Rolling Country 2011

Not real familiar with Newbury, but "Frisco Mabel Joy" was an early 70s late night FM folkie staple; also, he arranged the "Great American Trilogy": a medley of "Dixie", "Battle Hymn of the Republic", and "All My Trials",maybe not in that order, but anyway South, North, and African-Americans, reconciled by the majesty of Elvis, live in concert. It worked, at least insofar as "I believe 'em while I'm singin' 'em," like Dylan says. Otherwise, Newbury's later stuff sometimes got tagged as "new age country", and xgau shows no love, to put it mildly, but the early stuff might have something to do with Jamey Johnson. I think him, re songwriting and album developement more as relating to early 70s Coe,maybe Townes, Waylon and Willie,esp Phases and Stages. I'm initially amazed by Wanda Jackson's new album with Jack White & co., which has no prob spinning rockabilly, New Orleans, calypso, country, gospel, boogie woogie, an overall "Rainy Day Women" x Zep feel which doesn't mess up the gospel, even ( honoring Stax's own approach to remakes helps). Can well imagine Jace Everett getting into it, and not totally sure a couple of songs aren't his. Gets better as it goes along too It's streaming here til Jan 25
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/16/132289971/first-listen-wanda-jackson-the-party-aint-over

I'm glad they're streaming that, since I heard "Shakin' All Over" last night on the radio and liked it a lot. It's a big production number, sort of like what the White Stripes did with "Conquest" only more show-bizzy. This Letterman performance has a fine White guitar solo.

Yeah, although her voice seemed a bit small for the live sound, though I may have been influenced by the fast that she was at least a foot shorter than the musicians she was surrounded with. "Shakin' All Over" is kinda hard to pull off live (that "oh-oh-vuhhh", unless you're Roger Daltry on Live At Leeds, for inst), though better on the album, still not nearly the best track. Nashville Scene's round-up issue is here. Surprised that The Promise made Reissues, but I did hear an interview in which Springteen said he recorded Darkness On The Edge of Town during his long, glacial struggle with his former manager, I think he was forbidded to release anything til the suit was settled, and he was wondering if he was going to have the career he wanted, or slide back to the periphery, be a bar band guy or something, and he was also writing from how he'd felt as a hicktown teen in what he described as the "David Lynch-ian" mid-60s, when Highway 61 Revisited was his Catcher In The Rye. So, that kind of marginalized, impacted stress is indeed something I relate to country, but haven't heard this album (which also includes all the nostalgic pop-oriented outtakes pointedly from the Darkness sessions, and of course that's country-relevant too, thematically, but I also look for a certain feel)

Anyhoo, here's the press release and links to round-up stuff. Here's hoping ILX will let me activate all these links at the end:
JAMEY JOHNSON AND MIRANDA LAMBERT DOMINATE THE NASHVILLE SCENE’S ELEVENTH ANNUAL COUNTRY MUSIC CRITICS POLL

The 77 writers from all over North America who voted in the 11th annual Country Music Critics Poll named Jamey Johnson Artist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year and cited his latest release, The Guitar Song, as the year's best album. They also voted Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me” as the year’s best single; they also named her Female Vocalist of the Year and runner-up Artist of the Year.

There are other winners: Hank Williams won the Best Reissue voting; Elizabeth Cook's Welder and Taylor Swift's Speak Now finished No. 3 and No. 4 in the Best Album voting; Little Big Town’s “Little White Church” was No. 2 Single; the Zac Brown Band was named Best Live Act and Best Group; Easton Corbin was voted the Best New Act.

But the poll was dominated by Johnson, whose album garnered nearly double the votes of the runner-up, Up on the Ridge, by Dierks Bentley. Here was a country singer, the critics agreed, who shouldered the work of role models such as Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings without turning their legacy into quaint history, pious sentimentality or artless showboating.

Today's Nashville Scene cover story provides much more than just the results. Geoffrey Himes, who conducts the poll each year, tries to make sense of the voting with a long essay and an interview with Elizabeth Cook. There are also comments from many of the voters as well as a chart comparing the poll results to the artists’ Billboard rankings.

The voters included writers from such high-profile publications as The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, CMT.com, Billboard, People, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, Rolling Stone, National Public Radio, Country Weekly and the Boston Globe. But the voters also came from such heartland publications as the Lincoln Journal Star, Memphis Flyer, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Las Vegas Weekly.

Here are the URL links to the stories:

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/jamey-johnson-bridges-countrys-past-and-the-future-that-he-and-stars-like-taylor-swift-and-dierks-bentley-are-shaping/Content?oid=2191612

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/from-jamey-johnsons-triumphs-to-race-and-suicide-critics-weigh-in-on-the-year-in-country-music/Content?oid=2191626

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/commercial-country-doesnt-know-what-to-do-with-elizabeth-cook-and-thats-a-shame/Content?oid=2191638

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/country-music-critics-poll-voters/Content?oid=2191637

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/charts-vs-critics/Content?oid=2192281

'Hmm, what can we come up with today that will appeal to the emotionally bankrupt 36-year-old woman and allow us to go to the bank?'

Ha! Almost makes me want to buy her record sight unseen.

Nashville Scene results, for easy reference:

Albums
1. Jamey Johnson - The Guitar Song (Mercury Nashville)
2. Dierks Bentley - Up on the Ridge (Capitol Nashville)
3. Elizabeth Cook - Welder (31 Tigers)
4. Taylor Swift - Speak Now (Big Machine)
5. Marty Stuart - Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions (Sugar Hill)
6. Justin Townes Earle - Harlem River Blues (Bloodshot)
7. Carolina Chocolate Drops - Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch)
8. Willie Nelson - Country Music (Rounder)
9. Merle Haggard - I Am What I Am (Vanguard)
10. Little Big Town - The Reason Why (Capitol Nashville)
11. Johnny Cash - American VI: Ain't No Grave (American)
12. Zac Brown Band - You Get What You Give (Southern Ground)
13. The SteelDrivers - Reckless (Rounder)
14. Alan Jackson - Freight Train (Arista)
15. Laura Bell Bundy - Achin' and Shakin' (Mercury Nashville)
16. Chely Wright - Lifted Off the Ground (Vanguard)
17. Lady Antebellum - Need You Now (Capitol Nashville)
18. Ray Wylie Hubbard - A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C.) (Bordello)
19. Easton Corbin - Easton Corbin (Mercury Nashville)
20. Robert Plant - Band of Joy (Rounder)
21. Patty Griffin - Downtown Church (Credential)
22. The Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (ATO)
23. Gary Allan - Get Off on the Pain (MCA Nashville)
24. Randy Houser - They Call Me Cadillac (Universal South)
25. Jerrod Niemann - Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury (Sea Gayle)

Singles
1. Miranda Lambert - "The House That Built Me" (Columbia)
2. Little Big Town - "Little White Church" (Capitol Nashville)
3. Sunny Sweeney - "From a Table Away" (Mercury Nashville)
4. The Band Perry - "If I Die Young" (Republic Nashville)
5. Zac Brown Band with Alan Jackson - "As She's Walking Away" (Bigger Picture)
6. Jamey Johnson - "Playing the Part" (Mercury Nashville)
7. Taylor Swift - "Mine" (Big Machine)
8. Jerrod Niemann - "Lover, Lover" (Sea Gayle)
9. Sugarland - "Stuck Like Glue" (Mercury Nashville)
10. Miranda Lambert - "Only Prettier" (Columbia)
11. Easton Corbin - "A Little More Country Than That" (Mercury Nashville)
12. Dierks Bentley - "Up on the Ridge" (Capitol Nashville)
13. Jamey Johnson - "Macon" (Mercury Nashville)
14. Laura Bell Bundy - "Giddy on Up" (Columbia)
15. Reba - "Turn on the Radio" (Valory)
16. Lady Antebellum - "Hello World" (Capitol Nashville)
17. Taylor Swift - "Back to December" (Big Machine)
18. Elizabeth Cook - "El Camino" (31 Tigers)
19. Eric Church - "Smoke a Little Smoke" (Capitol Nashville)
20. Laura Bell Bundy - "Drop on By" (Columbia)

Singles Jukebox reviews current singles by:

Sugarland

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=3073

Jason Aldean & Kelly Clarkson

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=3068

Blake Shelton

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=3062

Sara Evans

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=3051

Hint: The one of these I liked least is the one I said I thought I "liked much" in the very first post on this thread. Boy was I wrong there. And the others aren't all that much better, really.
Prognosis: If these songs are any indication of what country radio will sound like in 2011, good luck staying awake.
Caveat: And we haven't even gotten to that lousy Brad Paisley single yet.

In total agreement with Chuck regarding Sugarland's "Little Miss." I singled it out as the album's standout track in my review, and I suppose it really is the best song on that set and the only one that really scans as country at all (or, after "Stuck Like Glue," the only other song that I can hear country radio getting on board with). But listening to it again now that it's been issued as a single? No, thank you. It's the way Nettles sings the word "okay" in the chorus ("I'm oh-keh-EEE") that I just can't get past.

Sunny Sweeney's "From a Table Away" is still inching its way toward the top 10. Beyond that, there isn't much of note happening on the singles front. "Heart Like Mine" is officially the last single from Revolution, and Zac Brown Band's "Colder Weather" is all right, I guess. Gretchen Wilson has released "I'd Love to Be Your Last" on the heels of its surprise Grammy nomination, but I still prefer Clay Walker's version of the song from a couple of years back, and "You Lie" by The Band Perry isn't nearly as clever or catchy as it needs to be. LeAnn Rimes' "Crazy Women" solid, but her tabloid-baiting shit means country radio won't go near her anymore, so it stalled outside the top 60.

Yeah. Grim start to the year.

yesterday i stumbled across the new five-song sunny sweeney ep whose existence i knew nothing about. "from a table away" plus four. title: sunny sweeney ep. ugh. but utterly fantastic. two songs about cheating sung from the perspective of the other woman ("from a table away," of course, and "amy," which could kinda sorta be an answer song to "jolene"). one ("drink myself single") about a woman who goes out carousing and comes home slizzard just 'cause "i really wanna know what it's like to be you" which, if you told me it came from a george jones/tammy wynette album, i would completely believe you. and two about being trapped in dead-end relationships, just in case the other three songs didn't convince you. the music's all a bit '60s/'70s honkytonkapolitan retro, but it rocks and it's catchy as hell and after spending one day with it i would like to ask it to marry me.

Looks like that Sunny Sweeeney EP and the new LeAnn Rimes single are both on Rhapsody -- I will check them out. Thanks guys!

So far, the two 2011 country singles I really like (not sure whether they've charted yet, haven't checked) are "Midnight America" by the Texas band Rosehill (mid '80s Mellencamp in a big-tent waffle house late at night) and "1,000 Faces" by Randy Montana (just a relaxed, wordily rhymed swirl of a song, with a great time signature change in the middle.) The latter though is, at best, my fourth-favorite song on Montana's album (behind "Burn These Matches," "Assembly Line," and "It's Gone"), which apparently isn't slated to come out until May or June. And if this single doesn't catch, who knows, maybe they'll push the release date back even further.

So I'm making a guess from the Nashville Scene pieces that there's some regret that, contrary to popular mythology, country music isn't really reflecting the stories of the country on the ground? And that Jamey Johnson and Elizabeth Cook are the only two big artists that aren't currently authentic in this matter?

But isn't that what those that still buy this stuff want? Myths and avoidance of imagery of rot and decline. Like the average white American potential voter from the heartland.

And that Jamey Johnson and Elizabeth Cook are the only two big artists that aren't currently authentic in this matter?

Ahh, strike the 'aren't' to 'are'.

Glenn McDonald strikes again:

38 of the people who voted in the 2010 P&J also voted in the Nashville Scene's Country Music Critics Poll. Here are the albums that got at least 4 votes from this subset, ranked by what % of their points came from those people. You can now pass for country-knowledgable, at least momentarily, by name-dropping Chely Wright and Elizabeth Cook.
Even more interesting, perhaps, is that although those 38 voters represent about half of the Scene's 75-voter electorate, several of the Scene's top 10 albums got fewer than 4 votes from those same people in the P&J. Dierks Bentley, who got #2 in the Scene, received only 1 vote in the P&J, total.
Click the arrow next to "These Voters" to see this list by points from these voters, instead of percentage, or just scan down the column to notice that the Scene's #1, Jamey Johnson, didn't actually win with this subset. Apparently Janelle Monáe is more country than country.

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=A+World+Centered+in+Nashville

x-post

Geoff Himes pushing for country radio to adopt his traditional-rooted concept/definition of country music (and/or Elizabeth Cook's) is not a big surprise.

But isn't that what those that still buy this stuff want? Myths and avoidance of imagery of rot and decline. Like the average white American potential voter from the heartland.

― Gorge, Friday, January 28, 2011 5:29 PM (2 hours ago

Are corporate country radio and tv giving listeners what they want, or what the corporate outfits have calculated will work the best?

Ever since Clinton signed off on the Gingrich pushed deregulation of radio, there have been fewer entities owning radio stations and less incentive to be more creative in programming. Or maybe country listeners do like countryish Fleetwood mac types and everything else that is both more or less traditional that outlets showcase

Singles Jukebox on current Paisley single:

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=3096

Country album that isn't a country album that I've been obsessed with today is Above And Beyond The Doll Of Cutey, Pam Tillis's debut LP on Warner Bros. from 1983, after which she didn't release another album for eight years (by which time she'd gone country.) Evidently they were initially trying to sell her as a fun-loving pop-rock gal, on the quirkier Lovich/Lauper edge of Benatar, and she does it real catchily and convincingly, especially in "Killer Comfort" (a single according to Wiki), "You Don't Miss," light-hearted hipster diss "(You Just Want To Be) Weird" and, especially especially "Popular Girl," which is both (1) by far the most "new wave" in the early MTV sense number on the record and (2) the only song on the record where Pam's dad Mel Tillis gets a partial songwriting credit! "She's a big girl now, she's in eighth grade" -- who knows, maybe Mel originally wrote it about Pam. Who actually calls herself "Pammy Wong" on the inner sleeve, for some reason, and leaves this cryptic thank-you note for her mom: "Sorry you've had to relive the struggle all over again. Blame it on Dad."

P.S.) Also, the album title makes no sense. And there are some nice saxophones (to go with the more frequent synths and guitars.) Significant Scandal influence too, one would think.

But I still want to know what country hit about cancer he’s thinking of. Must’ve missed it.

Craig Morgan's "Tough"? Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying"? Rascal Flatts' "Skin"? Though I'm not sure any of those actually say the word "cancer". Enough signifiers: hair falling out, etc.

though paisley isn't singing about signifiers. he's all about "say the word."

is it possible the song paisley's thinking about that mentions cancer is his own song? the one he's singing right now? is it possible he's responding to the big C showing up somewhere in his own world? i haven't read a single interview with him about this song or the new album, so i have no idea. just sayin'.

I know what you mean but I'm guessing he's making a claim for Country being the genre that deals with real life stuff like Cancer, as opposed to other genres (though I'm sure some Hip Hop songs have actually mentioned cancer.)

Damn, what happened to the summertime cookouts?
Everytime I turn around a nigga gettin took out
Shit, my momma got cancer in her breast
Don't ask me why I'm motherfuckin stressed, things done changed
- Things Done Changed, The Notorious B.I.G.

But as someone who's warmed to Paisley considerably over his past few albums, this doesn't really do much for me.

some Hip Hop songs have actually mentioned cancer.

Not to mention Nirvana songs. (and, especially, extreme metal songs, according to Josh Langhoff's Jukebox review.)

Xgau gives Taylor Swift an A- (overplays the alleged "songs about celebrities" angle; not sure why that's even a concern, given that the songs aren't remotely dependent on the celebs the tabloids claim they're about; also apparently thinks both the songs and album are too long):

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blogpost.aspx?post=c271e36b-4d73-4981-8aaf-98b4e0da5d21

Caramanica on JaneDear Girls (scroll down):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/arts/music/06playlist.html

"amy," which could kinda sorta be an answer song to "jolene"

Lex said the same thing when he heard "Amy."

A bit disappointed in the EP myself, so far. I like everything on it, but nothing else comes close to stirring me the way "From A Table Away" does, with its slowness and enveloping sadness. Of course that song'll be hard to top. The rest feels like it's resting too easily into typical country. Could say the same about "From A Table Away," too. I guess what I mean is that "Table" is so touching and overwhelming I don't spend time thinking about how typical it is. Anyway, I do like "Amy"; like "Helluva Heart" even more, but think it should've maybe been less of a rocker, more restrained, steady, venomous.

Regret that I didn't get it together to review "This Is Country Music," but I couldn't come up with a rhyme for "colonoscopy," or deftly work in a subtle reference to Brad's new backup band. You know, Brad Paisley & The Bloody Stools. Think I'd have given the song a 2 or 3, I was so pissed at it.

Didn't so much mind his treating the prime country audience as defensive little suck-asses, since one of the things that draws me to country is its intense sense of resentment. But the Haggards and Montgomery-Gentrys etc. get pathos and humor and exuberance and poetry out of it, not deadenly subdued little pieties (though of course there's plenty of that in country, too; but then, there's generally a good amount of humor in Paisley, but not this time).

And yeah, as Josh points out there are scads of noncountry songs with the word "cancer" in it; the Rolling Stones' "Salt Of The Earth" came immediately to mind; also, there's another one up for review on the Jukebox tomorrow, which I wouldn't be surprised if Will chose for that reason: the two were originally scheduled to run on the same day.

i started a thread for sunny sweeney cuz i didn't want her to just be privy to a rolling thread Sunny Sweeney is surely one of the finest and most interesting songwriters in modern country right now

not deadenly subdued little pieties

Think I meant "not deadeningly subdued little pieties."

Stephen Holden at the NY Times usually likes cabaret-like music and proper, dignified stuff, so what should I make of his plea for Teddy Thompson, Richard's son. Years ago I saw Teddy just playing in his Dad's band but he made no real impression on me at the time

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/arts/music/07teddy.html?_r=1

His golden voice suggests an impassioned fusion of Roy Orbison and Jesse Winchester.

I will have to see what I can find online

I quite like Teddy Thompson's cover of Leon Payne's "Psycho." That's all I've heard by him, but I'm curious. Plays it deadpan rather than impassioned on that one.

Tim McGraw was just on NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, a genealogy reality TV thing, which I didn't see because I don't have a TV. But, presumably because of this, Sports Illustrated linked a fascinating piece they ran nine years ago on Tim's uncle Hank McGraw, who appeared in the episode. Hank was a year older than Tim's father, Tug, and was also drafted by the Mets; wouldn't abide racial segregation, wouldn't cut his hair, wouldn't compromise on anything, played well but never made it out of the minors.

Fame's like living under Nazis. You have to be on guard all the time. Tug can handle it. Tug makes a living being Tug, giving speeches all over. I'd rather be the little guy outside the palace gates than the one walking through them. When I put on slacks I feel like I'm putting on the enemy's uniform. Like I'm letting somebody down somewhere, some homeless guy on the street.

...

The spiritual side of the game is what I'd like to teach. People say great athletes block out the fans and noise and distractions — the hell they do. They take it in. There's a humility in a pure athlete like Jeter that allows him to disappear into the energy of the game. There are possibilities in baseball that most players never tune in to, space for art and dance and rhythm.

Nuance is what we're losing. Players need to learn what's not obvious, what's not on the surface. Now it's just, Jack one to make the highlights and hear an idiot go Boo-ya!

Baseball will go on no matter what any of us idiots does. We're just passing through the movie. But I'll tell you what makes me angriest about sports today, and what I'd like to teach kids: How we treat opponents. An opponent should get more respect on a ball field than Jesus or your parents. Because without an opponent it's just practice, and you'll never find out what matters. You'll never find out about yourself.

...

Baseball, relationships, jobs, anything that ever went wrong — I'm 50 or 51 percent to blame, and that's a low-end estimate. I don't really think the reason I didn't make the big leagues had to do with hair or being a rebel. To be honest, I never felt like I deserved to make it. I never felt I was good enough.

Here's the SI piece:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1026946/1/index.htm

Will check that out. Book I'm now reading (having finally finished Franzen's Freedom) is Big Hair And Plastic Grass: A Funny Ride Through Baseball And America In The Swinging '70s; that "funny" in the title is mainly just to sell books I think; i.e., yeah, there's humor in it, but being funny is hardly the main point of the book. Pennant race and stats stuff I usually half snooze through, but the anecdotes about individual players, the reserve clause and Curt Flood, Ball Four, Denny McLain's mob ties, racial strife, Astroturf and ashtray stadiums, how baseball was sold and changed, etc. can be engrossing (since '70s baseball was the last time I was really obsessed with any sport). Looks like Tug McGraw gets two mentions (at least indexed ones) in the book: "Like wise-ass M*A*S*H doctor Hawkeye Pierce ridiculing uptight Major Burns, McGraw began mimicking (M. Donald) Grant's speech once he thought the Mets chairman had left the clubhouse, chanting, 'You gotta believe!' Grant -- still in the clubhouse, but completely oblivious of the fact that McGraw was mocking him -- commended McGraw on his positive attitude."

More on topic, here's something on the history of black people in country music that Rhapsody asked me to write for Black History Month:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2011/02/blackcountry.html

And a largely, but far from entirely, overlapping playlist I made based on the same theme:

http://www.rhapsody.com/playlistcentral/playlistdetail?playlistId=ply.44160337

Should've mentioned the baseball book's author: Dan Epstein (who does toss in anything funny he can dig up on Jewish big leaguers.) (Flipped a coin between that book and Karl Keating's Catholicism And Fundamentalism: The Attack On 'Romanism' by 'Bible Christians'. but decided to keep things light. Before Freedom, I actually read the first book I'd read in a very long time about music, namely Nelson George's 1988 The Death Of Rhythm And Blues, which I highly recommend.)

(Odd noun/verb disagreement in that black country playlist intro; been trying to fix it, so far to no avail.)

Xgau on new album and EP by Old 97s (who he suggests aren't alt-country anymore; guess I'll take his word for it)

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blogpost.aspx?post=1b3e56fe-6105-422a-881e-e632fecaebdf

..and on new albums by Hayes Carll (which I haven't listened to since I didn't get it in the mail and I doubt I'll bother seeking it out even though I thought his previous two were okay) and Drive By Truckers (which I did get in the mail but decided not to listen to since everything I've heard about it makes it sounds like it'd be their dullest album ever and I don't want to get pissed-off or bummed out, and Xgau's review is no exception; i.e., "they turn down the boogie," as if they hadn't turned it down seven or eight years ago and have generally been turning it down more and more ever since)

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blogpost.aspx?post=d5bc5d01-0bd8-4fe5-b190-a0bce7850b1b

You don't get cable so I don't supposed you've heard Alan Jackson's "Good Time" as these music for the latest GE commercial. Cast of hundreds of alleged factory workers doing boot scoot dance. For a company that's now famous for offshoring most of its labor and laying off blue collar workers.

Country, gotta love it. Perpetuate the comfortable myths, shut up and take the money.

Wow, Xgau thinks "Five Years" is better than "Cracked Actor" and "Panic In Detroit" and "Queen Bitch" and "Suffragette City" and "Heroes" and "Space Oddity" and "Rebel Rebel" and "The Jean Genie" and "Changes" and "The Man Who Sold The World"! I do like "Five Years," especially for David going into a Dylan yarl at the end, but it's not in my top ten. "TVC15," on the other hand, I'm with (and pretty much all of Station To Station).

Yeah, I was taken about by his "Five Years" assertion, too; had no idea he loved it that much. (After I googled to figure out which Bowie song Old 97s actually covered.)

NYTimes cover story from this morning about much of rural America still lacking broadband access; haven't tried yet, but I'm hoping it's possible to zero in online on the map they included in the paper. Anyway, for the time being, it's obviously just one more huge factor in the marginalization of the poor. Curious, music-wise, in how the lack of web access will affect the future of certain outlying genres that still rely almost entirely on brick and mortar (and even mom-and-pop) retail -- not so much country, which has obviously conquered suburbia and is coming to terms with the digital age, but say Regional Mexican and, presumably, Southern Soul. Anyway:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/us/18broadband.html

What I mean is -- and this is obviously just conjecture -- I'm thinking the audiences for those genres might lie disproportionally in more remote areas unlinked to the web. And as brick-and-mortar stores disappear, access to the music could go with it, followed ultimately by that music itself. (Unless, in web-inaccessible areas, real record stores are having fewer problems than elsewhere. Which is possible, but I seriously doubt it, especially given diminished purchasing power of poorer fans.)

Also seems like you'd need internet access just to run a record store these days -- since I imagine that's how all the distributors do business, for instance.

hey, i never have posted in this thread & i don't really listen to country but i just wanted to pop in & say that the luke bryan track "someone else calling you baby" is one of my favorite singles of the year so far

i randomly caught it on a pop morning show that was doing a round up of #1 songs in the country & it's great -- some brief perusing shows that y'all were not feeling one of his other singles from last year -- this is the first i've ever heard of him tho

"All My Friends Say" was a jam.

Don't know that I ever wrote either way about them here, but I like Luke Bryan's singles. "Do I" repeats those words so much they become some kind of mantra or even riddle, and lose their meaning in a way that I like. "Rain Is a Good Thing" (and a couple of the other non-singles on that album, if I'm remembering right) has an agricultural focus that always strikes me as more specific than most on-the-farm country songs. And yes, I've been enjoying hearing "Someone Else Calling You Baby" on the radio lately, though I think mostly for the melody.

Broadband's not so hot in Pasadena. AT&T and Charter are pretty crappy. The former is always throttling access on the margins. It would not seem cheap to people in that section of Alabama. You'd need to explain to them they could then steal most of the music they'd like to listen to so that the country CD at the bigbox store or whatever passes for it near the county seat would seem exorbitant.

Cynical -- but it's the truth. Paradoxically, Nashville seems to defend a lot of its stuff more aggressively than others.

Luke Bryan's pretty much always shot blanks to my ears; don't hate his stuff, but I don't think any of his hits have struck me as particularly special either, and so far with the new one his track record's still intact.

Longish NYTimes Arts & Leisure feature today about this Providence band called the Low Anthem said to use old-timey instruments and who have fans in Emmylou Harris and on WNYC's Soundcheck. Sounds like they'd be horrible ("the Low Anthem draws people in by going quiet and underplaying," puke), and doubt I'll get around to investigating with my own ears. But mixing folk influences and artsy fartsy sounds has worked a couple times in musical history I guess, so I'd be curious if anybody here has actually head them:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/arts/music/20low.html?_r=1&ref=music

Meanwhile my own favorite rural-and-western song on the radio lately (I've heard it twice in the past month or two on Regional Mexican stations here) is "Mueveme El Pollo" by Banda San Jose Mesillas, which apparently concerns chickens and seems to have technically come out late last summer, judging from posting dates on three youtube clips I'm finding. (There may be earlier versions of the number by other acts, too; still trying to figure that out.)

And let’s not forget about “Wire,” a midrecord dip into a classically inflected piece for three clarinets composed, and played, by Ms. Adams, who was an intern for NASA before joining the band.

Clarinets and working for NASA, even for free, would be enough for the shitcan in my book. Anyway, Avett Brothers also name-dropped.

Believe it or not, there was a guy at our gig last night who came to me after the show to buy a CD. He let slip he was an Avett Brothers and Arcade Fire fan. Astonishing, really.

Yeah, I wrote that post above before half finishing half the Low Anthem feature, and once I reached to the jump page I realized that no fucking way would I like that band, if my life depended on it. They just sounded worse and worse as the piece went on.

And George, your show story reminds me of this guy Jesus, who was the art director at the Voice when I was there. Awesome guy, about my age or a couple years older I guess, and you were by far his favorite writer in the music section because sometimes you wrote about Uriah Heep, Yes, Savoy Brown, Robin Trower maybe, other '70s bands he loved. But somehow he wound up liking the first Arcade Fire album a lot when somebody played it for him, and, I think, Coldplay? Somebody like that. Perplexed the hell out of me.

I didn't tell you that he told me he'd bought a new Stratocaster and was starting a band and wanted some tips on how to get "the Rolling Stones sound." He -- in his late Fifties -- also said that both he and his wife, also along, now felt a little odd being among the only old people at soCal Arcade Fire shows. I sympathized completely. I asked him of he liked the Black Keys. Said he had the new album and liked parts of it.

Anyway, re Low Anthem again. The culture of NASA hasn't rocked since the days of "The Right Stuff." Now, if a member had been someone related to the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo astronauts, different matter.

Well, a hunk of people think that Arcade Fire may owe their career to a future Ashlee Simpson fan, so you never know. (See here for elaboration.)

Funeral holds up pretty well, though thinking it's one of the great albums of all time is like thinking, I don't know, that Radio City is one of the great albums of all time. I realize that people do, and it's good and all that, but still, it's missing a certain amount of fire (and it's kind of not all that arcade-y either, when you come down to it).