Rolling Country 2013

original members: Laura Lynch, Robin Lynn Macy, Martie Ervin, Emily Ervin

Which reminds me that I actually found a coverless used CD copy of their 1990 debut album Thank Heavens For Dale Evans in a charity sale dollar bin a couple months back. Liked it more than I would have guessed, too.

Decided not to count "Oh Susannah" as either country or a single, otherwise it'd be number 1. Here's the Big 3 version. Here's Shocking Blue.

Forgot there was a Jamey Johnson album, therefore forgot to seek it out.

I actually have an advance CD of it I'd been meaning to send you, Frank -- Must still be waiting in a box somewhere. Anyway, fwiw, I didn't much care for it. Seemed really pointless to me, a history-lesson holding pattern by a guy with writer's block or something.

Think the Dwight Yoakam album could give Jamey a run for the Nashville Scene poll money, too, though I may just be out of the loop on such things.

In other news, I really really like the new Gary Allan album -- more than any he's done in a long time. Liking John Corbett's more alt-ish Leavin’ Nothin’ Behind on Funbone and Rose Falcon's 19th Avenue The EP Volume 2 on Universal okay, too. Not a bad start for 2013.

Rose Falcon! 6 5 4 3 2 1, get up! get up!

I was feeling a general 'blah' about writing a ballot this year. I skipped a lot of categories I was feeling ambivalent about, and skipped writing comments to the same old is this country/is that country prompt. But I did enter a ballot that looked like this -

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2012:

1. Taylor Swift - Red
2. Iris DeMent – Sing the Delta
3. Dierks Bentley - Home
4. Justin Townes Earle – Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now
5. Corb Lund – Cabin Fever
6. Don Williams – And So It Goes
7. Kip Moore – Up All Night
8. Gloriana – A Thousand Miles Left Behind
9. Tim McGraw – Emotional Traffic
10. Dwight Yoakam – 3 Pears

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2012:

1. Alan Jackson - So You Don't Have To Love Me Anymore
2. Eric Church - Springsteen
3. Josh Turner – Time Is Love
4. Taylor Swift – I Knew You Were Trouble
5. Pistol Annies – Takin’ Pills
6. Dierks Bentley – Tip It On Back
7. Dwight Yoakam – A Heart Like Mine
8. Luke Bryan – Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
9. Don Williams – I Just Come Here for the Music
10. Kenny Chesney – Come Over


COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:

1. Eric Church
2. Dierks Bentley
3. Kip Moore

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2012:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Iris DeMent
3. Kellie Pickler

COUNTRY MUSIC’S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2012:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Iris DeMent
3. Dierks Bentley

<i>Liking John Corbett's more alt-ish Leavin’ Nothin’ Behind on Funbone</i>

I remember thinking the self-titled album he put out several years ago (also on Funbone) was competent enough-- a fairly pleasant mainstream effort, not out of sync with Darius Rucker or Easton Corbin-- but I'm surprised he has another one coming out.

I don't care for the lead single from the new Gary Allan, but I've always been a bit puzzled by his and his label's choices of singles. Definitely one of the Q1 albums I'm most looking forward to.

Weird, I don't remember hearing Corbett before, but I wouldn't call him mainstream. Closer to, I don't know, the Springsteen side of Steve Earle or something, with Tex-Mex honky tonk quasi-outlaw folkie parts But he sings better than Earle, and (being alt-ish) writes better than he sings. (Not sure if he acts better than Earle, but I did like him in Northern Exposure -- didn't realize he'd played Chris Stevens until I checked his Wiki page just now. I am clueless when it comes to actors' names, even if I'm seen all six seasons of a series they were on, apparently.) Also, both Corbett and Rose Falcon sing songs on their new records where Communion figures prominently (Corbett's is called "Cocaine And Communion"), which to my mind makes them examples of "Catholic Country" we talked about on Rolling Country a few years back, even if some Protestants call it communion, too. And sure enough, Corbett, at least, did attend a Catholic high school in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Liked Earle on The Wire more than on Treme, fwiw. (Prefer either to his music, though I'd probably pick up Guitar Town if I saw it for a buck.)

And I wasn't blown away by the first single off the new Gary Allan either. It's not bad, but it's not much more a standout track on the album than "Shinin' On Me" was on Jerrod Neimann's album last year.

As for Corbett's title "Cocaine And Communion," go ahead and scoff. (I kind of did.) But somebody had to do it.

On second thought, I may be jumping the gun to say Corbett writes better than he sings. More likely, he's just on the right side of competent for both. (And he might actually sing too well to be "alt-ish," come to think of it. His voice might be more mainstream than his song themes, though the latter could probably fly with Jamey Johnson or Eric Church -- I'm not sure whether people would call those two mainstream or not. Which is not to say Corbett's as good as either of them.)

Also not sure why I can never remember the "i before e except after c and in reinforce" rule where Niemann's name is concerned.

Also, um, duh, there's also the little fact that JOHN CORBETT DOESN'T ACTUALLY WRITE HIS OWN SONGS. (Not sure why I was assuming he did -- Guess he just sounds like a singer-songwriter. But on his new album, at least, he gets exactly zero co-songwriting credits, even. A fellow named Jon Randall, whose name I should probably recognize off the top of my head but sorry I don't, gets the most credits. Not that that makes me think any less of the album. But it partly explains why I skipped voting in the Nashville Scene Best Songwriter category this year.)

Xhuxk, Jon Randall was Lorrie Morgan's husband in the late '90s. not sure if that was pre- or post- her hot chicken days (she used to have a hot chicken place out on I-40 just north of town). they had a hit in the late '90s as a duet I can't recall at the moment, and I also seem to remember Randall doing a solo LP on Asylum back then called something like Coffee and Cigarettes or something, perhaps it had hot chicken in the title. and as a songwriter, he wrote "Whiskey Lullaby" that Paisley and Krauss did back a few yrs ago. I've got the Corbett record here, need to check it out.

I couldn't bring myself to add a Most Pathetic category, as I've done some years, because, after reading descriptions on or linked from this thread, I wussed out on listening to 2012 albums by Big & Rich and Hank Jr. Not that I'm protective of prev Top Ten artists per se---no prob relegating Toby and Willie and Kelly Hogan and Pee Hood to Hon. Mentions this time---but B&R and Jr. just seemed like they would be Too Pathetic. Hey, maybe I'll make that a posthumously added category to the blogments, when I do listen (I feel like it now, what the hell). Another belated addition may be Most Promising: John Fullbright (whose third album debuted in my Top Ten, so he's not Best New by Himes' rules, apparently). And Jerrod, who (my Hon Mention comment in a nutshell) is excitingly distinctive when good, leaks grey (not even gray) pablum when bad: even for generic radio bait it's boring. Mind you, he's good mostly, but the bad tracks are just numerous and so-bland-they're-distasteful enough to keep it off my Top Ten. Still, he's a trip, and here's hoping he does some kind of electro-Caribbean duet with Miguel or they inspire each other a bit more anyway. Would also like to hear Gary LeVox's subliminal twang wending its high lonesome crossover way around Jennifer Nettles' upfront pungent country goodness---a little of them both (though certainly a bit more of her) goes a lone way with me, but... say 2 minutes, 20 seconds--yeah, might sound right! (also agree with Frank re musical redemption of Hayden P., and that's what her character Juliette is all about). Yeah, Todd Snider's Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables is a bit too consistently cranked for my Country Top Ten, as it is for Edd's, but listen anyway!

reading Xhuxk above on Jamey and history-lesson Hank Cochran project, and that's kind of the way I feel about it, plus I just think Jamey's voice is too inexpressive to really convey what I, at least, love about those old-tyme country tunes Cochran was so good at. Xgau gave the Jamey album a high grade, I placed it at the bottom of my poll because I do think it's an honest attempt to redo those tunes, but I'm just not sure beyond that why he did the thing. I also happen to know most of them from other versions, with Cochran's one-time wife Jeannie Seely being the greatest exemplar in my book of Cochran's tunes, with "Don't Touch Me" being Seely's biggest hit. (Jeannie Seely I think is one of those country singers who are just a corn silk away from being great--almost as soulful as Wynette, and I also really like her beleaguered-housewife thing.) Jamey and Willie doing "Everything but You" just doesn't come close to the fleet swing of Willie's great '60s version, which I believe was collected on something called Face of a Fighter, and for me, the slightly bent and serrated pitch Willie brought to his recording is far superior to the plodding way Jamey interprets it. So I dunno, perhaps just another good-Nashville move designed to make history play dead instead of come alive. Also interested to hear more from Frank about Hayden...OK, she is a fascinating character on the TV show, and I find the sequences with her and her football hubby and his snooty Nashville family pretty close to the way upper-class folk here have always regarded country music, but on the other hand, I'd find it even more interesting if a similar upper-crust (upper middle-class) family were yee-haw and open enough to just have a good time with the music. Anyway, I'd recommend the Seely greatest hits album that appeared in the early '70s on Monument to any serious student of country, with the caveat that her albums are mostly real good too, even the ones with big hang-dog, forgotten country star Jack Greene, who was a real good singer in a Ray Price mode and made the slight jazziness of his style fit in perfectly with the balladeering Greene also specialized in.

Agree, Dow, that the Niemann album is uneven, in terms of a few songs being more generic than the rest. Just don't think I heard any country albums last year that were less uneven (Taylor Swift's included). Which is to say, every time I put it on, I was surprised by how much Jerrod's more generic songs (and I count "Shinin' On," which has bigger fans than me here, among those) were not tune-out material for me.

Rose Falcon EP is more marginal than I thought -- five perfectly tolerable songs, but I've yet to notice a really good one. I.e., Frank will be disappointed to learn that nothing comes close to "Up Up Up." (Still have that 2003 teen-pop CD, by the way; I should put it on again sometime.)

foregone conclusion that the Jamey Johnson album is topping the poll, yes? I can't fathom anything else that will have the same kind of across-the-board support

Dwight Yoakam album could give Jamey a run for the Nashville Scene poll money

Also, Kellie Pickler, right? (And if enough stubborn voters put Taylor Swift at #1, she could be right up there, maybe.)

The Jamey Johnson support actually makes me unreasonably grumpy, to be honest. Just seemed like the laziest kind of "here's what country sounded like back it was nutritious and real" record anybody could make. And I'm somebody who ranked both his previous albums pretty high. But Edd is right -- he's just too stiff a singer to justify remaking all those old songs in one place. Completely pointless, seems to me.

Well, the guests are good, JJ doesn't get in the way, the production is appropriately eerie---for the gently twisted themes, the touch of Miss Havisham and "A Rose For Emily", the candles still lit at the table, by the bed, in the museum of love and music---the songs, incl ones unheard even by xgau and certainly by me, are now at hand. I really should track down Jeanie Seely etc, but this works on its own. And I'm not nec. awed by Great Old Man shit: not by Nelson & Price's Run That By Me One More Time, Nelson Haggard & Price's Last of the Breed, or even From Lefty To Willie (should listen to that one again, prob all of 'em).

I don't know if "Don't Rush" is a direction for Kelly Clarkson or just a blip. She was confused and feckless on her last two albums, the wrong big blast of this person's and that person's pop rock. And now here she is in '70s middle-of-the-road warmth and pain, and the richness of her pipes returns.

otm. I listened to this quite a lot during the holidays.

I actually found the cavalcade of legendary guests annoying, too -- The kind of self-important grandstanding that generally hits me as fishing for a Grammy, and all the more disjointed to listen to because of it. But different strokes, obviously. Maybe it would've clicked if I'd spent more time with it; just seemed like there were more interesting, less stodgy records out there to focus on. For me, at least, Lionel Richie re-inventing his own songs as country (which I still wound up deciding was too spotty and redundant for my Scene ballot) seemed way more useful and fun. Liked Lionel's singing more, too.

I somehow completely forgot about that---not much promotion, or just me? Will check. I meant To Lefty From Wiilie o course, but would check From Lefty To Willie, especially if recently recorded...

Just you -- and country radio. According to Billboard it sold 1.07 million copies in 2012 -- ninth biggest selling album of the year in the U.S. overall, and fourth biggest selling country album (behind Swift, Underwood, and Luke Bryan.) Album went #1 country, but exactly zero singles off it hit the country chart. Figure that out.

Oops, sorry, my bad -- "Deep River Woman" feat. Little Big Town got all the way to #60 country. For one whole week.

with Cochran's one-time wife Jeannie Seely being the greatest exemplar in my book of Cochran's tunes

Edd, I'm guessing you're being figurative here, but the first time I glanced at this I was excited to think you had a book out.

Alfred, I do think Kelly Clarkson's "Einstein" was a good little go-fuck-off pop tune that got lost amid her duller elephant stomping.

Edd, I don't own a telly, so I've never seen Hayden in actin'. Back in her teenpop days she was a strong voice with no personality. Might have just been a problem with material, in that it didn't have personality, not even a generic one. Pleasing melodies would have been a help.* Her voice was too predictable, rising where you'd expect a rise, wailing where you'd expect a wail. A lot of fly balls to short right field, none falling in for hits. Whereas "Undermine" is a sharp line drive through the gap. Swings and connects on the first pitch.

*I never made it to any album tracks, though, so I don't know if there's anything ace hidden somewhere.

Frank, thanks. Hayden's character is, along with Deacon's, the most interesting in the Nashville show. My colleague at the Nashville Scene, Adam Gold, has been doing a good weekly wrapup of the show for Rolling Stone. I'll check out "Undermine." Some commas would've made my comment above re Seely a bit less ambiguous; no book, but I am working on getting a country column for the Scene underway this month, hoping it'll begin running w/ Himes' country poll. Working title for it is "Between My House and Town," the title of a pretty obscure George Jones Musicor-era tune (one of the Jones recordings that proves, vocally, he was just as pop as he was country, if you ask me, hardly any flourishes at all, sung straight except for a little shiver at the end that is a lot like what Jerry Lee or Gary Stewart would've done, only not as well.) But I digress: As for the Scene poll, I predict either Jamey or Dwight will top it, with Iris DeMent running a close second.

upcoming country:
Katie Armiger Fall into Me Jan. 15
Darius Rucker True Believers Capitol Nashville Jan. 22
Gary Allan Set You Free MCA Nashville
The Mavericks In Time Jan. 28
Tim McGraw Two Lanes of Freedom Big Machine Feb. 5
Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison Cheater's Game Feb. 12
Greg Bates s/t Republic
Paisley Wheelhouse April 9
LeAnn Rimes Spitfire Curb April 30
Randy Rogers Band Trouble April 30

I Am Jaida Dreyer--Canadian singer who wrote "Fall for Me" for Sunny Sweeney. Charted a couple of tunes--#55 and #57, says here--last year: "Guy's Girl" and Confessions." Don't think I ever heard either one of them.

and Kristofferson, Randy Houser, Emmy Rossum have records set for release in first half. I've never heard a Kristofferson album that was even listenable, let alone notable, so whatever.

There's also a new Ashley Monroe album (Like A Rose) slated for March 5.

And a new Dale Watson album (El Rancho Azul) January 29, though he seems to becoming (or maybe he's always been) one of those guys who churns out one album after another so quickly that it feels like a chore to even try to keep up. (Also plays in bars here in Austin at least every other week, seems like. Probably I should go see him sometime. But I have definitely seen his fancy tour bus a few times, parked in a residential neighborhood adjacent to ours, when I've been out on a bike ride.)

Xhuxk, I remember seeing Dale Watson in Colorado a few years back--always puts on a good show in his Buck Owens-esque mode. Every once in a while he records something that seems a bit better than his average...I guess the one I do occasionally go back to is From the Cradle to the Grave, 2007, with "You Always Get What You Always Got" a nice track, written by Chris Scruggs and his mother, Gail Davies, along with Chuck Mead, the main guy in BR549 and a pretty decent kinda post-Buck/Beatles/Stiff Records kind of Nashville power pop guy. I didn't vote for Old Crow Medicine Show this year because I basically can't stand them, and I saw them on stage this year and really disliked it intensely, but Mead and Gary Bennett opened up for them in the re-formed BR549 and I thought they sounded pretty great, more Beatles Kountry than I remembered them. But I do like Old Crow and Marley's Ghost and Jack Clement's take on "It's All Over Now" on Marley's Ghost's Jubilee, not bad at all. Old Crow strikes me as really uninflected hootenanny stuff that seems lifted from Public Domain, but maybe I need to go back and listen again...

Words I used to describe that Dale Watson album on Rolling Country 2007 (I just checked): "leaden," "ponderous," "dreary," "dull," "Johnny Cash type atmosphere." Which is to say, I didn't like it much, at least at the time. The one I did like (made by Nashville Scene and came real close to my Pazz & Jop ballot, if I remember correctly) was his previous one, Whiskey Or God, from 2006 -- which actually had a sense of humor and sense of energy to it that I haven't heard him match since. Though, as I say above, I've become less motivated to keep up with the guy.

Xhuxk, yeah, Dale Watson is just fairly high up in my retro-country category, and the "psychological" country-trauma songs on From the Cradle were just kinda lame. that tune I mention just has the best guitar lick and hook on that record, kinda even uptempo. But if he had gone for novelty-Cash a la "The Frozen Four Hundred Pound Fair-to-Middlin' Cotton Picker" or Dave Dudley/Del Reeves/Sovine truckers' country throughout, maybe that woulda been a good covers album.

Unlike Jamey Johnson, and you know, it's kinda funny to imagine Jamey doing Del Reeves or Dudley or Jim Nesbitt (author of "Truck Drivin' Cat with Nine Wives"). but if you're gonna give the People back '60s country, that's a big part of what it was. But the big time stuff wasn't like that, they went for the Hank Cochran-level, commercial, songs, except it was done in that streamlined, studio-tooled Nashville way and respected your intelligence, more or less, without being so solemn about that whole thing.

Anyway, people think stuff like Watson is "real country," and OK. but Dale never appeared on his own Del Reeves Country Carnival '60s TV show in a leisure suit looking like Jerry Reed fused into Dean Martin, and singing his truckin' hits and "Gentle on My Mind" for variety.

You can see that all done better any nite of the week on Lower Broadway via the Don Kelley Band, Nashville's hottest-pickin' country retro truckin' Buck-in covers aggregation.

Yeah, the mid-60s interplay between country, esp. Southwestern, and British Invasion was appealingly suggested, not too heavy-handed, on 3 Pears, at least as I heard it, and I think Yoakam, in a recent World Cafe interview. mentioned Buck Owens as a constant inspiration over the years. Speaking of Beatles Kontry, always liked their version of "Act Naturally", which led me to other thangs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnyzOl5-P2k

Watson's voice and material begged comparison to Cash on that '07 album, and he seemed too pleasant a fellow for the dark side: imagine what Cash could have made of "Yellow Mama", about Alabama's old faithful 'lectric chair (named for the yellow streak along the cracked center of its seat). Agree that if he stuck to the novelties etc, would have fared better. Nobody should try to be so much like Cash, Dylan, Miles, Joyce, etc. Geniuses/indelible stylists are a pain that way.

Edd, I've a couple of Jeanie Seely LPs I've picked up over the years which never made a huge impression on me, though I remember liking them well enough - I'll give them another go. Any particular recommendations for records of hers to look for? Similarly, any Jody Miller recommendations?

Speaking of Swift--from OK, Is This The Worst Piece of Music Writing Ever?

this isn't about the camille paglia piece specifically but about this amazingly stupid junior high school paper-level response to it in LAist

http://laist.com/2012/12/06/camille_paglia_rips_hollywood_a_new.php
text:
Camille Paglia isn't known for being polite or couching her feminist arguments in niceties. In an opinion piece for The Hollywood Reporter, she keenly rips Taylor Swift and Katy Perry brand spanking new assholes, calling the singers "insipid" and "bleached-out" and saying that they and their ilk are ruining things for young women.

The piece itself is a little scattered, beginning by talking about how Perry and Swift are so bland as to vault feminism back about 60 years, then moving on to talk about how young middle-class white girls have sex these days without being considered rebellious, and wrapping up by saying that there aren't enough roles in Hollywood for older women in their 40s and 50s.

But in between all that, Paglia makes the correct point that watered down performers like Swift and Perry don't provide particularly interesting role models for girls, insofar as they seem to be more reflections of what society wants them to be than expressions of their own true selves.

The only catch? There are always artists like Perry and Swift out there, and they will probably never go away.

See, not everyone is a Camille Paglia. Some people take their music cookie-cutter because they are cookie-cutter themselves. And here's the thing -- that's OK. Just like not everyone will grow up to be a lawyer or a doctor, not everyone has the eclectic taste of a punk rocker, or a hip-hop head, or a connoisseur of electronic music.

In other words, some people like bland because they are bland. Writing a takedown piece of stars like Perry and Swift, who are harmless for all intents and purposes, just seems kind of unnecessary.

original Paglia piece here:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/taylor-swift-katy-perry-hollywood-398095

Seems like Swift's ever-massing target audience identify with Swift as somebody bursting out of the cocoon, fighting the good and necessary fight as each and every girl-to-woman does, regardless of Feminism-per-se's landmark victories. Paglia and her critic should see this as the obvious pitch, whether they like the songs or not. Dunno wtf deal is w Perry.

― dow, Friday, December 7, 2012 5:46 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she has a dazzling smile

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, December 7, 2012 5:50 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The 93 writers from all over North America who voted in the 13th annual Country Music Critics’ Poll named Eric Church Artist of the Year, Singles Artist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year. Jamey Johnson’s “Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran” was voted the year’s Best Album, followed by albums by Dwight Yoakam, Iris DeMent and Kellie Pickler. Kacey Musgraves was named the Best New Act.

There are other winners: Little Big Town scored the #5 album and the #2 single and were voted best group. Miranda Lambert, last year’s big winner, was voted Best Female Vocalist and the #5 and #9 best singles. Jason Aldean was voted Best Live Act and the #4 Artist of the Year. Taylor Swift, the #3 Artist of the Year, was the subject of much discussion in the accompanying essay and voters’ comments. Johnny Cash has the #1 and #8 Best Reissues.

The issue will go live at this link tomorrow morning:

http://nashvillescene.com/nashville/from-eric-church-to-jamey-johnson-2012-found-country-music-in-a-holding-pattern-and-searching-for-role-models/Content?oid=3230383

Anybody heard the new Rimes album? So glad "Borrowed" came out just in time for my Singles.

Country Poll results out today. Puttin up pt. 1 here, thru Reissues...

no surprises for me at the top. Americana takes up a lot of the bottom half, from Kelly Hogan to Carolina Drops to Shovels and Rope, Miller/Lauderdale, Old Crow. Justin Earle. Marty Stuart? Alan Jackson. Rodney Crowell. good, quality artists...Jerrod Niemann at #24....

Albums

1. Jamey Johnson, Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran (Mercury)

2. Dwight Yoakam, 3 Pears (Warner Bros.)

3. Iris DeMent, Sing the Delta (Floriella)

4. Kellie Pickler, 100 Proof (19/BNA)

5. Little Big Town, Tornado (Capitol)

6. Taylor Swift, Red (Big Machine)

7. Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives: Nashville, Volume 1: Tear the Woodpile Down (Sugar Hill)

8. Alan Jackson, Thirty Miles West (EMI)

9. Jason Aldean, Night Train (Broken Bow)

10. Rodney Crowell and Mary Karr, Kin: Songs by Mary Karr and Rodney Crowell (Vanguard)

11. Zac Brown, Uncaged (Atlantic/Southern Ground)

12. Kip Moore, Up All Night (MCA Nashville)

13. The Time Jumpers, The Time Jumpers (Rounder)

14. Carolina Chocolate Drops, Leaving Eden (Nonesuch)

15. Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson, Wreck & Ruin (Sugar Hill)

16. Dierks Bentley, Home (Capitol)

17. Justin Townes Earle, Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now (Bloodshot)

18. Don Williams, And So It Goes (Sugar Hill)

19. The Avett Brothers, The Carpenter (Universal Republic)

20. (tie) Corb Lund, Cabin Fever (New West)

20. (tie) Lionel Richie, Tuskegee (Mercury)

22. Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale, Buddy and Jim (New West)

23. Willie Nelson, Heroes (Legacy)

24. Shovels and Rope, O' Be Joyful (Shrimp)

25. Carrie Underwood, Blown Away (19/Arista)

26. Jerrod Niemann, Free the Music (Arista)

27. Kelly Hogan, I Like To Keep Myself in Pain (Anti-)

28. Jason Eady, AM Country Heaven (Underground)

29. Old Crow Medicine Show, Carry Me Back (ATO)

30. John Fullbright, From the Ground Up (Blue Dirt)

Singles

1. Eric Church, "Springsteen" (EMI Nashville)

2. Little Big Town, "Pontoon" (Capitol)

3. Kacey Musgraves, "Merry Go 'Round" (Mercury)

4. Alan Jackson, "So You Don't Have To Love Me Anymore" (EMI)

5. Miranda Lambert, "Over You" (RCA)

6. Eli Young Band, "Even If It Breaks Your Heart" (Republic Nashville)

7. Pistol Annies, "Takin' Pills" (Columbia)

8. Carrie Underwood, "Blown Away" (19/Arista)

9. Miranda Lambert, "Fastest Girl in Town" (RCA)

10. Don Williams, "I Just Come Here for the Music" (Sugar Hill)

11. Band Perry, "Better Dig Two" (Republic Nashville)

12. Chris Young, "Neon" (RCA)

13. Dierks Bentley, "Home" (Capitol)

14. Brad Paisley, "Southern Comfort Zone" (Arista Nashville)

15. Hunter Hayes, "Wanted" (Atlantic)

16. Taylor Swift, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (Big Machine)

17. Josh Turner, "Time Is Love" (MCA Nashville)

18. Taylor Swift featuring The Civil Wars, "Safe & Sound" (Big Machine)

19. Ashley Monroe, "Like a Rose" (Warner Bros.)

20. Jamey Johnson and Alison Krauss, "Make the World Go Away" (Mercury)

Reissues

1. Johnny Cash, The Complete Columbia Album Collection (Columbia/Legacy)

2. Various artists, Country Funk 1969-1975 (Light in the Attic)

3. Flatlanders, Odessa Tapes (New West)

4. Waylon Jennings, Goin' Down Rockin': The Last Recordings (Saguaro Road)

5. Jerry Reed, Unbelievable Guitar & Voice of Jerry Reed/Nashville Underground (Real Gone)

6. Hank Williams, The Lost Concerts (Time Life)

7. Woody Guthrie, Woody at 100 (Smithsonian Folkways)

8. Johnny Cash, Bootleg Vol. IV: The Soul of Truth (Columbia/Legacy)

9. Various artists, Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard (Tompkins Square)

10. Mel McDaniel, Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On: His Original Capitol Hits (Real Gone)

Who are these people? Likely I'd like any of them? (I'd look 'em up myself, but I'm lazy, plus I want opinions not facts.)

13. The Time Jumpers, The Time Jumpers (Rounder)
24. Shovels and Rope, O' Be Joyful (Shrimp)
28. Jason Eady, AM Country Heaven (Underground)
30. John Fullbright, From the Ground Up (Blue Dirt)

One of them almost has the same last name as me!

I finally got Church's Carolina, from which I'd only heard "Smoke a Little Smoke." It's damn solid – the guy's been consistent.

and in reissues...that Mel McDaniel one slipped past me and that's got to be good.

Country Funk is one I gotta get. Good selection of stuff, not all that country, but good.

Tim, the Seely Greatest Hits on Monument is the place to start. It's probably easier to find the original LP than the '93 CD these days. but her masterpiece is Thanks, Hank! with songs written by...Hank Cochran, her husband at the time. But you know, despite the cover versions of "Harper Valley P.T.A." and "Wichita Lineman" (but Seely actually does a definitive version of "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife" on 1968's Little Things), all her Monument LPs are worth hearing, high-grade shit: The Seely Style, I'll Love You More, Little Things, Jeannie Seely, and then the '72 Jeannie Seely's Greatest Hits, on Monument. On MCA I like the album Can I Sleep in Your Arms/Lucky Lady, really good late-era novelty-soul country, and she's in a bed in a barn on the cover and looking her sultriest. And for what it's worth, one of her biggest successes was the 1970 single with Jack Greene, "Wish I Didn't Have to Miss You," which for updated '66 Beatles guitar move and giant hook is hard to beat.

Tim, as for Jody Miller, the best single LP she made is probably The Nashville Sound of Jody Miller, 1969, I believe. she was maybe known as a singles artist, with her "King of the Road" riposte, "Queen of the House," but the album of the same title is real good almost-country of the '60s. I've found just about all her Epic Billy Sherrill-produced LPs here for practically nothing in good shape. Depending on your taste for almost-schlock country morphing into the mechanized '80s, you may really like Miller's 1977 Here's Jody Miller, Nashville Kraftsmen at work. I think it's pretty great. another one that shows her pop range and somewhat surprising taste in material is '76's Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Recorded in Nashville, strings by Bergen White, horns arranged by Bill Mcilhiney, the guy who played one of the trumpets on Cash's "Ring of Fire" or something. dunno if she's on CD in any significant way or not.

Xhuxk, the Time Jumpers are a western-swing boogie-jam band, revivalists. Kenny Sears is the main guy, a fiddler, and Hoot Hester has been a member, I believe Vince Gill is now? Shovels and Rope: here's my 2011 Nashville Scene critics' pick on them:

"Cary Ann Hearst possesses a country voice with a built-in bluesy ache, and she writes songs as if she instinctively knows the difference between wasting her gifts and selling out. She's a big talent, as evidenced on the 2008 full-length release Shovels & Rope, a collaboration with husband and musical partner Michael Trent. Sounding desperate but loose about it, Hearst and Trent covered Charlie Feathers' "I Can't Hardly Stand It" in magnificently creepy fashion and wrote a few themselves. Shovels was a lo-fi affair guaranteed to appeal to No Depression listeners and other guardians of authenticity. Still, Hearst essayed some amazing girl-group pop on last year's Are You Ready to Die EP — the title track was worthy of Jackie DeShannon. Touring under the Shovels & Rope moniker, Hearst and Trent make beautiful, idiosyncratic music together: Their harmonies manage to sound both spectral and full-bodied."

actually, I still need to hear last year's Shovels and Rope, I guess, don't remember checking that one out.

Here's my Shovels & Rope preview, later pasted into RC 2012 and my Scene comments blogged on http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com followed by RC 2012 comments on Fullbright, also adapted for Scene comments and the blog round-up:

Also like these guys I previewed; go see 'em:
Shovels & Rope are Americana singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalists Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent, a committed couple who never settle down, or settle for less than true love and cheap thrills. 2012’s O Be Joyful tracks risky ramblers teaming up, learning the mixing and measuring of pleasures. Thrills-wise, when Hearst later calls, “Come down here and make some sense of it all,” she’s affectionately addressing someone known as Wrecking Ball. Appropriately so: after all, Hearst sent “Hell’s Bells” prowling through True Blood’s third season, and S&R’s sly, Southern Gothic beauty travels many a moonlit mile.

John Fullbright's From The Ground Up also has me evangelistic 'bout it. Call this wide open spaces/ex-dustbowl/Oil Age southern gothic or just past that. First song is like Randy Newman's "God's Song" and then some: He gives us the stuff to party with here, then He (or whoever's representing) got a hang over cure, if you can hang with that (party again, way out of or in the core of bounds). "Jerico" founds him heading east to find his destination all fallen down, but bury him in the vines, he wants to rise and be the trumpet sound all around the walls )which have to rise and fall again for him to do so). Oh, but he's a badass by day who prays at night, when the world disappears and he has to confront his fears, has an unmarked car, wants to keep things unscarred (or looking that way), only flies so far. some things are nowhere to be found, but that's not nec bad: he might want to be a rich man in a big house where he can't be found--rich or poor, no matter how loudly he testifies, is always ready to take off again. So many shadows, such appetite, eh "Fat Man" (caricature taking on a life of its own). Another for Miranda Lambert or LeAnn Rimes to consider, though the orig should be on the radio right now: "This is not reflection/Reflections are true/This is just me/Me wantin' you/Sweet silver mem'ries/Me wanting you", and the music starts another upward arc, then back to its perch, but as always (so far) with the talons to ride cows, whales, whatever you got. Strong, clean-cut voice; there's more to the boy next door than previously thought. Kid's got charisma, look out.

yeesh some typos on the caffeinated Fullbright, no wonder Himes didn't quote it ( except not really: when he used to quote me, he included the typos)

Any links to previous nashville scene country polls?

Try the previous ILM Rolling Country threads -- I'm guessing at least the past several would have a link to that year's poll, around this same time in January. (Whether the links are still active, though, is another question.)

thanks for the Shovels and Rope update, Dow.
link to last yr's Poll:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/in-a-year-ruled-by-miranda-lambert-and-her-pistol-annies-eric-church-and-hayes-carll-country-music-returns-to-taking-itself-a-little-less-se/Content?oid=2743147

Found in the vinyl bins:
Charley Pride The Best of RCA '69
From Me to You sealed '71 with "Piroge Joe"
Compton Brothers Yellow River
Jack Clement All I Want to Do in Life '78

Edd, the Jeannie Seely LP I have is "Little Things", which I've now dug out and am enjoying it very much, especially side two. Bits of the record remind me of the Sammi Smith Mega-era stuff I love so much. Thanks! I seem to be making fairly regular trips to the US these days and it's always good to have something to look out for.

Yeah, Sammi Smith! Also: it's good to have something vs. the cloying/pro forma salute to hometown values, but (from my blogged Scene ballot comments)
Kacey Musgraves, "Merry-Go-Round" : "If you don't have two kids by 21, you're done." The first line is the best, then conformity and distraction go down the hill, to fetch a point made over and over. The small town in the video looks pretty good when it's gliding by, reminding me of my Granny's town, with an actual walk-in movie theater, where I used to sit through all-day Western fests. Don't remember a frame, but now the place is an arts center: walk by and hear kids strumming, warbling, to karaoke and Garageband beats. Getting ready for talent shows, reality shows maybe, and one of these days, some of them just might want to be the next Kacey Musgraves. But if so, they're less likely to be fired up by this droning, heard-it-all, mostly we-meaning-yall "confessional", than, for instance, whatever she may do with "Undermine," which is very fine, when serving as the creative breakthrough for TV's young and restless Nashville pop-country starlet Juliette Barnes, AKA Hayden Panettiere.

Yeah, McGraw had a much more potent antidote to the obligatory pandering:
More boldly cautious is the speculative survey taken by "The One Who Got Away." A long shot success, now everybody wants some, incl everybody in the once chilly hometown, Cub Scout leaders included. "Now you tuck your scars up under your dress, like an American girl", oh hell yes. No gilt-edged guilt, self-pity, lashing out, peacemaking, "closure", just flying round in the big room. And it's even a single!

Help. Need a couple more singles (and more than that would be good), or else I'll whiff altogether on my Country Critics Poll. This is what I've got so far. I haven't been listening enough.

1. 2YOON "24/7"
2. Miranda Lambert "Mama's Broken Heart"
3. Kacey Musgraves "Blowin' Smoke"
4. The Civil Wars "The One That Got Away"
5. Luke Bryan "That's My Kind Of Night"
6. Sturgill Simpson "Life Ain't Fair And The World Is Mean"
7. Gwen Sebastian "Suitcase"
8. Charlie Worsham "Could It Be"

(I like most of the Sturgill Simpson album more than that single, by the way.)

@Frank_Kogan

"Railroad of Sin" was also an official single from the Sturgill Simpson album, if that helps. I have it on my ballot.

"Borrowed" and "Gasoline and Matches" were the '13 singles from LeAnn Rimes' album, if that was to your liking.

"Borrowed" is great, but think it was released in very late '12? So, by poll's very strict rules, doesn't qualify (I did list it for '12). Frank, have you considered these, from Gary Allan's real good Set You Free?
"Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain)"
Released: September 17, 2012
"Pieces"
Released: February 25, 2013
"It Ain't the Whiskey"
Released: September 23, 2013 (my fave of these, though some album-only tracks are even better)
Also, maybe:
Dylan's "Pretty Saro"
Natalie Maines "Mother" (think it and her album will both make my ballot; ditto the Allan alb and maybe "It Ain't")

Frank, 4 of your top 5 made my ballot (which I sent yesterday.) I either never heard or barely remember your other 4.

Other singles you might consider (all of which I like, to widely varying degrees):

Regulo Caro – Empujando La Linea (El Minilic)
Lady Antebellum – Downtown
Taylor Swift – 22
Mavericks – Born to Be Blue
Pistol Annies – Hush Hush
Toby Keith – Drinks After Work
Jason Aldean – 1994
Ashley Monroe – Like A Rose
The Band Perry – Done
Gary Allan – It Ain’t the Whiskey
Kacey Musgraves – See You Again
Kacey Musgraves – Follow Your Arrow
Ashley Monroe – Weed Instead Of Roses
Chris Stapleton – What Are You Listening To?
Sheryl Crow - Easy
The Henningsens – American Beautiful
Carrie Underwood – Two Black Cadillacs
Eli Young Band – Drunk Last Night
Randy Houser – Runnin’ Outta Moonlight
Cassadee Pope - 11
Brandy Clark - Stripes
Lady Antebellum - Goodbye Town

Oops, sorry about including "Every Storm"!

Well, yeah: the Keith, Pistol Annies, Mavericks--maybe "Truck Yeah" too

love love love the toby keith single. love love the brandy clark single (but was her "what'll keep me out of heaven" not a single?). well yeah to both ashley monroes too.

if you're down with timely reissues…

https://soundcloud.com/secret-seven/blaze-foley-cold-cold-world

"Stripes" was the only official single from the Brandy Clark album; "Like a Rose" was first released last November but didn't get a video until this Spring. "You Got Me" was also officially pushed to radio, though radio didn't bite.

Thanks, everybody.

Chuck, I don't think I remember everything on my singles list either. Well, don't remember "Could It Be," and someone's asleep 10 feet away from me so I won't go immediately to YouTube and listen.

I haven't yet figured out if "See You Again" is a reissue or where it came from (seems to've been recorded several years ago). Not that I pay much attention to Geoff's strict date-of-release* rule, which is a dumb rule (P&J does much better by recommending year of impact and allowing boundary jumpers, so more accurately gauging a song's actual critic support). I don't think he strictly enforces it anyway. And a video release counts as a release.

Taylor will sometimes release the same single in more than one year, a promo download release in Year 1 and a big-splash release in Year 2.

*I told him back in '03 that the only time I worry about date of release is when I'm in jail.

"And a video release counts as a release." I mean, I count a video releases as a release. Don't know what Geoff does.

I feel fine counting Musgraves' Miley cover (presumably recorded who knows when) as this year because Rhapsody carries it only as the lead cut of a 5-song/multi-artist EP called Stars Of Montana supposedly released (or at least added for streaming) on 18 Jan 2013 (and, like you Frank if I remember right, I count lead cuts of EPs as singles by definition.)

Taylor Swift "22" came out as a single March 12, 2013, according to Wiki. (No idea whether it had charted as a download previously.)

Keith Urban "Come Back To Me" guys!! It's so haunting and still and every line is breathtaking. 'I wanna hold you but I don't wanna hold you back'. Written by Brandy Clark/Shane McAnally/Trevor Rosen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwanePAsIX0

oh wait i guess that isn't a single w/e

the label that released that compilation w/ musgraves's "see you again" cover on it (triple pop) says it was released in 2008. itunes says the same.

OK thanks. Rhapsody actually lists the label as TuneCore, whatever that is (one of my top 10 P&J singles, a Southern Soul song, has the same label listed), but I'm going to take your word for it and assume that opens up a slot on my Top 100 for something non-Musgraves. ("See You Again" didn't make my Nashville Scene ballot anyway actually.)

tunecore is the most prominent of the services that lets any artist or label self-distribute ther work to online services. it's mostly unsigned artists, but some smaller labels use it too (as well as a few bigger artists who are over the whole label thing). don't know if they have ther own label on the side. maybe some people who use them enter "tunecore" as their label 'cause they've got nothing else to put in that box.

A few more pretty-good-or-better singles I forgot to list above:

Lauren Alaina – Barefoot and Buckwild
Lee Brice - Parking Lot Party
Brandy Clark – Pray to Jesus (came out months before the album, lead cut on a 3-song, uh, TuneCore EP -- possibly a demo version)
Toby Keith – Hope On The Rocks
Mavericks – Back In Your Arms
Willie Nelson feat. Mavis Staples – Grandma’s Hands
Johnny Solinger – Rock n Roll Cowboy Man
George Strait - I Got A Car

As well as stuff already mentioned, I'm quite partial to the McAnally-penned "Fuzzy" by the Randy Rogers Band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NreVs1e4GM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_udpQffCt4Y

How do people feel about Eric Church's "The Outsiders"? AFAIK Al hates it, but that's all the talk I've seen about it.

So I relistened to Charlie Worsham's "Could It Be" and it drifted into the sunlight and off my list (though he does an okay cover of "Gangnam Style"). Working my way through your recommendations. Toby Keith sings best; Chris Stapleton sings worst but has the best song, and he'll probably get the nod for not disappointing me (in that I don't think I've heard anything else of his ever). I'll probably decide that "22" is country eligible (though it makes no effort to convince me it is). This still leaves one spot to fill, and I'll give these more of a chance. With Gary Allan I keep feeling "He's been there and done that," which I realize isn't much of an explanation for why I've gone meh on him recently, given that I regularly fall for freestyle and disco rehashes from South Korea.

Do u Spotify? I do, now that we don't have to sign in via Fecebook. I thought the same about Allan before hearing the whole album a couple times. But if you're not into albums, may not help (the whole Drinks After Work seems amazingly good so far, compared to my expectations, anyway).

The extra, self-written track on the new Keith album is pretty.

Pretty sure Stapleton is only the worst singer on those lists if you never got around to Solinger.

And Gwen Sebastian does an okay "The Fox" (as in "what does the fox say?"), actually.

And I might well not cringe at Sturgill Simpson so much if I didn't now live in Central Texas, where there is actually a "Texas country" station where every song sounds every bit as stodgy as he does. Fwiw, the one song in that style that might've made my single ballot if in fact it was a single is "Electric Bill" by Jason Boland (whose album was way too hard work to get all the way through otherwise, though I'm pretty sure I did once anyway.) Though admittedly there are plenty of songs in that style I haven't heard -- I've developed an increasingly low tolerance since moving here. (PS: I have no idea where Simpson is actually from, but judging from what I've heard he would fit right in.)

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/every-country-song-was-the-same-in-2013

Perpetua links to a Youtube mix made by an EW writer who likes Jason Isbell and Brandy Clark but mocks mainstream country cliches re trucks, dirt roads, and beer

Isbell and Clark have sung about all three, o course. Not spotting it now, but somebody on here favorably mentioned Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison's Cheater's Game---thanks so much! Lots of catchy contemplation, and it just now held its own on Spotify, even with laptop headphones vs. a very proximate boombox blasting a cathedralful of Christmas music. Also sounded real good beyond that battle, when I listened to the whole thing again. Any other album rec's? (Think I'm okay w singles).

My backhanded 800+-word defense of a few dumb (or maybe not) songs

http://www.rhapsody.com/blog/post/defending-bro-country

Thanks for that! I'll have to check out the whole Crash My Party when I have a little more time. Bryant seems like a romantic bastard, eh---and/or smart enough to know which side his beef gets the mustard on--guess some Southern boys really do learn to say "Thank you Ma'am" to Grace---judging by how truly fervent he sounds marching to "That's My Kind of Night" and getting (somewhut ride my prOny imagery at times but still sincerely) thrilled to see her drinking that "Beer In The Headlights", and gosh she can "Crash My Party" anytime, never mind another night with the boys. These are all a little too long for me, but they're not for me (anyway I'll listen more).
Lee Brice! "Ain't no party like the pre-party, And after the party is the after-party" is a true sing-along chorus, I have to give it up to that! Very cool range-wise to see it's only another song away from "I Drive Your Truck," a true fallen-bro (or maybe fallen Dad?) anthem, also very good to sing along to, for my own imaginary (much-missed) bro. The one in between is "Don't Believe Everything You Think," which is certainly good advice, even if the song itself is a corny how I met yore etc.
"Cruise (Remix" is fly when Nelly takes over, though I'm not thrilled by F-G's ownautotuned Mac and cheese. Sarah Buxton's on another track eh, I'll check 'em all.

garth brooks tributing billy joel with "allentown" and "goodnight saigon" at the kennedy center honors. kinda great.

Took me a month to catch up on year-end lists, but 2013 was a fine year in country. Stand outs for me were:

Kacey Musgraves - "Merry Go Round", "Keep It to Yourself", and "Follow Your Arrow"
Sturgill Simpson - "Life Ain't Fair and the World is Mean"
Ashley Monroe - "Like a Rose" and "Two Weeks Late"
Dean Brody feat. Lindi Ortega - "Bounty"
Brandy Clark - "Stripes"
Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison - "Leavin'"
Jason Isbell - "Elephant"
Guy Clark - "My Favorite Picture of You"
Kellie Pickler - "Buzzin'"
Pistol Annies - "Hush Hush" and "Don't Talk About Him, Tina"
The Band Perry - "DONE."
Caitlin Rose - "Only a Clown"
Patty Griffin - "Go Wherever You Wanna Go"

"Bounty" didn't get enough praise. Helluva song.

Thanks, and come on over to RC 2014 for more lists etc.