Rolling Country 2011

Here's Paisley's self-serving quote, delivered with this song, from YouTube:

"See, country music is unique. It is brave. It is not afraid to deal head on with subjects like death, disease, religion, drinking, family, or anything else that qualifies as life."

Hmmm. Some easy debate could rip a new hole in him over that.

Then there's some drivel about being at concerts where fans hand country artists the dog-tags of their fallen family members. Which I assume is true. However, it also brings to mind the imagery that big male country artists love to drape themselves in: Veneration of the military, the wars, fighting for freedom and all the associated manlinesses. While to a man, none of the big strapping dudes in country music who invoke it bothered to take the Pat Tillman route and put their bodies where their singing mouths take them. They're the volunteers who keep the pieties glowing in the windows on the home front. One in the same with those who feel the compulsion to tell everyone in listening distance how patriotic they are.

And so if that's being brave and unique in some great way, I'm Ted Nugent.

"See, country music is unique. It is brave. It is not afraid to deal head on with subjects like death, disease, religion, drinking, family, or anything else that qualifies as life."

Hmmm. Some easy debate could rip a new hole in him over that.

No kidding. I generally like Paisley and find his material at least a little bit smarter than his aw-shucks-I-named-my-kid-Huckleberry persona typically lets on, but that's a ridiculous and short-sighted statement. The idea that those themes are unique to the country genre is flat-out ignorant of the whole of popular music, and, moreover, to the fact that those are themes that contemporary country music often does an embarrassing job of dealing with. Maudlin shit like Carrie Underwood's "Temporary Home" or any of Martina McBride's sermons about children with wasting diseases or whatever social ill she's chosen to shoot for her latest soft-focus music video is not brave, Brad. It's cloying and manipulative, and it's not exactly the kind of thing that makes quite a lot of modern country music legitimately great.

So, with that statement about bravery, the not really getting how institutional racism works third verse of "Welcome to the Future," and the appropriating other cultures for fun and profit makes America great bent of "American Saturday Night," I guess the big question here is whether or not Paisley really is pretty shallow after all? One quote and a couple of poorly constructed singles not being enough to condemn the guy, sure, but it's probably a point worth some discussion.

Also: I've seen Paisley live a couple of times and have never seen anyone approach the stage to hand him any dog-tags, and, based upon those shows, I agree with Gorge that the guitar licks in "This is Country Music" aren't representative of his best stuff.

Y'all may well be right about the guitars, to be honest (like I said, I only heard the song once -- in the car, and it was a really lovely day out. So overrating is definitely a possibility.) Either way, yeah, that line about country uniqueness is just sad.

(I’ll send more comments sep)

Don Allred’s 2010 Country Critics Poll Ballot
(Listed just in the order they come to mind)
TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2010:

1. Lydia Loveless: The Only Man (Peloton)
2. Nancy McCallion: Take a Picture of Me (Mama Mama)
3. Jamey Johnson: The Guitar Song (Mercury)
4. Chely Wright: Lifted Off The Ground (Vanguard)
5. Minton Sparks: Live at the Stadium Inn (MSM)
6. Marshall Chapman: Big Lonesome (Tallgirl)
7. Jace Everett: Red Revelations (Wrasse)
8. Drive-By Truckers: The Big To-Do (ATO/Red)
9. Los Lobos: Tin Can Trust (Shout Factory)
10. Marty Stuart: Ghost Train (The Studio B Sessions
(Hon Mentions: Justin Earle Townes: Harlem River Blues, Merle Haggard: I Am What I Am, Willie Nelson: Country Music, John Mellencamp: No Better Than This, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Hawk [the 7 or 8 tracks (out of 13)I like are all country]) Terry Ohms: What Do You Mean, What Do I Mean? [see Campbell & Lanegan comment, add term: “redneck bossa nova”] Moutain Man: Made The Harbor [also partly cloudy country). Black Prairie: Feast of the Harvest Moon Corinne Chapman: Dirty Pretty Things [reversing this year’s trend: a strong indie country-rock (but no more so than a lot of country pop]EP that deserves expansion to album]), Various Artists: Twistable Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein (Sugar Hill)[despite crappy tracks from Jim James and Black Francis, even Kristofferson sounds good!) Choice Cuts: several on Deer Tick’s The Black Dirt Sessions)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2010:

1.Sunny Sweeny: From A Table Away (Republic)
2. Tony Joe White: All (Swamp)
3. Tony Joe White: Tell Me Why (Swamp)
4. Secret Sisters featuring Jack White: Big River (Third Man)
5. Miranda Lambert: Only Prettier (Columbia)
6. Robert Plant with Patty Griffin: Harm’s Swift Way (New Rounder)
7. Laura Bell Bundy: Giddy On Up (Mercury)
8.Kenny Chesney: Hemingway’s Whiskey (BNA)
9. Pretty Lights: After Midnight/Midnight Rider(Live Cale/Allman Mix) (Pretty Lights)
10. Keith Urban: Put You In A Song (Capitol)
(Hon Mentions: Olof Arnalds: Close My Eyes, Isobel Campbell with Willy Mason: No Place To Fall, Corinne Chapman: Dirty Pretty Things, Drive-By Truckers: Your Woman Is A Living Thing, Reba: Strange, Deer Tick: Goodbye, Dear Friend)
TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2010:

1.Hamper McBee: The Good Old-Fashioned Way (Drag City)(usually poignant and always ripe, rolling notes between teeth so easily some other teeth must have sacrificed themselves to make more, room, except no probs with diction, so how does he do it. Not “revelatory” as claimed for his discovery by folkies in mid-60s, but this is late-ish 70s. Not many probs with his tasteful deep folk standards and beyond tasteless anecdotes/testimonials and songs in the same throbbing vein, that sure seem like they could be even deeper folk standards)
2. Roland White: I Wasn’t Born To Rock ‘n’ Roll (Tompkins Square)(protesteth too much
3.Wynn Stewart: Another Day, Another Dollar (Sony) (reissued as mp3 in 07, but much more exposure in 2010, in Volkswagen Jetta commercial )
4.Ray Charles & Johnny Cash: Why Me Lord? (Concord)(yep, another single, actually virtually swinging the Kristofferson groaner)(prev. unreleased, but old enough to qualify)
5.Riley: Grandma’s Roadhouse (Delmore)

Listening to Grandma's Roadhouse, so far I'm d The picture's faded, and Riley's set free! How often does that happen in a country song, or any song? Not nearly enough, and he rejoices. But he's the dominant and gut-busting voice, which will take some getting used to. He's better on the more rocking tracks--the bonus tracks are excellent and should have been on the LP, losing the included version of the title track, (that cool, down the steps melody's revealed in the outtake; no need for the master's rawkus caucus). Also could ditch "Field of Green", which distractingly recalls Crosby Stills & Nash; ditto "Funky Tar Paper Shack", with its "Lodi" roll. This version of "Easy People" 's recurring suggestion of "The Weight" is a little distracting, but main distraction is Riley's vocal squeezebox. But at least six keepers. Really digging the rubbery sustain over tilting groove, in "Gotta Get Away", especially, and many trax have some truly pungent electric piano (a truly rare thang re electric pianos of those years)
COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2010
1. Olof Arnalds: ( seemingly off-the-cuff, except spot-on [-the-cuff, I guess) performances of some songs like We’re Not The Jet Set, in in YouTube archived visits to radio stations etc

Veteran Columbus OH teen Lydia Loveless sometimes includes the Replacements' intensely frustrated "Answering Machine" and Def Leppard's dynamically mesmerized "Hysteria" with her punky tonk combos deliveries, unstoppably tumbling up, down and onto life's thrilling, killing, chilling and flat moments. Loretta Lynn's points of departure are extended and twisted through Loveless' compactly epic, self-written debut, The Only Man, as desperately wired sexual power struggles zap the void in passing: "Girls suck/They suck and suck and never get enough," wails one contender, but it's time to ricochet off another incisive epitaph.
Drive-By Truckers' The Big To-Do is one of their best-played, best-sung, best-recorded, best-written albums ever. Pretty much in that order, to the credit of this self-described "lyrics-driven" band. The music crashes through "clouds that took Daddy up to Heaven" like angry, daredevil spirits, before discreetly sniffing sleazy, eerie evidence of real life's solved crimes and lingering mysteries. Young Shonna Tucker's voice, bass and country/Motown/British Invasion-fueled original songs unstoppably testify, further sparking the catchy crackle of unexpectedly fresh perspectives on known zones of strange weather.
Pretty Lights is DJ/Producer Derek Vincent Smith, frequently traveling with jazz/hip-hop drummer Adam Deitch. Smith seeded 2010 with metal chestnut " The Final Countdown", which becomes strenuously affirmative gospel science, right be fore J.J. Cale's original "After Midnight" pursues Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" over spinning borders. Pretty Lights' poetic distortion is more paradoxical than the blues, as a mutating sample on Making Up A Changing Mind spells out, "I know you been hurt/By somebody else/I can tell by the way/You carry yourself."
Mountain Man are three young women who explore and savor dimensions and implications of everyday imagery, in mostly a cappella harmonies.On debut set Made The Harbor, emotions also harmonize, so whether you hear them singing "You make my bread and my wine" or "You make my red in my white", it sounds right. Like Emily Dickinson and the most talented service workers, Mountain Man's true folk tradition lies in fluidly, boldly editing the stories worth sticking to. They cut their losses and wins into a shapely path.
Nancy McCallion’s Take A Picture of Me wisely includes no Mollys re-makes, unlike her self-titled collection. It does include several fellow ex-Mollys, all new material and tensile vitality to brace conversational (yet deftly compressed) eloquence, Nothing pretentious, nothing she couldn’t look somebody in the eye and say--nor anything she’d have to look somebody in the eye and say, no overt sales technique required. If that’s not mainstream enough, oh well. Key phrase, mebbe: “In sorrow, not despair.” Some sway-alongs on the way to refreshing your drink too, like “It’s never too late to get lucky/It’s never too early to cry.” Accordions, electric picking, boots disturbing the dust a mite--missing the fiddle though.
Minton Sparks is a poet, maybe playwright, anyway increasingly drawn to musical expressiveness of the spoken word, esp with former Dylan touring guitarist John Jorgenson. Familiar elements and you can call it Southern Gothic, but there's no zoning out in oh-wow morbidity, although her characters shine in tough spots, hopping like bugs about to be crushed. But not too soon, and they use their moment in the light memorably (like Nancy McCallion's gal, who instructs: "Take a picture of me", or so Sparks' canny observers hear it, as they slip closer, closer than they intended in some cases, close as required. We even get some high school girl's basketball team bus folk-bug hip-hop, on the way home from this week's big game: "I can tell by your eyes you been kissin' Mr. Wise/Say sardines/An' pork an' beans." Yeah she's got some hooks, and some call her the Soutthern Laurie Anderson, although for that you might get close with Jo Carol Pierce's Bad Girls Upset By The Truth, Yet Sparks and Pierce both lack most of Anderson's sentimental tendencies--when their angels show up, they're crusted with whatever's most likely up there (incl insomniacs mostly over Kerouac for now)
Justin Townes Earle's voice smoothly paves the way for romantic fatalism and/or squirrely urges, currently far too restless for even the joyful choir of suicide resolutions, on the title track of his new album, Harlem River Blues. Diverting uptempo reveries reverberate through boxcars, bars, beds and subway tunnel walls, while Earle continues "punching holes in the dark", until he gets it just right.
On Los Lobos' Tin Can Trust, it seems like the narrator is on the verge, he's some old tired guy, but made up his mind to do something, take revenge and/or a commission, various indicators of volatility keep rolling by or up the block, and little jolts--I know, enough with the foreplay already, but the tension keeps getting renewed, reinforced, and the Dead cover fits perfectly, with no crunchy granola attached (it's all sidewalks and traffic, the whole album, and then there's the sardonic "happy ending" history short). A cliche to say it's a soundtrack for movies you can make up, but it really seems to work that way, rumbling implications--if it were so definite a storyline, would get too familiar too fast, perhaps. It is badass urban country, obsessive as a shot glass lens.
When I first heard that familiar mid-tempo chug of Chely Wright's Lifted Off The Ground, I thought for a moment it was gonna be too musically straight, with pop-psychology shadows and positivity, but the first song quickly unfolded into complex clarity, and the music is luminous, it's all seamless, chugging those detailed lyrics right along. Not just, "Look, this is how mainstream country could be, incorporating this stuff we haven't talked about", but, "This is it, this works now." I would like room for a big ol' righteous yowly slide guitar solo in "Damn Liar", and maybe some more instrumental kick-out-the-walls in other songs, and it seems a bit dicey that so many of the songs are probably that voice in her head. But there's room for interpretation, especially the last track, so nice and sensuous and welcoming the instruments to crawl into and around the bed she's perching on, while she addresses whomever it may concern (mind that trace of her punchline-as-preview passing by). Liked Merle's and Willie's latest, and some others I may comment on, but, since they (like many others) both sport an EP's worth of keepers, they'll all benefit from the sentiment of those who favor a return to EPs as country albums.This set needs no such plus-size/-sign adjustments.
Having written plays with novelist Lee Smith and a new book also just about to be published around the time of this album's release, she hadn't planned to get back into making albums, but was inspired by Tim Krekel, a compatibly idiosyncratic music biz lifer (he contributed an intricately comfortable version of "Version City" to The Sandinista! Project, which mad comp coutained enough country to make a previous Scene ballot). They were set to do a set of duets, when he was diagnosed with cancer, and died three months later. Chapman was floored, but the completed Big Lonesome rolls on, through many sensuous shades of blue The opening title track is a companionably speculative duet, the only studio duet they completed apparently (an equally fluid and compact live duet closes the album). Then, she's left looking "Down To Mexico", staring at the distance they were gonna travel together, to record in San Miguel. She repeats a few lines, then it sounds like she's beginning to see the way, the route still there, the possibilties of what they had planned, and glimpsed together. So she gets up, starts to move, groove cautiously at first, but persistently, gathering momentum, in the sultry nocturnal atmosphere of the track.
And this really sets the tone, way before we get to her Hank cover: "The silence of a falling star/Lights up the purple sky". Hank reportedly had doubts about "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", wondered if he'd gotten carried away with the imagery, but Chapman wisely doesn't try to follow his formidable vocal delivery, she keeps it more conversational and late in the set, re-affirming what she trusts we can feel. And she trusts the music, mostly self-written, but recorded with Will Kimbrough and others she'd never met before. Despite having been out of recording for so long, she does that, and the sound is sensuous release and relief of grief in life, in living. Its aesthetic isn't prettification (no mention of angels that I've noticed, no balloons released over the gravesite), it's also discipline, focus, that kind of release and relief as well.
Plus a number of connections that fall into place, like in the live duet, she mentions how she and Tim reached a stalemate in songwriting, took a walk and came back to find a tree lying across their path. They took this as a good omen, and finished their song. Also a song she wrote by herself "Falling Through The Trees", which is more about becoming aware, and that "falling star" of Hank's and the way "believing in" chaos, entrophy etc also implicity involves things sometimes falling into a good (though not nec. "better") place, like this album. That's the beginning of "Riding with Willie", where she comes up with her own variant of Nelsonic philosophy while observing (she's usually pretty observant) Willie and Bobbie making music together, which surely fits with a precedes the final duet with Tim (they were like brother and sister, kindred spirits with long-time spouses, which also helps the album's balancing act). They Came To Nashville, Chapman's newly collected profiles of and conversations with fellow pilgrims, led her to complete "Riding", re: "Bobbie and Wille play music all night/Songs long forgotten come to light/That's the way I like it. " Anyway, Big Lonesome's no masterpiece, but it makes a clear, strong impression that lingers, good to listen to while thinking about it, and vice versa, unlike a number of albums better for one or the other.

Dammit, should've been "Pretty Lights poetic distortion is *no* more paradoxical than the blues"

Also, "for that you might get *closer* with Jo Carol"

"Having written plays with Lee Smith, she" meaning Marshall Chapman. Sorry, I had cut off a prev sentence on purpose, but hadn't moved MC's name into my new opening. Doing too many things at once, as usual.

It has been suggested over on Freaky Trigger that ZZ Top record a cover of Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" - though perhaps they have already.

Might as well post my ballot here, as well, so people don't have to follow the link if they're not of a mind to. Think I probably overrated the Chesney and underrated the McEntire. Surprised I like the latter as much as I do, since her voice often strikes me as being a fright wig. But rocking stuff, and touching stuff.

I somehow forgot that Lee Brice qualifies as new, and that Flynnville Train would be eligible for the group category. Wrote this exhausted at the last minute as always, which sometimes works really well (most of my representation in book form has been an accidental result of my Country Music Critics ballots), but I think I left a whole bunch of ellipses in my explanations this time. (Haven't yet listened to the Paisley track you guys are talking about, but my argument would be that the people who are waving the flag of "We Are Real Country" are doing a worse job of dealing with the content that country supposedly exemplifies than are the people who aren't waving such a flag (and worse at it maybe than lots of people who simply aren't country at all):

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2010:

1. Little Big Town "Little White Church"
2. Sunny Sweeney "From A Table Away"
3. Martina McBride "Wrong Baby Wrong Baby Wrong"
4. Taylor Swift "Mean"
5. Laura Bell Bundy "Giddy On Up"
6. Kenny Chesney "Somewhere With You"
7. Trace Adkins "Ala-Freakin-Bama"
8. Sarah Darling "Whenever It Rains"
9. Stealing Angels "He Better Be Dead"
10. Sarah Darling "With Or Without You"

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2010:

1. Taylor Swift Speak Now
2. Jamey Johnson The Guitar Song
3. Kenny Chesney Hemingway's Whiskey
4. Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling, Dharohar Project Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling, Dharohar Project (EP)
5. Reba McEntire All The Women I Am
6. Chely Wright Lifted Off The Ground
7. Jerrod Niemann Judge Jerrod & The Hung Jury
8. Flynnville Train Redemption
9. Laura Marling I Speak Because I Can
10. Laura Bell Bundy Achin' And Shakin'

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2010:

-

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2010:

1. Kenny Chesney
2. Jerrod Niemann
3. Jamey Johnson

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2010:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Gretchen Wilson

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2010:

-

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2010:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Jamey Johnson
3. Randy Houser

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2010:

1. Little Big Town
2. Stealing Angels
3. The Band Perry

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2010:

1. Jerrod Niemann
2. Laura Bell Bundy
3. Stealing Angels

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2010:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Jamey Johnson
3. Kenny Chesney

A few notes about my criteria for "borderline" entries, since I'm erratic from year to year on what to count. (1) I consider EPs eligible and I count them as albums even if they're under 25 minutes, since you don't have a separate category for them. You ought to consider it for next year - EP is a format that's getting used a lot again (damned if I know why, though I think it's part of the whole leaks, promotional-download-only-singles, real-singles, albums, deluxe-editions, Target-editions, Walmart-editions, extra-additions, let's-keep-the-performer-in-front-of-your-ears promotion-'n'-desperation activity that the biz engages in while scrambling to come up with a new business model). (2) This year I'm counting Brit folkies as country; they're as country as a lot of alt-country, and if Richard Thompson counts as country, for sure the Brit folkies do. That said, the reason I'm voting for Laura Marling and friends here is that I was feeling meh about my borderline albums: a good but subpar album by Gretchen Wilson, a good set of songs by Randy Houser that his voice doesn't come to grips with, a scattershot and unexpectedly characterless album by Lee Brice that nonetheless has a couple of my favorite songs of the year in any genre, "Picture Of Me" and "Sumter County Friday Night," and a journey to left field by Jace Everett that's got as much reverb as T-Pain has Autotune (also think it was originally 2009, though this year it got picked up by a different record company, but I'm only making sense of it now, and haven't yet succeeded) (not that I have anything against Autotune or reverb but I do wonder if Jace is overcompensating). (3) Promo download singles and charting nonsingles, of which Taylor had several; her best new song, "Innocent," was in the latter category: decided not to count it, 'cause I already like my singles list as is and the list could have easily been three times as long. I'm counting only one of the two Taylor Swift promotional downloaders (the two are "Mean" and "Speak Now," both of which are better than her actual push-them-to-radio singles), because I thought "Mean" was significant enough that I couldn't keep it off but thought one half-eligible Taylor song was enough. As always, these things depend on the situation, the song, and the year. (However, I don't want to give the impression that I usually like Mumford & Sons, since I find the guy's singing overstrained, but something clicks when they start doing dance stormers with South Asians.)

And my ballot comments (I refer a lot to Geoff's essay from last year's poll issue):

My Kinda Party

So, when last we met you were suggesting that Taylor Swift needed country mentors to root her in country soil, maybe a list of songs and a listening station, the thought not occurring in your prose that someone might possibly learn something from Taylor Swift, might even learn something from her about country music, or that she might already have some knowledge and have mentors, Faith Hill and Dixie Chicks records not necessarily being so barren (and records by who knows who else? do you know? have you asked her for her list of 100 records?), and Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose not necessarily being so dumb.

No one else in country looks back as much as Taylor Swift does, circling around in constant reassessment. She started her recording career with a retrospective song about a love affair, a song she wrote at fifteen while the affair was still underway. At twenty she remembered that at fourteen she was so embarrassed by the thought of her friends seeing her mom bring her to a movie that she made her mom drop her off a block from the theater. Not an extraordinary event, but this is the sort of detail that Taylor thinks to put in songs, the sort of incident that I imagine acts like Montgomery Gentry and Eric Church wish were in their songs, those guys not just waving their heritage like a flag (though they do that, too) but genuinely wrestling with the past, featuring rifts and reconciliation between parents and grown children, between men and women.

Taylor is always in argument with herself. She advises a little girl to never grow up (though Taylor is really addressing herself too); "just stay this little," Taylor says. But in another song she lets the little girl inside her answer back in fantasy sing-song, the little kid desperate to grow up, "Someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me." Intriguingly, the song that sounds most conventionally country on the album goes, "Someday I'll be livin' in a big old city, and all you're ever gonna be is mean." Now, I don't see how any of these songs would have been different if she'd listened to "Lost Highway" or "Folsom Prison Blues" or "Mama Tried" before writing them (and you don't know that she didn't). Back in 2006 ("Cold As You") she started a fight just to feel something. So now what's she supposed to do to make her more country, if that's not enough? Ream out an old boyfriend in Reno, just to watch him cry?

Taylor is someone who never panders to her audience's insecurities, but shows actual insight into where those insecurities come from. So what might make her relevant, to country artists and many others, is that she actually digs at where she actually comes from, a connection to the Haggards and Williamses and Cashes and the rest being that she too has hungry eyes.

In Brantley Gilbert's "My Kinda Party," covered in an excellent rocking version by Jason Aldean, we're given instructions how to raise hell but how to keep that hell within acceptable sociological limits. There's unintended poignance in the fact of the song, reminiscent of the deliberate poignance of Merle Haggard's "Place where even squares can have a ball" and the Clash's "White riot, I want a riot, white riot, a riot of my own." The difference is that Haggard and Strummer are smart and know that they're singing within and about limitations, with great ambivalence as to whether the limits support and protect them or inhibit them or both. Whereas "My Kinda Party" fumbles around, recognizing the restrictions of the cleancut 9 to 5 (and tacitly acknowledging that the listeners likely hold service jobs not farm jobs) but not copping to the song's own inhibitions, Skynyrd and Hank once again being reduced to mere signifiers - though as you can tell I'm perpetually fascinated by this stuff, and there's genuine energy in the song, even if the song refuses to acknowledge the anxiety that undergirds the energy.

On his album Judge Jerrod & The Hung Jury, Jerrod Niemann looks at his own style of partying through easily misting eyes; has a funny little skit where a concerned female fan encompassing the ages 12 through 24 ("currently the only demographic purchasing country music at this time") writes Jerrod a letter in which she says that consumers of her sort have no interest in drinking or partying songs. Anyway, I want to contradict our representative fan and reassure Jerrod by pointing out that I conducted a survey of my own and these are the results - well, I didn't conduct the survey, simply noticed and analyzed the data, which I present here:

Billboard Magazine, biggest songs of 2010:

1. Ke$ha "TiK ToK"

Just saying.

And sure you can point out that Pebe Sebert's daughter isn't making country music, but I'll point out that youngsters who download songs by, say, Taylor Swift also have the ability to download songs that are not by Taylor Swift and not country and also have the ability to download dance mixes of Taylor Swift songs and webrips of Taylor Swift singing songs by Amy Winehouse and Beyoncé Knowles and Miranda Lambert and Eminem and Rihanna, and that Taylor Swift dance mixes get played on r&b and pop stations. But yes, Taylor, who admires Faith Hill for her classiness, has indeed stepped into a no man's land that is beyond a particular country subset's comfort zone. Maybe Taylor's kinda party is more complicated than their kind, or anyway brings complications to the surface that their party submerges, her college song not being about drinking but about waitressing and about the need to eventually earn a living.

On a different subject, or at least a tangential one, potentially the most significant country hit of the year was Miranda Lambert's "Only Prettier," which only got to number 12 on the country charts (and only made number 13 on my long list), but has a sound that really disconcerts me. It's got bluesy picking and weepy steel guitar riffs and singing with as twangy a twang as any twang freak could wish for, but also absolutely loud sloshing guitar, hard rock beats, bits of feedback and guitar roars and the vocal twang overdubbed and harmonized with the distortion needle high in the red. Now, I've made way noisier music myself and am fine with all sorts of distortion and cacophony from the days of Teenage Jesus up through the Gore Gore Girls and into the present (I've mixed feelings about Sleigh Bells but endorse their "Crown On The Ground," though it's too static, and by static here I mean immobile, not noisy, though of course it is noisy, but anyway as I said, I've made far noisier myself). And none of that disconcerts me the way the relatively mild "Only Prettier" does, the "Only Prettier" mixture making me seasick, somehow. My inner jury is still out as to whether that's a good thing. At the moment I'm rating the track below "The House That Built Me" (number 12 on my long list), even though I'm sure that "Only Prettier" is the better song. Check back with me next year.

We Are Real Country" are doing a worse job of dealing with the content that country supposedly exemplifies than are the people who aren't waving such a flag

Same argument I've made. Since Paisley's so insulated he probably doesn't think he's such an obvious panderer. At one point, think I read it in a guitar mag a year or so ago, he compared himself to Mark Twain, which was laughable in and of itself.

Never read the feature in the New Yorker, the existence of which only told me must have been considered cool by people most of his audience would beat up or push out of the way at the beach or swimming pool.

I did notice his label put out a live CD, called Hits Alive, for the Target shopper. Didn't bother to get it.

Yeah I agree with yall re "doing a worse job", so my country Top Ten Albums are more about feel (and what I could easily imagine on a country dive jukebox/sound system, when I haven't actually witnessed it; thus Jace & Pretty Lights, who I hope does a mix incl Jace, if he hasn't already; lots of great free downloads on his site, and the soulfully spliced Making Up A Changing Mind made my P&J Top Ten Albums). My country Top Ten Singles dip up about as much of the mainstream as I got into, although I should have mentioned Tim McGraw's Number 1s in my Hon Mention Reissues. Also should've incl this, speaking of folk as country:

double bill preview:
Icelandic singer/songwriter Olof Arnalds gently nudges folk-shaded nostalgia toward fresh fascination,via breezes from her native turf of volcanos, glaciers, mud, and blown-out banks. She's at home in several languages,while covering tropicalia pioneer Caetano Veloso's " Maria Bethania", a tribute to his equally restless sister, and slipping through newly beveled levels of Springsteen's "I'm On Fire", which begins with an easy familiarity, "Hey little girl, is your daddy home?" She also favors the homely poise of country classics like George Jones and Tammy Wynette's "We're Not The Jet Set", traveling with the right feel even when picking it up second hand ("We're the Prine and DeMent set"). Cheyenne Marie Mize nurtures lines like "I knew we would see/It was all for the best", in a post-Americana ghost town of explosive implications. She also grows narrative from repetition, like Willie Nelson on a good night. That's where the resemblance ends, fortunately.

I will say, though, that country music at least acknowledges that the U.S. is fighting a couple of actual wars with actual bullets and bombing and stuff (though the genre isn't much interested in the question of whom to tax in order to pay for the fighting). Whereas when I grew up in the Sixties, current wars and such were a presence in a range of popular song lyrics.

(Though when it comes to the Truth-In-Honesty Department, I ought to point out that if I hadn't deemed Marling & crew eligible, nine of my ten albums would have duplicated what was on Chuck's list.)

yeah (re xpost topicality) that's why I grudgingly give even Shooter Jenning's Tea Party braindump a few points for realness (of illness, at least in the "look at meee" realm of reality shows or whatnot). Spleaking of "Whip My Hair", Springsteen and Neil Young do a great version--the actual Springsteen, in his 70s Village People attire and Joe Cockeresque emission, while Jimmy Fallon nails Neilian warble *and* drama. From "Late Night", and prob on YouTube.

"reality shows" in sense of producers manipulating behavior, incl impulses, fixations, etc, so Jennings as scribe and studio rat is stirring his own stew.

Unfortunately, all that Shooter Jennings shows with his obsession with Alex Jones-type stuff is that his brain doesn't work real good.

Anyway, from Politico today:

With Republican leaders anxious to set an austere tone for their ascendance into the House majority this week, the lavish fundraiser scheduled for Tuesday night at a trendy Washington hotel to benefit a dozen GOP freshmen is not exactly the populist image leaders are anxious to project.

House Speaker-elect John Boehner, whose name was featured on the invitation, is nonetheless skipping the event at the W Hotel, where lobbyists, political action committee managers and others paying the $2,500 ticket price will be treated to a performance by country music star LeAnn Rimes (a $50,000 package includes a block of eight tickets and a “VIP suite” at the W). The office of incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor, another featured invitee, was noncommittal Monday night when asked whether he’d attend.

Good to see LeAnn getting word. Too bad it's for an evil cause. The idea that the system immediately corrupts the right wing extremist frosh from the shires into Ayn Rand-saluting shoeshine boys for the protectors of the wealthy supermen is amusing, though.

And speaking of Mark Twain, although not directly related to the country section, this is unintentionally funny and annoying at the same time:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/45645-upcoming-newsouth-huck-finn-eliminates-the-n-word.html

Weird -- wasn't LeAnn Rimes just making a big leftward move in a skimpy low-cut Santa outfit in front of the Los Angeles Gay Men's Chorus a couple weeks ago? Yep, here is (linked below). Maybe she just likes the Republicans' money??

http://socialitelife.com/leann-rimes-dons-sexy-santa-outfit-for-gays-12-2010

http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2010/12/leann-rimes-spices-up-mrs-claus-costume-sings-with-santas-gay-elves.html

Speaking of big-voiced country gals turned would-be drag queens, has anybody here kept up with Wynona's career lately? I just Netflixed a fourth-season episode of Army Wives (also featuring dull one-guy rock "band" Five For Fighting), and she did a hard rockabilly number followed by some inspirational Eurodance-like schmaltz. Not great, but not bad. Made me kind of curious.

Actually thought Frank's NashScene comments were great, especially the Niemann/Ke$ha point; wouldn't've guessed they were tossed off at last minute (even though I get the idea most of the listening was.) Do think reverb is a big part of what makes Jace Everett's album so distincitive and fun, though. (Didn't hear a more addictive "rock" album all last year, if rockabilly still counts as rock.)

Couple things, though:

-- Frank says he now thinks he overrated it, but I wound up booting Chesney from my top ten albums in favor of Shinyribs at the last minute. Just thought Shinyribs deserved a vote; that's a good one. And decided that, outside of "Somewhere With You," which I voted for as a single, the only thing I really love on Hemingway's Whiskey is "Boys Of Fall" (which, oddly, I know Frank likes much less than me.) Even the title track seems good to me more in theory (I like that Kenny tried it) than in execution, somehow. Do kind of wish I had considered voting for Chesney, like Frank did, as one of my male singers, though. He's really gained nuance.

-- On the other hand, I voted for Lee Brice's album despite it being inconsistent. Just thought the two songs Frank named, and "Carolina Boys" and "Four On The Floor" too, ranked up there with just about any country tracks I heard last year. And probably rocked as hard as anybody, this side of Flynnville Train. And the rest of the album was mostly at least competent -- I only care about those four tracks, but when I play the rest, I do find stuff to like. And it really helps that Brice put three of his four great tracks at #7 through #9, so you can blast them all one after the other. So I invoked Frank's all-albums-are-EPs rule. (Btw, I wasn't sure whether Brice should qualify as "new", since he's been charting with singles for at least a couple years now, I think, and If I remember right there was a previous album that was shelved. But technically, he met the debut-album criterion.)

-- I wasn't really sure what Frank meant on his ballot by "if Richard Thompson counts as country," even though I voted for Thompson albums in my reissues both last year and this year. But maybe other people voted for his stuff, too, and I just never noticed?

-- Amazed to see Reba so high on Frank's list (and to hear him say he now thinks he under-rated it.) I like it fine; thought, just like her '09 album, it was more entertaining than I ever would've predicted; I'm pretty skeptical about her. (Reviewed them both favorably for Rhapsody; linked on last year's thread.) But as I've said before, I like the couple ballads I like (including the Beyonce cover) more than the rockers I like, and "Turn On The Radio" managed to become a major radio annoyance for me in record time. Again, I like that she's doing these harder boogie tracks these days; just not sure they're that memorable, beyond the idea.

Country album I played most in the past week, fwiw: Jeannie C. Riley's Harper Valley PTA from 1968, which I somehow never noticed until now is a concept album about different folks all in the same small town, a' la Spoon River Anthology or Springsteen's The River or whatever. Actually, Whitburn book goes even farther: "all songs about characters mentioned in the title song." Some of the songs are better than others, of course, and nothing else can touch the title track, but three others were also written by Tom T. Hall, which helps a lot -- including "Mr. Harper," about the town rich man who marries a young wife and lives to regret it, and which uses a weird talkbox proto-Vocoder effect. Another song employs Bo Diddley beats. Like it a lot more than 1971's Greatest Hits, which is interesting but slips too often into Nancy Sinatra show-tune Charleston kitsch for my stomach.

Country album I've been liking even more is Billy Joe Royal's 1965 Down In The Boondocks, which I just this second learned doesn't count because, though it hit #96 on Billboard's main album chart, Royal didn't chart an album or single country until the mid '80s. Weird; I would've guessed otherwise. Anyway, it's produced by Joe South (whose "I Knew You When" Royal covers), and the guy's just got an amazing plaintive high voice -- up there with Narvel Felts, though I suppose Gene Pitney would be the template. Also think Royal's "Funny How Times Slips Away" (that's country, right?) cuts Willie Nelson's, even if that makes me a blasphemer.

Finally, on country's outskirts, does anybody have any thoughts on the blues singer Shemekia Copeland? I'd never listened to her before, I don't think, but I've been playing her imminent Alligator Deluxe Edition album a little bit, and think it's not bad.

As for whether somebody "can point out that Pebe Sebert's daughter isn't making country music," here's Josh Langhoff on Ke$ha's "Cannibal," on Singles Jukebox last week:

she pronounces words in ways that no credible singer would let herself. Hence the second half of Verse 2, from “Use yer fingerrr tuh stirrr mah teeeeeah,” where she basically sounds like a twanging banjo (Nashville Scene voters take note).

And here's me on Rhapsody, a couple weeks ago:

Ke$ha's most Lily Allen-like like track is "Stephen." Taylor did her own "Hey Stephen" on Fearless, two years ago. Both "Stephen" songs are about pining over boys. The opening harmonies of Ke$ha's version sound fairly country, as does her Bubba Sparxxx-reminiscent hick-hop drawling through "We R Who We R," which she has described as an anthem for picked-on teenage outcasts, which is pretty much also what Taylor's Miranda Lambert-reminiscent "Mean" — easily the most country song on *Speak Now* — is.

Just saying.

Occurs to me that one could theoretically also count as a country single Juelz Santana and Yelawolf's subterranean homesick "Mixin' Up The Medicine" (which I like a lot, and may even have included it, and Lee Brice's "Sumter County Friday Night", among by Poptimist poll Top 20 tracks, if I'd thought of them on time). Not sure if anything on Yelawolf's own album (which I need to listen to more) counts as country as not, though I do get the idea there's a sort of Bubba Sparxxxish hicktown trailer-park feel to thing.

Haven't heard that much Yelawolf yet, but already intrigued by my homeboy's pronunciation. Wonder if Ke$ha's word-shaping has anything to do with the fact that Phoebe Seifert's "Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You" ect. songwriting partner (& perhaps Ke$ha's dad or stepdad?) Hugh Moffat also played trumpet. Although his professed inspiration was Clifford Brown, more than Don Cherry or Miles Davis, so any influence wouldn't have been world/free/Echoplex-extreme--still, mebbe the freedom principle, to cop the title of John Litweiler's excellent investigation of 20s-80s jazz.

"Hemingway's Whiskey" is so striking a song, and so well-suited to the tough terseness which its composer, Guy Clark is married to, for better or worse (much more faithfully than Hem himself), that it almost doesn't matter how well Chesney does it, but that he does it at all, releases the notes with translucent tone and feeling (does a decent job) gives it the exposure it and listeners deserve. Which is pretty much what xxhux meant, I guess, but yeah I like the way he does it (& floats like Hemingway's boat, and whiskey must have, while Clark's raspier version favors other implications, but they come across in both tracks, otherwise would be too barfy)

Speaking of big-voiced country gals turned would-be drag queens, has anybody here kept up with Wynona's career lately? I just Netflixed a fourth-season episode of Army Wives (also featuring dull one-guy rock "band" Five For Fighting), and she did a hard rockabilly number followed by some inspirational Eurodance-like schmaltz. Not great, but not bad. Made me kind of curious.

Her last album was a covers collection in early 2009, Sing: Chapter One. I actually compared her to a drag queen in my review of it. Nothing revolutionary, but it was better than her last couple of albums, in that she finally seemed to be taking ownership of her campiness and making it work for her. The last few nose jobs have irrevocably changed the tone of her voice, which is reedier now than it used to be, but she's still able to move from country to R&B to rock singing without breaking a sweat.

From Kogan's Nashville Scene comments:
Now, I don't see how any of these songs would have been different if she'd listened to "Lost Highway" or "Folsom Prison Blues" or "Mama Tried" before writing them (and you don't know that she didn't). Back in 2006 ("Cold As You") she started a fight just to feel something. So now what's she supposed to do to make her more country, if that's not enough? Ream out an old boyfriend in Reno, just to watch him cry?

OTM. I'm not nearly as much of a fan of Swift's as many of the folks around these boards, but I made a similar point in my comments for this year's poll about how it's disingenuous for people to champion Jamey Johnson for his supposed authenticity and, in doing so, to claim that he's saving contemporary country music from the likes of Swift, when the conflicts and narratives she writes are, to my ears, every bit as believably "authentic" as Johnson's, if not moreso. Will wait to see if Himes posts the comment in full before xposting it here.

Steel Magnolia review:

http://www.rhapsody.com/steel-magnolia-country-pop/steel-magnolia#albumreview

think the Mark Growden album might be okay (despite being apparently dull folkie singer-songwriter stuff on the surface), but it needs more listens

Gave it more listens; decided it bores me more than it interests me (though it's occasionally an interesting kind of boredom, maybe.)

xpost

Don't know if there actually are any other "likes of Swift" for country to be rescued from, since her singing just can't be approximated (at least I don't hear anyone who's even trying), and while the attention to detail in the lyrics, and the situations, ought to be taken as a model, I'm not hearing any other country young'uns doing that either (though maybe that just tells you I'm listening in the wrong places). But I assume those country blokes dismayed by whatever Taylor Swift represents to their nonprobing minds are equally dismayed by Carrie and Kellie et al., though none of those women are actually the dominant sound on the country charts. I'm not sure what I would call the dominant sound, though the word "blandboy" comes to mind. Of course I love Chesney's voice, which is officially bland, I guess, but I'm thinking more of Aldean and Currington and Hootie and Zac and Rascal, some of whom I like some of the time.

Think Taylor's singing just gets better, and her eye for situations is as good as ever, but I don't think she's finding words to deliver them that are as potent and complex as the ones she came up with when Liz Rose was helping her. See Dave Moore at the Jukebox for a strong critique - though I think Dave's way overreacting, the overeaction keyed by his love for her previous stuff and disappointment now. Any criticisms I have of Taylor are relative to that previous stuff and to her potential, since no one else - at least that I'm hearing right now - is coming up with nemesis brides looking like pastry (you suddenly picture Taylor smooshing her rival all over the floor, then wiping the cream and sugar from her boots) or is calling herself a flight risk, afraid of falling (the words "flight" and "falling" working several ways at once).

Chuck, the Juelz/Yelawolf "Mixin' Up The Medicine" is from 2009. The Yelawolf alb starts off amazing, with hardcore punk/crunk claws, and his drawl complementing his squall. But it drops off precipitously from there, after about track three, at least that's how it seemed to me over one-and-a-half listens; I do like "Marijuana" over on Track Nine, yet more hardcore. And you all are right about the drawl: definite country-rap possibilities if Yelawolf wants to take it there, though my guess is he won't. "That's What We On Now," perhaps another maryjane reference, also refers to Bubba Sparxxx and puts "I got twenty bucks and I don't give a fuck, e-yeah/A country girl in a pickup truck, eh" right next to the refrain. The lyrics make me smile. "They gave me a budget, I bought a bicycle frame." And (now sounding like Em on "My Name Is") "Jimmy crack corn, then he threw a barstool/Mother Goose broke a wing and still flew the coop/She gave Jimmy twenty bucks and threw him a deuce/Left Jimmy on the string like a loose tooth." A man to watch.

RE Paisley, Ke$ha, Yelawolf:

I don't wanna rep too hard for that Paisley, since I might forget it in a month, but don't singers ALWAYS say stupid things about their music, whether their music's good or bad? Of course, that doesn't change the pandering tone of his lyrics or the vast untruths unleashed therein, but at least they're interesting lyrics. And regardless of how much better the guy plays in concert, his guitar on that song sounds more fluid and conscious than any guitar I can think of on current radio, country or otherwise.

I'd like to stress that I don't consider Ke$ha country music, in case some lurking newcomer to this thread starts feeling all disgruntled. Nevertheless, she's got legitimate country roots, and they're as present in her voice as they are in her interviews. On that same Singles Jukebox, Katherine and I were talking a little about vowel sounds, and without taking this into pedantic choir-director territory, I'd point out that the way you shape your vowels encodes a whole lot. They're why country sounds "twangy." (In my comment, I should've said K pronounces words in ways no credible POP singer would let herself. Loretta Lynn, no problem.) I'm not familiar with the "Freedom Principle" Dow cites, but it does seem like K draws equally from southern and Valley vowel sounds, and maybe elsewhere, to create her "incorrect" persona. To Pop ears unwilling to venture outside Pop, I'm guessing country vowels signify "lower socio-economic class", which fits with K's dollar-sign and crash-the-rich-dude's-house shtick. So she probably adopts those vowels because she knows them intimately, and she knows they'll be heard as something outside everyday pop pronunciation, giving her transgression an immediacy missing from singers who only SING about transgression.

Of course, none of this should imply that people who hate Ke$ha are recoiling from people of a lower socio-economic class. I totally buy it when critics I respect say her music sounds ugly.

I should listen to Yelawolf.

Maybe Taylor's lack of twangy vowels is why some people have a hard time considering her country? Dave got this comment for his "Top Country Albums" list over at PopMatters:

Okay…first off, Taylor Swift is a singer who makes soft-rock/pop music, there is NOTHING country about her, save the marketing by her label. Second, that Cash album was an abomination. Third, the BEST country album of the year was from Marty Stuart. I literally have no respect for a best country music list that includes Taylor Swift and has no mention of Stuart’s masterpiece from this year. Did you just not hear the thing? Ghost Train: STudio B Sessions…check it out, and then re-do your list.

(He dealt with it well.)

And maybe that's why she and Underwood have been able to cross over to pop so successfully? I STILL meet nitwits who tell me they like every kind of music "except country and rap". Even in smalltown Missouri growing up, people would say that. It's really hard not to read class prejudice into that statement. Although to be fair, country and rap go to some lengths to demarcate who belongs and who doesn't, so maybe people who hate both genres are just bristling because those genres don't need them. (Which also applies to Ke$ha, because she makes it abundantly clear through her singing that she doesn't need you or your bougie friends.)

(And because, unlike most rap I've heard lately, $he makes a point of referring to her favorite club in "Take It Off" not as a VIP Room but as a "hole in the wall," which just happens to be the same metaphor frequently used by blue-collar Southern Soul singers to signify the low-rent places they dance and fry fish at on Friday nights -- in fact, "Hole In The Wall," from 1999 I believe, is one of Mel Waiters's signature songs; another one insists that "the smaller the club, the better the party." I bet Ke$ha would agree.) (Though her wall-hole is admittedly "downtown," not a destination a little up the road from the habitations and the towns we know.)

Josh, unless someone's idea of Pop is Julie Andrews, I don't think there's a general aversion to Southern singing styles among the pop audience; in fact whole hunks of non-Southerners (e.g. Stevie Winwood and Mick Jagger and Gene Pitney and Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin and Hank Snow and thousands upon thousands of others) have been known to adopt Southern styles themselves. I'd even say that when almost anyone sings something related to soul or r&b or rock 'n' roll or rock - and that's a huge amount of the American top 40, since those are the styles that American pop draws on - they're probably adopting Southernisms without even knowing it. Also, Taylor's singing runs close to her talking, and the more it does, the more Southern it sounds (albeit the Tennessee 'burbs rather than the Louisiana swamp). Not to say that Ke$ha isn't an interesting and unique singer, I just don't think that anyone's problem with her is her vowels; rather, it'd be her stridency (which I get a kick out of, myself). Anyhow, Ke$ha is quite the successful singer these days.

Beyond vowels, I think - and I'm not speaking authoritatively here, just parroting some ideas I've read - that twang also has to do with how you configure your throat when singing (as opposed to talking), the vocal style originating in the Middle East a couple of millennia back and stretching from North Africa through Europe. Styles and scales eventually shifted in the urban areas of Europe and then through much of central Europe but the older styles hung on in the rural western fringes e.g. rural England and Scotland and Ireland, and from there hello to the Southern United States. (Yes, I'm talking out my ass now, have made no effort to verify any of this, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong, and singing from the Mideast does have a twang.)

(Not that there aren't also strains in American pop singing from Italy and Jamaica and David Bowie and Johnny Rotten etc. But I really don't notice any aversion to Southern or low-class singing styles. Interesting how singing tends not to parallel, say, TV newscasting in this regard.)

Also, not speaking of vowels, you should read what Rob Sheffield has to say about the similarity between Taylor Swift and the young Morrissey.

Meanwhile, over on the Freaky Trigger/poptimists poll (here and here and here and here, so far), Sunny Sweeney's "From A Table Away" finished a miserable 111th, Taylor Swift's "The Story Of Us" finished an unexpected 95th, Taylor Swift's "Mine" finished an umimpressive 59th, and (to stretch the def'n of "country" even farther than usual) Intocable's "Estamos En Algo" finished a satisfying 81st (and finished an astounding 20th in the poptimists subunit of the poll, which I assume means that Chuck and I submitted our ballots through Kat at poptimists rather than Tom at Freaky Trigger). Beyond that it's been a washout for anything within miles of country, unless Miranda or Taylor pulls something out of the hat in the final 22. (I suppose the country-only-for-the-purposes-of-my-country-music-critics-poll-ballot Laura Marling also might have something to retrieve from her headwear, though I wouldn't bet on it.)

Chuck, Richard Thompson's name appeared on the long list of country hitmakers, notables, Grammy nominees, etc. that Geoff sent us when trying to drum up last-minute participation in the Country Music Critics Poll; I don't remember which category Thompson's name showed up in - presumably something related to "folk."

Sunny Sweeney's "From A Table Away" finished a miserable 111th

has she received any promotion? i guess the single did well enough on the charts (top 20 country), but it's been out for over half a year and i still haven't seen a peep anywhere about a new album. if memory serves, all inquiries about any forthcoming music from her have been met here and elsewhere with a shrug and an "i don't know." quite possibly my fave single of 2010 and i really really want to hear more.

I'm not the one to know about the promotion or lack thereof; Sweeney's on Big Machine, who are small enough that I'd think they'd give special attention and support to their acts, though I have no idea.

As far as our neighborhood of the Web, though, and people potentially voting in a poll through Freaky Trigger or poptimists, we reviewed and talked up "From A Table Away" quite enthusiastically on The Singles Jukebox. But we were voting our top twenty songs (in my case including album tracks) and it missed my twenty by a few spots. My guess is that Lex and Chuck were the only two to vote for it.

Not to say that Ke$ha isn't an interesting and unique singer, I just don't think that anyone's problem with her is her vowels; rather, it'd be her stridency

Despite my near-total veneration of Julie Andrews, I totally agree with this, and didn't mean to suggest otherwise. My question about Taylor and Carrie was probably a speculation too far. What I mean to suggest is that K's vowels are what people DO like about her; and I mean to suggest that because her vowels are what I like about her. Seriously, my favorite part of "Tik Tok" is how she pronounces the chorus. (And we're veering pretty far from country with "Tik Tok"; but I was only emphasizing her Southern-ness because my "twanging banjo" comment came up. Her Southern vowels are probably a smaller weapon in her arsenal than her Valley vowels.) But if we're talking about her stridency, I think she USES all her unusually-shaped vowels to create her stridency. (Unusually-shaped in a Julie Andrews context, yes, but also in a context of current white female Top 40 singers -- as far as I can tell, nobody else is pronouncing words like her.) So whether her stridency is a problem or a kick, her vowels -- and her lyrics, and Auto-Tune, and whatever else -- are integral to it.

This doesn't make her unique in the history of pop, it's just the way she goes about achieving her effect. For instance, lots of times she reminds me of Eminem, who's also got some twanginess based on calculated word-choice. And I, too, am pretty much talking out my ass with all this stuff, but that's what this is for, right? Someone'll correct us as necessary.

Yay Intocable!

Plenty of (alt)-country in the Austin Statesman's Austin Music Pundit Awards, which came out today. I've got no input in it, but was pleasantly surprised to note that I actually like three albums in the Top 10 (Shinyribs, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Matador's non-country Casual Victim Pile comp), one more in the Next 10 (non-country The Sword), and one more in the Honorable Mentions (not really all that country even though I named them on my Nashville Scene ballot Mother Truckers). Haven't heard most of the others named, though I thought this year's Alejandro Escovedo was kinda bad, and Okkervill River were probably the most boring thing ever to happen to Roky Erikson (though their album won anwyay.) Think I heard this year's Dale Watson album, but if so it went in one ear and out the other. (Really like his Whiskey Or God from 2006, but nothing he's done since has grabbed me.) Never heard the Reckless Kelly (whose Wicked Twisted Road I liked in 2005), and didn't even know there was a new album this year by Elizabeth McQueen -- would've really liked to hear that; I'd still rep for the two mid'-00s CDs by her I've got. Anyway:

http://www.austin360.com/music/2010-amp-awards-true-love-for-roky-erickson-1165276.html

From the blurbs attached, a fairly accurate description of the Shinyribs album (which I don't think I've ever actually described myself), by Michael Corcoran:

It would be obvious to call this a Gourds album without co-frontman Jimmy Smith, but there's a completely different mind-set here. "Well After Awhile" is all about the full-voiced vocals of Kevin Russell, who croons "Who Built the Moon" to open the record and never holds back.
Produced by George Reiff, "Well After Awhile" is adventurous, while firmly rooted. "Poor People's Store" brings a doo-wop observational vibe to the aisles of Dollar General, while "East TX Rust" sounds like what might happen if Jerry Reed (as channeled by Ray Wylie Hubbard) invited Stevie Wonder to stop by the studio with his clavinet.

i dig that Riley reissue too, Don! didn't even know if anyone had heard that one.

I think she USES all her unusually-shaped vowels to create her stridency. (Unusually-shaped in a Julie Andrews context, yes, but also in a context of current white female Top 40 singers -- as far as I can tell, nobody else is pronouncing words like her.) So whether her stridency is a problem or a kick, her vowels -- and her lyrics, and Auto-Tune, and whatever else -- are integral to it.

Yes!

It turns out Sunny Sweeney is now on Republic Nashville, a joint venture between Big Machine and Universal Republic. Hope they don't end up doing to her what Columbia did to Ashley Monroe, insisting she hit big before they release an album, so she ends up having to release the thing independently three years afterwards. "From A Table Away" did chart higher than "Satisfied" and "I Don't Want To" did, but times are harder.

I see that Joe Gross, a former Why Music Sucks contributor, is still writing for the Statesman. Chuck, have you met him? Nice guy. Married Renée Crist's sister. We had a long phone conversation shortly after Renée died.

(He once wrote that my writing changed his life, which also prejudices me in his favor, since he implied that the change was for the better.)

The Yelawolf alb starts off amazing, with hardcore punk/crunk claws, and his drawl complementing his squall. But it drops off precipitously from there, after about track three, at least that's how it seemed to me over one-and-a-half listens; I do like "Marijuana" over on Track Nine, yet more hardcore.

Frank, it seems the songs you like are the new ones--the album has an EP's worth of new songs (tracks 1-5 and 'Marijuana') while the rest are from a mixtape from earlier this year. He does seem to be going for a more rockin' sound in the more recent songs. I like some of the older ones a bit better though: "Box Chevy" is my favorite on the disc.

Yeah, Frank - I finally met Joe in person during the Austin City Limits fest last year; agree he's one of the nice ones. He's in the Statesman all the time -- it's his full-time gig -- but he actually writes about books (including graphic novels) and movies more than music these days. Though he does seem to grab the metal-leaning reviews. (Also still reviews for Decibel, I believe.)

"earlier this year" = earlier last year

Even in the South, certain instances of twang= white trash/skank/trailer/meth, and I've heard young African-American women calling each other for being "so small town, so ghetto"; references among young African-American men and women also to "chickenheads", "bucks," etc. Much campiness among those who call themselves (and/or close relatives) "rednecks", mixed emotions and motives--the Southernness of America's music heritage doesn't preclude any of this, esp. with younger people. (Oh yeah, speaking of "hole in the wall", I always remember what one excellent young Alabama funk guitarist said in the 70s, when I tried to get him into John Lee Hooker, "I dig BB King, but later for that hole-in-the-wall shi.t") Which is not to refute Frank, but I know where Dr Phil is coming from too, and the way Ke$ha's twanging some high-class nerves all the way to the bank and maybe glory too, like (prob more bank than glory-bound)self-described "guidette" Snooki. To the bank in both cases, because of the fascinated repulsion factor, a minstrel/menstrual show thing maybe (such reaction seems to apply more to female incoming outliers, or outlayers)

And I don't mean "minstrel" as a dismissal, but more of a starting point. (I'll spare yall a re-hash of Lott's Love and Theft though)

(Oh yeah, glad you liked the Riley album too, Scott--I liked it except for Riley's voice--where did you find it?! The only way I knew about it was Ebbtide's posts in RC 2010, and he passed my info along to the label)

Interview with Chely Wright, about how coming out has affected her career and standing in the industry, etc., thus far:

http://www.autostraddle.com/chely-wright-country-music-gay-interview-72366/

Good interview, Wonder if those songs she wrote with Linda Perry will ever show up somewhere (or maybe they have)? Anyway, "6 or 7 songs" toward the next album, aside from the Perry collabs, apparently. Dale Watson was one of the first sort of neo-honky tonk singers, actually associated more with dives than No Dep (although connecting with the latter as well) who I ever heard of. A neo-New Traditionalist, mebbe, somewhat like early Yoakam. But I lost track of him for a while, and when he came back with that 07 album I'm blacking on (the one on Hyena), I complained on Rolling Country about his wanting too much to be liked, while still trying to represent/credibly delve into a wide range and wild slide of life. Made worse by seeming to beg comparison with Johnny Cash. But he and his band showed up on World Cafe s few nights ago, with a speedy x relaxed approach, a balancing act that seemed effortless (many nights at the Continental Club in Austin, when not playing festivals etc) and necessary, after brief reference to having been in an intoxicated car crash, fatal to his girlfriend, followed by a stay in what he referred to as "the loony bin", plus a documentary. A great sound, if a fairly short live-in-the-studio set, but lots more club sets on archive.org, which posts only with the artists' permission (also posted) Here's the link to his World Cafe http://www.npr.org/2011/01/13/132887479/dale-watson-on-world-cafe
He was on there in 07 too, but I haven't heard that yet. Here's his Archive.org archive:
http://www.archive.org/detail/DaleWatson
if that doesn't work, just try Google's Advanced Search on him with archive.org as Domain Name

Sorry, "details", not "detail":
http://www.archive.org/details/DaleWatson

I've never really listened to Keith Urban, but the more I hear that "Long Hot Summer" song the more fascinated I am that it is such a perfectly crafted radio song it could have likely been a hit for almost any singer. Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Eddie Money, Bryan Adams, Richard Marx, Lady Gaga ...

I like "Hell on Heels" a whole bunch, maybe my favorite Lambert-involved song since 2008.

Most of his best singles are like that. In some alternate crazy world where Paul Westerberg made a try for pop stardom he'd probably sound like Keith Urban.

"Put You In A Song" is pretty tremendous

Huh. Verses of "Put You In a Song" are very Westerbergy. The music, at least. The chorus is a lot weaker than "Long Hot Summer," I think.

From the thread National Folk Festival--Streaming Live Labor Day Weekend:

Awright, twentysomethings doing vitamins and Granpa's Western swing proud--Marshall Ford Swing Band is fronted by Johnny Gimble's granddaughter, Emily Ann. "Lulu's Back In Town", "My Window Faces The South", "A Shanty in Old Shanty Town" (where"The writing on the wall wouldn't mean a thing"). "We got it from the Slim and Slam version", as well they might; Bob Wills is sailing by a on a falsetto breeze too. "When you see the rosin fly/Sit up straight, don't bat an eye." That's called "Draggin' the Bow"--no drag son, perkier than ever. "Pluck my hearstrings with delight/Away we'll go/That's called draggin' the bow." Down for the ol' man/ ol' lady blues: "When will you ever leave me?"

― dow, Sunday, September 4, 2011 4:25 PM

oops, more rain. Not to say, judging by this set, the Marshall Ford Wing Band necessarily have the older Hot Club of Cowtown's instrumental chops, but they've got the spirit (and the voices). Book one band if you can't get t'other.

― dow, Sunday, September 4, 2011 4:59 PM

Listen here, for one place http://www.marshallfordswingband.com

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2011/09/06/made-in-china-day-at-guitar-center/

Gibson's troubles with the government, raided in Nashville, among other things.

I've never really listened to Keith Urban, but the more I hear that "Long Hot Summer" song the more fascinated I am that it is such a perfectly crafted radio song it could have likely been a hit for almost any singer. Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Eddie Money, Bryan Adams, Richard Marx, Lady Gaga ...

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, September 4, 2011

Richard Marx co-wrote this with Urban.

Yeah, Keith Urban's "Put You In A Song" made my Top Ten near the beginning of this thread, but wish he'd ease up on the dutiful-sounding positivity and sanitized melancholy. Either way, def needs to play more of that ace showtime guitar on his albums, hell even an all-instrumental set, like Paisley. Also: an exemplary feature, re well-chosen quotes from an uncharacteristically forthcoming interview, in fair ratio with pungent musical excepts--warning to some: it's blue-gr-a-s-s http://www.npr.org/2011/09/12/140366232/bill-monroe-celebrating-the-father-of-bluegrass-at-100

Also for Monroe's 100th Birthday, a mix, which I thought at first glance incl Alvin and the Chipmunks, but it's another Alvin, dang it. Oh well, the Million Dollar Quartet are in here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/07/140247673/the-mix-happy-100th-bill-monroe From several years back, Big Mon is an unusually good tribute album--also unusual for spotlighting Monroe's pop-wise elements, especially considering producer Ricky Skaggs' latter-day schoolmaster (and sermonizing) tendencies. But he was Entertainer of the Year back in the day.

Johnny Horton's version of "Battle of New Orleans" was the first song to pull me into the radio--an awesome epic cartoon, and git that musket ready boy. It was written by Jimmy Driftwood, a schoolteacher who, like many of that calling then and now, had to use lot of his own resources in the classroom. Horton had a big kiddie following, with vivid, sing-along songs, several from movies. This girl I knew had his Greatest Hits, her first LP, and she used to play it with a lipstick rubberbanded to the stylus, to keep it from skipping. Oh, she's long gone...This Ed Sullivan Show version of "Battle", the first link, seems a bit speedy and tinny, but dig the Arctic ballet--maybe cause of his Alaska songs? Links to them after "Battle", also "Whispering Pines":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsRK3DNoa_Q

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqZn4JDjhXg&feature=related

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

We are so happy to announce that Justin Townes Earle came home with the Song of the Year award for "Harlem River Blues" at last night's Americana Music Associations 10th Annual Honors and Awards!

There is an American Music Association?

Americana

Yep. Here are the nominees, with winners in double asteriks. Folk Alley has posted this with a stream of the 4/10 ceremony, which I haven't heard yet, so dunno how much actual music can be heard there:

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

**Band of Joy, Robert Plant**

Welder, Elizabeth Cook

Harlem River Blues, Justin Townes Earle

Blessed, Lucinda Williams

ARTIST OF THE YEAR

**Buddy Miller**

Elizabeth Cook

Hayes Carll

Robert Plant

NEW/EMERGING ARTIST OF THE YEAR

The Civil Wars

**Mumford And Sons**

The Secret Sisters

Jessica Lea Mayfield

DUO/GROUP OF THE YEAR

**The Avett Brothers**

The Civil Wars

Mumford And Sons

Robert Plant and the Band Of Joy

SONG OF THE YEAR

Decemberists with Gillian Welch- "Down By The Water"

Elizabeth Cook - "El Camino"

Hayes Carll - "Kmag Yoyo"

**Justin Townes Earle - "Harlem River Blues"**

INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR

**Buddy Miller**

Gurf Morlix

Kenny Vaughan

Sarah Jarosz

Will Kimbrough

Merle's Working In Tennessee is a lot of fun, mostly barroom/boxcar/daydream sing-alongs, with a natcherly blooming windowbox of the fatalist, affirmative and absurd, especially on "Laugh It Off." Flexes some mellow heart muscle too (some, not a shitload).

Favorite song is the homelessness one about Saginaw that shares its name with a much worse Red Hot Chili Peppers hit; "Laugh It Off" second place probably. Solid record, but there's a lot I could quibble about, if I had time to quibble these days.

love listening to "if i die young" lately

Yeah, they (the Band Perry) did that on Dancing With The Stars last week, hot stuff (funny given the title, cos song is not country goth or gothic, except in a hot Dancing With The Stars-appropriate way, "die"/"little death"/nice-sized O/musical sublimation way of country wisdom)

Xxhux's aforementioned quibbles with Working In Tennessee might well incl use of sureshot themes, re aforementioned barroom/boxcar/daydream sing-alongs, but his whiff-of-bs-bearing paper airplanes are bullseye or close enough, often enough for lazier me to be impressed--he really is Working it, somewhut. Top Ten? We'll see.

Neil Young's A Treasure turns out to be closer to Working In Tenn than I would have thought to expect, in terms of drollery, fecund foraging with Nashville cats (here touring as International Harvesters) and use of familiar elements. Only five prev unreleased titles, but the known ones haven't been redone on disc too often and everything's pretty sparky, except the first one, Amber Jean (and mebbe a couple others are too long). Several def (incl initial snoozes) def get better as they go along, which is not so common these days, much gracias. Fave: "Southern Pacific", where a forcibly retired railroad worker complains as the Harvesters klang and steam, way out on the redeye express. Kinda spooky--are they part of why he was retired? Note to self: This would have to be in Reissues, wouldn't it? Since Himes' Nashville Scene ballots have so far defined those as music rec. five or more years ago, and A Treasure's tracks are from mid-80s shows.

Hi guys. I'm guessing that 50-100% of you are working country music critics, so maybe you're the best folks to help me out. Where do you turn for the best new country album reviews?

I've noticed that most of the links on this thread aren't to country-specific websites. The only ones I found were for Taste of Country and The Boot, the latter of which doesn't seem to do albums. Do you find them to be reasonable? Are there better country-dedicated sources? Or do more broad-spectrum sites like Village Voice and NYTimes just have higher-quality music criticism?

I've really been getting into country music this year and want to do my best to keep up with the new shit. Thank you, and high fives to infinity.

The 9513 is 100% country and they cover nearly everything. ymmv on their quality.

I just checked it out. Apparently it hasn't been updated since May.

whoa really? apparently that was the last time i checked it. weird.

I mised the CMA Awards on tv last night as I was out seeing Mexican pop singer Julieta Venegas. Will have to check youtube or elsewhere to see if there are any good performance clips

The9513 officially folded back in May. Juli Thanki, who is a terrific writer and an occasional contributor to the former site, started engine145 a couple of months ago, though it focuses more heavily on "roots" music than contemporary country.

winners from the 45th Country Music Association Awards:

Entertainer of the Year: Taylor Swift
Female Vocalist of the Year: Miranda Lambert
Male Vocalist of the Year: Blake Shelton
Vocal Group of the Year: Lady Antebellum
Vocal Duo of the Year: Sugarland
New Artist of the Year: The Band Perry
Album of the Year: My Kinda Party, Jason Aldean
Single of the Year: "If I Die Young", The Band Perry
Song of the Year: "If I Die Young", The Band Perry
Video of the Year: "The House That Built Me," Miranda Lambert
Musical Event of the Year: "Don't You Wanna Stay," Jason Aldean featuring Kelly Clarkson
Musician of the Year: Mac McAnally, guitar
Music Video of the Year: "You and Tequila," Kenny Chesney featuring Grace Potter

I didn't actually bother with the show, but Lady Antebellum over Zac Brown Band for Vocal Group and Aldean over Swift or Zac Brown Band are the only indefensible winners. A pretty accurate reflection of one of the poorest years for mainstream country I can remember overall.

band perry made out!

would kick it with: luke bryan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaZu7ODIFLs

I drunk-tweeted this last night. I love country music awards shows because no other genre wholly embraces its gaudy bullshit and even gives a platform to its more mediocre talent (Chris Young! Thompson Square! That icky kid who won American Idol!).

Aldean beating Swift for Album of the Year was so shockingly wrong it was laughable; Lady A over ZBB is predictable bullshit, although Zac Brown holding a red Solo cup in the audience during this category showed exactly how much he doesn't give a fuck. Although the reaction shots of the night go to Swift: not even bothering to be fake-happy when Lambert won Female Vocalist, clapping politely and talking after The Band Perry sang (I really hope she was saying "Oh so that's what I'd be like if my voice was thinner and less charismatic, and I had a problem with words!"), and then going PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE while all the other EOY noms were like "haha I'm gonna lose to the girl." #taylorswiftsurprisedface!

Actually I think ZBB got jobbed most when "Colder Weather" lost out to "If I Die Young" (which is about 16 months old at this point! But I guess if Luke Bryan and Eric Church are still considered "new artists"...), but I can see why people think that's a good song.

At one point Carrie Underwood had on a Maria Bello Prime Suspect hat and some reject dress from the musical Chicago while introducing Luke Bryan and his strippers singing "Country Girl (Shake It For Me)" and afterwards Nicole Kidman shot this look at Keith Urban that was like "Haha can you believe this bullshit?! Oh you can, whoops!" Blake Shelton sang "Footloose." Sara Evans did that big hit and had an aerialist, maybe so people wouldn't fall asleep.

I kinda like Aldean's title cut but haven't heard the whole album so I won't debate you folks (yet) on its merits versus Swift's.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/click-track/post/cma-awards-most-memorable-moments/2011/11/10/gIQAdree8M_blog.html

Some of these don't appear too memorable

Good job, internet: People on pretty well every country-specific message board I've checked are up in arms that Swift didn't look happy enough in her reaction shot when Lambert won Female Vocalist. Because awards shows need a villain.

To my ears, Speak Now is Swift's most unabashedly pop album ("Mean" notwithstanding) but whatever; Aldean isn't even remotely in league with her, and his album was far and away the weakest of the five nominees, including the Blake Shelton EP that inexplicably pulled a nomination.

Not a Faith Hill fan at all, but launching a comeback with a OneRepublic cover seems like an especially poor choice. Can't see country radio going for that single, but adult contemporary will likely be all over it.

I think Taylor will survive the message board comments.

She may even write a song about them.

Well yeah, obviously. I just think it's indicative of how such a sizable and vocal part of the country audience actively looks for reasons to villify her.

Taylor just looks bummed that she lost

http://www.k105fm.com/ArticleAdmin/Articles/tabid/64/ArticleId/1012/VIDEO-Taylor-Swift-Snubs-Miranda-Lambert-1012.aspx

haha blake shelton at the end

i'm back and forth on the nikki lane album on iamsound. productionwise definitely feels "indie country" for the most part but she has chops and i like that she isn't afraid to divest herself of most of the pop/rock trappings and go for a full on woe is me honky tonk weeper either