evidence of this

Peak into any year-end thread when an Eric Church single appears.

I don't really follow those too much

I guess why would anyone need permission not to like country music much less pretend to hate Big & Rich when secretly in your dark little heart you love it so much and listen to Save a Horse every day crouched in the closet in secret shame?

no one has to like anything

i was unclear, i didnt mean ppl were being disingenuous about hating big & rich, what i meant was a certain amount of the big & rich praise on ilm had a framing of "we all know country music sucks but FINALLY this is GOOD" that struck me as self soothing a little bit, giving themselves permission to continue writing off country as music for dumb racists because they like the album where the guys rap about not being racist.

yet they turned out to be racists

ahhh sorry OEO totally misread

"FINALLY these are GOOD racists!"

this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

I love country music from some mega-schmaltzy eras (e.g. 1987-1997) but have completely loathed Big & Rich from day one. It's just terrible stuff and I don't get it at all.

I also hated Lonestar so I guess I do hate these guys specifically

KiNG would have to be on that ilm hive list. And chuffing Balloon.

avalanches are the classic ilm act for me. never seen them in anyone's record collection irl or heard anyone talking about them

Oh yeah, I used to put some of their early stuff on mix tapes way before seeing anything about them on ilm. I guess they weren't all that well-known in the US, but I got compliments for the tapes.

I was actually into Since I Left You before I came around to ilx, can't remember where I heard about it, probably some magazine review.

I think Sim0n Reyn0lds reviewed it pretty ecstatically in Uncut? I could be remembering that wrong.

Yeah think I first heard them on magazine bonus comps.

Ah, that Reyn0lds review was in Spin. That is definitely where I would have seen it.

I have "Save A Horse" on my Elliptical Jams playlist, mostly unplayed since March.

the first B&R record still rules--but there was a lot of great Country music in that era

Yeah, and that was when I started paying attention to it, beyond Willie---pop arena mainstream country was big fun, and I thought so much of it was going to keep being like that---spoiled me, waaaah

he paid out, it went to a military charity: https://tasteofcountry.com/john-rich-joe-biden-donald-trump-election-bet/

I met with @GovBillLee and @SchwinnTeach today at the Capital building. They told me new legislation will be put on the docket in this session to deal with "literature" that our kids are being exposed to containing obscene and pornographic content. They listened. We'll see.

— John Rich (@johnrich) January 11, 2022

sounds like a cool jerk sesh bro

The press release calls Cowboy Troy "the world's only six foot five inch, 250 pound black cowboy rapper, who throws down in three languages and has a degree in economics to boot."

Seems like he should be Big In Europe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tofbP46Ohd4

He's 6 foot 5. Probably big everywhere.

That first one’s kind of rapey. Guess who’s lyrics… pic.twitter.com/Gj7CklQ2E6

— Rep. Gloria Johnson (@VoteGloriaJ) January 12, 2022

lol. She's my state rep, one of our few local Dems. She just got redistricted out of her own district.

Doubling down, I guess.

Cepicky bill criminalizing "obscene" materials in school libraries rolled one week because of time constraints after singer John Rich compares librarians to perverts in a "white van."

— Sam Stockard (@stockard_sam) February 23, 2022

I want to know how a kid working at a fast food restaurant found the funding to purchase thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of rifles, ammunition and body armor. We need answers.

— John Rich (@johnrich) May 27, 2022

Well clearly this is why we have to keep the minimum wage down

And then America tells him to step right up despite not allowing him to buy a glass of whiskey.

— John Legend (@johnlegend) May 28, 2022