Rolling Country 2013

There's a "Blues You're A Buzzkill" song on the next Pistol Annies album, too -- Must be country's new buzzword. Anyway, that Bryan song didn't kill me, but maybe it'll grow on me. Here's what I briefly wrote about his new album a couple weeks ago, when Rhapsody's usual country critic was on vacation. (Usually I stick to metal for them these days):

http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/luke-bryan/album/spring-breakhere-to-party

Sons of Fathers: harmonizing semi-acoustic country rockers, or at least unexpectedly robust in this video (on headphones anyway)
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-615/1554276/sons-of-fathers-roots-and-vine-exclusive-video-premiere

Kind of surprised how lovely the Holly Williams album is. Are we supposed to not like her?

Will check it out; heard her early stuff, which was good, though seemed more folkie than country, in a mellow, rueful way---relatively recent performance on (I think) The Tonight Show was tougher, sharper (good with her band). Several albums on her MySpace, where I just now finally listened to the new Ashley Monroe. Can see how xgau wandered into the weeds with this'un, mumbling about co-writes. There is something maybe a little mediated, a tad distanced, somewhut writerly 'bout it, allowing, sometimes inviting more contemplation or wandering than putting actual sonic experience up front. The opening title track does this well, writing-wise: she's sitting in a diner, musing over sad beginnings, but instead of just confirming all this with a sad present tense, she comes out of it all "like a rose"--not smelling like, nothing so triumphant, but we're quietly invited to consider: nice smell, purty flower, goes away in the winter (or does it? see Emmylou's Roses In The Snow), got thorns, can be cut, have its petals scattered, or presented in very meaningful ways, like with dung coating, aflame etc. Very cool, although the music melts away. "Two Weeks Late" and "Weed Not Roses" come off more like reviewer-bait, or too conceptual here, although the trad update does work for "You Ain't Dolly/You Ain't Porter." Hell, I'm carping: most of the tracks do grab me right off, they just don't take me that much further--although "Used" does, as she starts rushing the beat and/or cramming more words in: she's used, sure, but take a chance on her baby, some things get better with--don't call it age, just listen to her saga. "The Morning After" is the one to reach a peak early and keep me there, as her voice hovers--yeah, I'm carping; most of it's good, but she needs more than seven (out of nine total) tracks to wow me, with this overall so tasteful, perfectly reasonable spproach. Not that I should expect a 26-year-old pro to channel the prodigious ghost town waif-with-questor/stalker-tendencies of the ironically titled Satisfied. But for all its suit-imposed stumbling blocks, that still seems like a more compelling set, so far. Although I do like most of this (which will prob grow on me). and looking fwd to whatever she brings to the new Pistol Annies. Also, she's a way more dependable writer than Musgraves (gasp!).

"Like A Rose": we're invited to fill in the blanks, that is. Who does this? Miles Davis etc, but who now. Thanks Ashley.

Been listening to the Kacey record--so far, I'm underwhelmed more than I'm impressed, but I do think she can write...words, the music isn't doing it for me. Just got the new Paisley in the mail, haven't spun it yet. I'm working on my country column for the Scene, and hope to have it up and running pretty soon.

Xhuxk mentioned Caitlin Rose: "Nate Cavalieri on spin.com also gave Caitlin Rose's new album 9 out of 10 last week, by the way, which really surprised me, since when I'd just listened to it and wrote up something short on it for Rhapsody, it barely held my attention at all. I'm told she has a bit of a critical following in the U.K.; no idea why."

She's always been a cause celebre in the U.K. Because the English are convinced they know what country music is, perhaps? And Rose represents what they think is "countrypolitan." Maybe there is some kind of connection, but countrypolitan was generally not so tasteful, was it? Super-schlock. And Rose is just too polite to traffic in anything so potentially dirty.

I've followed her since her first EP, seen her play around town. What I kinda can't get is why anyone would think she sings country--as Xhuxk points out in his review, it's pure indie, she don't put out vocally like a real country singer would, seems to me. I think she sounds like the Roches or someone like that, and if she were as good as, say, the McGarrigle Sisters, I'd be able to listen to her. Or Bonnie Koloc or any number of folkies. She's also a local hero in town--I just find it pale and wan myself.

Musgraves' "Stupid" has to be my favorite track on the new album, though--words match music, such as it is, and it does communicate stupid effectively. I also am interested in the backing vocal commentary technique on the record, and the whistling on "Follow Your Arrow" is a nice touch. Her songs don't provide any contrast in the verse-chorus way, seems to me, they're perhaps too straight and that's OK if that's what you're into. As a technique, quite savvy and appropriate. To my ears, the banjo shit she includes is also nicely doleful, the outward sign of some kind of muffled ambition and provincial greyness that the whole record follows to its logical conclusion. Perhaps the way she shuffles cliches in "Silver Lining" is symptomatic of some kind of fatigue--"hoo hoo hoo, ooh-ooh," in that song, says more to me than all the words previous. Irony. I hear the record as ready-mades done with deliberate fatigue, all tired out. The ricky-tick chord changes in "My House"--the one that accompanies the "chorus" bit when she sings the words "electric" and "wagon" bothers my ear every time I hear it, there's just something uncommitted about it--are a nice change and I like the deadpan way she sings it and the way everything drops out before the very end. Some kind of new minimalist country, and what I'm taking away from it, apart from the words, which are good, is a kind of ambivalence in the music itself, as if she is inhabiting two distinct worlds--one where stuff develops and has shadows and shading, as in the chord changes of "Merry Go Round," the other where it's pure stasis. So maybe she's some kind of genius after all.

The difference between Kacey and Caitlin Rose is the difference between someone actually trying to express some kind of alienation or disquiet, by holding back, and someone simulating emotion via all the slide guitar and organ parts and tricky little bridges--the very things I was saying Musgraves' record lacks--without having anything much to say, unless you think songs about how playing a particular record equals emotion equals emotion itself. Rose never gives me the feeling of truly letting go--her throaty voice stops short of cutting through the instrumentation. So here's maybe a good example of the limits of formalism and musical knowledge itself, both of which I'm a fan of in the right context--"Pink Champagne" has some real nice shit in it, harmonic structure that is elegant and even sophisticated, but it's not only less interesting than the work of someone who really knows how to manipulate those augmented chords and so forth, like Judee Sill or the McGarrigles or Randy Newman, it's far less interesting than Musgraves, and far less in the true line of country music, no matter how much people want to say it's a modern version of countrypolitan...I mean, Mandy Barnett is a formalist in her Owen Bradley mode, but even she sings full-out in her most formalist moments.

if rose weren't from nashville and didn't have some pedal steel, wouldn't 'americana' (or just plain rock, or indie) be a better fit? there was a ton of her sort of sound in the 'americana' bin at my old college radio station.

i'm still in love with 'stupid'. the notes edd picks up on (tired out, muffled ambition, provincial grayness, etc.) seem like the main point of the whole album to me. and generally the songs read like admissions, whereas e.g. ashley monroe's 'weed not roses' somehow sounds like it's performing fuck-decency debauchery, perhaps aware (perhaps not) of how tired and joyless its catalogue of let-loose behaviors and props sounds (not just, let's get wasted and let loose, but a square / provincial idea of what that entails: let's just do it all at once, get drunk high cuffed to the bed etc.) and perhaps not canny enough to capitalize on that suggestion of joylessness to make it amount to some kind of admission that a relationship in need of that particular way of letting loose, imagined with that sort of excess, might not be repairable or even made more bearable by the debauch. in musgraves i get more notes that are like: what use is there in pretending things aren't how they are?

yes, if she'd really delved into muffled ambition, growth vs stasis as Edd puts it, mixed motivations, coming from a depressive background---she gets some mileage out of all that, and could turn out to be her great subject, but meanwhile, like xgau says, I get tired of those shine-it-on homilies, and "playing it safe." Another uneven album that could've been a strong EP (sure are a lot of those), especially if she'd bothered to include "Undermine", but maybe that was somehow too competitive with the Nashville soundtrack version (or she didn't wanta invite comparisons with that album and this).

And now, time for something suffiecently different: the mind-mine-meld of two old hippies, male. Todd Snider's Time Itself: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker, now playing at Snider's MySpace, like most of his other albums. Starts out calmly receciting his parents' warnings about going nowhere with that no-count guitar, and then musically refutes them, not with a merry axe, but a genially robust honky tonk/cathouse piano, which he can well afford to hire. In the same sociable way, he gives an anti-pity party for his brand new ex, advising her to get real about always picking men (pickers or not) who are bound to leave soon. It doesn't come off like sexist self-justifcation here, because he seems disarmingly evenhanded about it, and because I had to admit I was picking women who were bound to leave--once I did that, and learned to pick women who knew they were picking men like that, cool, back in the day, and these of course are back in the say songs. Also, other songs extend his candor to his own reckless tendencies, incl, sometimes, candor, incl not only tomcatting and substance abuse, but even musical slacking, which didn't always need pointing out in Walker's original tracks, but as he reminded us, "Just be glad you don't have to hear/The take after this." Not too much reliance on nudge-nudge-wink-wink in the delivery of Snider's own tightly loose/loosely tight crew, although "Sangria Wine" should not be 4'50", and there are few takes/song selections I could do without. But overall, pretty good.

"Stupid" inspired good writing here! It's my favorite track.

As for Monroe the final track is too arch for mh taste; neither Shelton nor Monroe sound particularly ivested in history.

maybe that's deliberate? it's about karaoke contenders, more hollow-bodied than Dolly/shorter than Porter, they know enough enough history to trade those musical zings, which have their own history amidst the hits (which will prob not be joined by this track)

my fave two songs so far on kacey musgrave's album are "keep it to yourself," which strikes me as a pointed rebuke to the booty-call fantasy of lady antebellum's "need you now," and "it is what it is," which de-romanticizes the same booty-call fantasy in a very different way, saying basically "come on, let's do it, but don't get your hopes up, dude."

yeah, great closer, especially.

Her functional voice works in that context.

my favorite track on the kacey musgraves record is probably the weakest lyrically, "back on the map," but i'd say it's another instance of "words match music"—it's got this lovely drifting quality, and the lyrics lack the detail of the rest of the record because there is no detail to pin.

she could have titled the album Famous in a Small Town.

Boy, I am sure glad I weighed in on Musgraves' and Monroe's albums early; if I'd waited, I'd be too overwhelmed by everybody else's opinions by now to come up with one of my own. That said, this is an interesting discussion -- I'd been thinking since I first heard the thing that the (comparatively) weaker part of the Musgraves would've been the middle section (more or less tracks 6 through 10), so I didn't expect people would be singling those out as their favorites. Also don't get preferring Monroe's slower/quieter songs to "Weed Instead of Roses" or the Blake Shelton cover (the latter of which, by the way, hadn't been added yet back when I got my advance CD -- so it sort of was an EP at first, almost.) But then, I wouldn't -- ballads almost always take longer to really sink in for me. (These are still my two favorite albums so far this year, though -- no more uneven than any others I've heard, and I've heard plenty. Including, yeah, Pistol Annies.)

the other thing about "it is what it is" is it's such a dead-ringer for a rayna jaymes song i'm surprised i haven't heard her sing it yet.

xp Blake Shelton duet I obviously mean. (And obviously preferring that cornball thing to her slow ones just means I'm opting for energy over emotion as usual. Or comedy over tragedy. But again, I do realize that emotion/tragedy is frequently better at long distances, even when the fun stuff wins the sprints. So we'll see.)

The duet is fun! Are there any references to The Voice that I missed? Hope so; talent shows are still an underexploited subject. Would be great to have some of the Nashville kiddies get herded onto to such a show-within-the-show by some of those biz savants (incl. Rayna, now that she's signing 'em to her very own new label)

Guess I should also point out that Monroe's "Used" has already had seven years to sink in for me. Which probably qualifies as long distance. I like it fine, but if it hasn't killed me by now, it probably ain't gonna.

I haven't heard any killer country this year---but I still need to check out the Mavericks, eh?

If it's on a major, that may well be the only unsolicited major label country CD I've received since your Voice editorship, xhuxk---one of the many things I took for granted.

The Mavericks album is so much fun.

this needs to be emphasized

my favorite track on the kacey musgraves record is probably the weakest lyrically, "back on the map"

Funny, but I find "Back on the Map" to have the strongest lyrics on the album.

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"my favorite track on the kacey musgraves record is probably the weakest lyrically, "back on the map," but i'd say it's another instance of "words match music"—it's got this lovely drifting quality, and the lyrics lack the detail of the rest of the record because there is no detail to pin."

yeah, on Kacey, the banjo is really a depressed banjo part in "Back." Also notice the way the drums start to skip unsteadily when she sings the line about something steady. she's got this built-in response--it's obviously a song about stardom--to her commentary on how fame leaves you behind. "Keep It to Yourself" is banal compared to this. For all the record's angst, I like "My House" because it's a distanced take on those old country tunes like "Milwaukee, Here I Come" or those duet tunes where the duet partners would go from city to city in their old cars and live on love. She may just have an innate sense of the way the chord changes meet your expectations in this one, but even here, it's just a bit compressed, tense, somehow. All so simple, a little chug-a-lug at the end.

I thought my favorite, Dandelion, was the weakest Lyrically!

I know this isn't by any of the big hitters on this thread so far, but I think it's pretty hard to ignore the excellence of the new Terry Allen record "Bottom of the World." He's a semi-legend, but unlike many semi-legends he's far from boring; his voice ain't purty or nothing but songs like "Emergency Human Blood Courier" and "Hold On to the House" are like poking the open wound of America with a sharp stick.

OH SHIT of course DOW already covered this, sorry dude

I'm a Lubbock (On Everything) fan in long, long, long standing (esp. "Truckload Of Art" and "F.F.A.") even if I stupidly sold my copy back in the late '80s, but I'm sad to say I couldn't get half through that new Terry Allen album -- Just felt painful to listen to, though the title track didn't seem awful. (Fun fact: His 1983 -- thought it was a year later actually -- album Bloodlines was the first album I ever reviewed for the Boston Phoenix, who I freelanced for through the rest of the '80s. I didn't like that one much either.)

In other news, I'm going to go against the grain here (unprecedented!) and confess that I actually think "Back On The Map" has easily the dullest, most lifeless music on Musgraves' album. Which isn't to say it's necessarily my least favorite track -- feel like there's something going on there, in the lyrics and otherwise, which Edd and others do a yeoman's job explaining above. Just really wish it had a hook or two, so it wasn't so damn much work.

Curious if anybody here has heard the new Blake Shelton or Band Perry albums. I didn't, yet, though I've seen them getting some good notices.

Less crankily, the two alt-country/Americana-ish albums I do kind of like lately are these:

Shinyribs – Gulf Coast Museum (Nine Mile) -- he's in the Gourds, who've never done a thing for me, oddly enough, though I actually liked his previous album Well After Awhile a couple years back too. Leans toward the, uh, Dr. John/Little Feat/Hirth Martinez end of country, I guess. And this time he covers Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes.

Maggie Rose – Cut To Impress (RPM Entertainment) - Kind of a blues-belting Lacy J. Dalton type badass country-rock gal. Two songs about murders: "Preacher's Daughter" and "Looking Back Now." Also like "Hollywood," which draws not always trustworthy but halfway entertaining parallels between living amidst California glitz and living in a Southern hicktown, claiming they're not so different after all.

New Jason Boland and the Stragglers album, produced by Shooter Jennings (don't have the name handy -- my copy's in the car gathering pollen dust) seemed to have lots of history lessons on it. So maybe he watches the History Channel a lot. Some seemed theoretically potentially interesting too, but so far the music isn't interesting enough to make me care.

Heard on the radio here this week that Dale Watson wants to start calling his music "Ameripolitan" from now on. He says Nashville has co-opted "country," so he can't be that anymore, and "Americana" is too rock these days (which is news to me actually). So he came up with an even dumber name, I guess. Apparently there is a radio show involved too, somehow, but I've been too bored by him in recent years to investigate further.

The Blake Shelton album sounds EXACTLY like you think it would, no matter who you are. It's got some good stuff and some stuff that doesn't work and lots of energy but maybe not enough and some pretty parts but then they get boring. Most memorable thing is the song about his Grandpa's Gun, which is for shootin' and worshippin' and suchlike. Hmmm.

Actually I just remembered that I (mini)-reviewed a different Terry Allen album that I like (and still own) -- plus Cracker covering his best song -- for the Voice 10 years ago:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-08-26/music/music/full/

See, I don't mind the fact that Terry Allen can't really sing -- his songs still work for me, plinky-plonky piano and all. (NB: I also like Waylon Jennings, even though he often cannot sing either, but I draw the line at Kris Kristofferson, because ugh.) I decided a few years ago that <i>Juarez</i> is the greatest American concept album, and I'm still gonna stand by that.

I still haven't heard the new Allen (or either of yall's faves), just the live broad linked upthread, w some of the new songs. Forgot to check the one you reviewed there, xhuxk, but that's an intriguing description. Yeah, liked Cracker's Countrysides too, especially their non-campy cover of "Sinaloa Cowboys", about drugs and brothers; it's one of Springsteen's best musical mini-movies.

Inviting description of Juarez too; must get that and Lubbock (On Everything). The best really out-there Texas album I've heard is Jo Carol Pierce's Bad Girls Upset By The Truth. (although I'd also count one by the Mountain Goats, blanking on the title--they were just visiting, but they really got it).

I'm a Lubbock (On Everything) fan in long, long, long standing ― xhuxk

Didn't know Terry Allen had a new release out; thanks

Country loving folks should not ignore the new album by Mexican band The Bright (not really a very Googlable name, ustedes). It's called Estados; it's on Spotify and maybe some other places too. Very country-psych, and includes a lovely cover of "Jolene."

What does everyone else think of the new Brad Paisley song with LL Cool J? I think it starts off OK, but LL's verse sinks it. Plus, when they start the choral part I just think it's a rehash of his last single, where they started singing "Dixie."

I hate that "Dixie" chorus so much.

I hope I'm wrong but the first third of Wheelhouse is the dullest music Paisley's recorded in years.

I have been way too afraid of that song to come anywhere near it. Still trying to hold desperately to my LL fandom but dude is making it VERY difficult (for about 15 years now).

He's good on NCIS:Los Angeles Keeping it country, Kimberly Williams-Paisley is good as important minor (?) character on Nashville.

I knew it--"Those Crazy Christians" had to end up twisting the knife on the guy singing. Those crazy Christians are instead of being outside on a nice day are at the bedside of a dying friend, and, also, "What if they're wrong/right" line in there. Nice sound actuality of a church service in there. Paisley's Wheelhouse has some fun. vocal things at the first of "Beat This Summer" (the fun. vocal things happen again in the record). Glitch-country-rock-banjo thing at the beginning and throughout.

"Outstanding in Our Field" has a Roger Miller sample and a rock 'n' roll guitar lick. lines about Clara Belle and the cafe and the carwashing and the keg. "I Can't Change the World" finds Brad flipping channels while his wife is fixing a brick wall in the back yard. They kind of ripped off "Across the Universe" kind of extended-phrasing thing on the chorus--but he can change her world, just after she mixes up the Quik-Krete and makes dinner. Jesus will look down from the same level as the powers that be.

I do kinda like the electro-beat and mock-classical electric lick and the way the program music mimics the tension of the song, of "Karate." But here's an example of what's wrong with this record--OK, now would a guy really be "chasing" "Cuervo" and "Tecate" in a bar or is this a clumsy way of saying he's fucking around? No, he's really drunk and knocks her around. And wait, Charlie Daniels comes uneasy riding into the song. So it's a joke song about domestic abuse, fair enough, it's basically a comic universe...?

"Southern Comfort Zone" just also seems under-imagined to me. Paisley/DuBois/Lovelace call the South "the land of cotton" which is the wheelhouse of the title, "Dixie" is heard, Grand Ole Opry ads, and it's kind of like a bright tenth-grader creating his own Pro Tooled song at home about Southern Heritage, but tweaked by professionals, as in the chorus, which is about the only good thing about the song. The stealings from U2 or whoever are interesting. And "Harvey Bodine," Paisley/DuBois/Lovelace again, is another comic tune about dying, with whistles, and a defib machine, and I think you could maybe hear how the thing is just spoiled by what I perceive is an uncertainty of tone that pervades the whole album, and I'm sure that Paisley/DuBois/Lovelace had the idea of couching "Harvey" in terms of a Monty Python sketch. Taken piece by piece, some of this works, but the combination of whimsy and kitsch emotion is pretty hard for me to take. "Tin Can on a String" really isn't bad, Paisley/Ashley Gorley/Lovelace, pretty straight.

In my "Southern Comfort Zone" blurb a few months ago I noted that the strain of reaching different audiences finally showed. I'm thinking whether it belongs on the album; instead, it serves as bookends.

I started a thread. Figure he needs his own by now: Anticipate Brad Paisley's "Wheelhouse"

Right after Paisley I put on Jonnny Fritz' Dad Country, at basically the other technological extreme from Paisley. I'd say as a combination of Tom T. Hall and Michael Hurley or whatever, Fritz/nee Corndawg has something about 30% of time time on this record. As a singer, he's lousy, but bravely makes it halfway work a lot, I give him credit for that, and in "Goodbye Summer" he asks the Older Lady he's just picked up to "swing by a CVS, I left my contact solution at home." In "Ain't It Your Birthday" he drives 250 miles in the middle of the night to see his ex and their kids, but she blocks the driveway, which prompts Fritz to meditate on stardom and "all the money they're trying to give me just so sign a couple compact discs." And "Suck in Your Gut" takes a realistic look at the mini-stardom Fritz has presumably enjoyed.

Sometimes the quick little half-assed country tunes he's lifted from wherever work, sometimes his singing is truly funny, and I think he's kinda funny, really. He's trying really hard to be casual and I give him credit for that concept, but he's no Michael Hurley or Hall or Jack Clement or Billy Swan--all his grandaddys, none of whom would have necessarily sung in public about going down there "where her belly ends and her legs begin," altho the bit about her "writing down her numbers on the wrappers of their Almond Joys [truckers she meets that is]" is good. I give it a B minus.