Rolling Country 2020

Just listened again, and the playing is even more intense and detailed than I remembered----"New Mission Bell" is starting to make me think of the Grateful Dead at their very best, the way it just keeps building, without going on too long.

Maddie & Tae big streaming hit "Die Froma Broken Heart" is formulaic but not in a good, catchy way. Maybe I need to listen to it again and again some more

Not being sexist, Maddie & Tae have other songs I like better.

Yeah----I've listened to The Way It Feels several times, seems pretty uneven.

Dammit---what's a good female-sung country pop album this year? A big glitzy production that doesn't suck, or not too much too often?

(Also, I'm wondering whether to check out hat-bro parody act Hot Country Knights, or whether it would just sound like more of the "real" thing)

Carly Pearce - s/t and Caylee Hammack - If It Wasn't for You

I'd be remiss if I didn't rep for the less big and less glitzy:
Katie Pruitt - Expectations
Brandy Clark - Your Life is a Record
The Secret Sisters - Saturn Return (not too poppy, not too country, but still great)

Brandy Clark’s is immaculately produced

for sure but i wouldn't call it "glitzy"

Thanks y'all, but I thought after I left my post that I should have ruled out the Carly Pearce s/t, which so far has grown on me a little, but still seems like a disappointing follow-up to Every Little Thing. And yeah, Brandy Clark, Katie Pruitt, Lori McKenna, Shelby Lynne, Gretchen Peters, all well-produced singer-songwriters (well Peters' Mickey Newbury trib can get kinda mumblecore, but it works), but yeah that's not what I'm hankering for. Thanks for reminding me of Caylee Hammack, though (spelling-wise that also reminds me that Cassadee Pope has a quarantine-recorded acoustic EP out now).

Not sure how relevant Travis Tritt is in 2020 (or if he ever was relevant since he doesn't even have an ILM thread about him), but he's currently trending on Twitter for ganging up on the libs with his pal James Wood.

Per my friend @RealJamesWoods, type #resist in your Twitter search bar. Block at least twenty of these accounts per day. We will soon make them as irrelevant as they have tried to make the rest of us.

— Travis Tritt (@Travistritt) September 5, 2020

yeah, just saw that . ugh

#resist...make them irrelevant: do they think they're blocking invaders from Twitter itself? Oh well, TT's on yon expost Hot Country Knights parody album too, so maybe he's a full-time parody now (or still? Not that familiar with his work).

he's suggesting EVERYBODY do this i guess

Anyone familiar with Billy Strings, or Circles Around The Sun? They have a single out covering All the Luck In the World by Neal Casal, which sounds pretty great. Maybe need to investigate Billy Strings further

Will check that. Thanks again for mentioning Caylee Hammack, FTNRA: If It Wasn't For You is a lot to take in, flying by, but right away, it's obvious that she doesn't need xpost glitzy production of the kind I had in mind: this is is tight, badass country pop, riding with big sister Ashley MacBryde and classmate cousin Kalie Shorr--- wants to know how to get her wings as a phoenix, and she says "shit" a lot, but always to a point: ""'m so tired of the shit I'm talkin', I just wanna be something, mean something," later she "put my plans in a box" to please the man she loved, "but it didn't mean shit, I'm a small town hypocrite," but so is he, and things are outta control, "You said you'd be runnin', runnin', runnin' this town, but you're still runnin', runnin', runnin' around," and now so is she (I think she adds that). Still later, there's a brief solo acid folk lament from the canyon, "Gold," then re-focus, back to the beat, "Spent all that money in the last two weeks, and it don't mean shit": she's "On A New Level of Life," in the sky Lord in the sky, "Champagne on the plane and I don't mind, champagne on the plane and I don't mind."

Hammack's album is a lot of fun when it works and features some good songwriting... "Looking for a Lighter" could have fit in just as well on the Brandy Clark album imo. The duet with Reba brings out the best in both of them and "Small Town Hypocrite" as you note is the definite high point.
She loses me when she goes too heavy into "NEXT ON ABC!" territory, as in "Family Tree" and "Preciatcha" but get that money i guess.

I should have mentioned "Looking for a Lighter," and Reba too. As a Southerner, Ah 'preciate "Preciatcha"---never heard that in a song before, and any such fresh turnings in presumably mainstream-aimed usage or topics are always worth a gold star or two in the Country Vacation Bible School crown. But I may get sick of it, sure, while playing this set quite a bit.

Swamp Dogg's Sorry You Couldn't Make It is a slightly, yet appropriately weirder return of Memphis-Muscle Shoals country soul, like some of the Stax Country collection. I wasn't expecting his proto-alt.r&b milestoneds like Total Destruction To Your Mind, but at first this seemed like mainly for digging the formal pleasures of vintage style, incl. this version of "Don't Take Her (She's All I Got)," which he co-wrote with Gary US Bonds; it was a Johnny Paycheck hit in the early 70s---main prob on these first tracks is mild-mannered vocals, settling down into the ballads for a snooze (although got some lines, like "Good, Better, Best" keeps sounding like "good, better in bed,"which fits the context better, and might grow on me)---then he picks up the tempo with "Family Pain" ( houseful staying together, "smokin' crack and doin' cocaine"), and when he slow it back down for "I Lie Awake," his voice is still awake and then some: this is true country soul, Doggedly climbing Insomnia Mountain in compulsive country self-torture---Otis Redding and George Jones could sing the shit out of it, but Dogg does it fine.
"Memories," featuring John Prine, is where the appropriate weirdness first appears (I think), with Doggtronics swirling around Prine's jaunty heels (as he repeats the chorus again and again, like old folks sometimes do), even distorting his voice towards the end, like memories sometimes do.
"Billy" I'd seen referred to as a tearjerker, but differently interesting than expected: he's got nice musical flowers, but "The neighbors think I'm crazy," so apparently not a normie gravesite? "You should see Billy, he looks just like you, he doesn't remember you, but I guess that's just as well." Like with Opie's Mom? Memories can be too paniful, I reckon--anyway it leaves a few more little such gaps to fill in, not overselling.
Rude retinue of soundz around the edges of "I'd Rather Be Your Used To Be," which is otherwise vintage Willie-style graceful indignation, but maybe louder.
"A Good Song" ("has universal appeal"), then back to riding the swirl with Prine, for "Please Let Me Go Round Again," where they agree that, "I could build a better mousetrap, from a far mo'better plan." "Hey John, could you build a better mousetrap?" "I gotta better mousetrap right here in my mind!" Also wonders if Somebody might put them on a 2-for-1 plan.

i like the new carly pearce single quite a bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRvs_oqQQHQ

Holy Moly---some ads in here, but worth the scroll (will have to check her EP, comes out Friday): https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/mickey-guyton-what-are-you-gonna-tell-her-black-like-me/2020/09/07/9dd5ee20-f11d-11ea-999c-67ff7bf6a9d2_story.html

guyton is a solid vocalist and songwriter but "black like me" has entirely too much incremental progressiveness and syrup for my ears... maybe that's the most the contemporary country audience can handle? I'm still hopefully waiting for her breakout moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-vsF0sHVRA
solid AM country in 2020!

that morgan wallen song is great

right? i tend to not be a fan of the sweet nashville sound but somehow dude's growling voice nicely offsets the treacle.

The Zephaniah OHora album is really superb. Band is so tight and better singing than the first one.

love the metaphor work in these lyrics:

Lauren Alaina - If I Was A Beer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8FaU2WGazY

I like Elizabeth Cook's new one. She finally escaped Nashville gravity, suited up like Bowie in the empty spaces of our great country. https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/features/article/21143243/elizabeth-cook-takes-country-music-as-her-subject-on-aftermath

Guyton's "Bridges" seems pretty solid if entirely too diplofied pop country for my taste. Could see it crossing over though!

Hammack's album is a lot of fun when it works and features some good songwriting... "Looking for a Lighter" could have fit in just as well on the Brandy Clark album imo.

Really good song... she reminds me of Amanda Shires a little bit.

Btw – per dow’s request above, I’d also appreciate recs of big, glitzy pop-country (assume that Maren Morris’s “80s Mercedes” is my favorite country single of recent years, and go from there). Thx!

This in today from New West:

Steve Earle & the Dukes announced today that they will be recording an album of songs written by Justin Townes Earle with 100% of artist advances and royalties going to a trust for Justin's daughter, Etta St. James Earle. It is expected that the album will be recorded in October and released in January, 2021, around the time of what would have been Justin's thirty-ninth birthday. More details to be announced shortly.

fuck...just, fuck.

man

Sorry to bum yall out---here's something that might reverse the trend temporarily: this morning, Fresh Air is replaying the 2014 interview with Marty Stuart, who sings and tells some great stories---stream/download: https://www.npr.org/2014/10/01/352991803/marty-stuart-country-musics-historian-goes-to-church

Which reminds me of this exchange on Rolling Country 2018:

roger mcguinn, chris hillman and marty stuart & his fabulous superlatives, sweetheart of the rodeo full album show, los angeles, tuesday night. opening night of a short-ish tour. it was ragged, loose, occasionally awkward and more than occasionally great. they did one set of truncated versions of hits and deep cuts, and then the sweetheart of the rodeo set, played in full but out of order. i got the sense that stuart and the superlatives rehearsed thoroughly on their own and mcguinn and hillman maybe not so much. they missed cues left and right, were looking down frequently for chords and lyrics, and while hillman's voice was in good form, mcguinn was having a little trouble cutting through. but their instincts for harmony are still dead-on, and stuart fit right into that. i felt like i was watching a band still working out its sound, and as a result, when something gelled, when they hit a sweet spot, it was magical. like watching a band discover itself in real time. and that second set was way better than the first. it felt like having a piece of my own dna read back to me. maybe they felt the same.

encore: two byrds classics and three tom petty classics. i was wondering if maybe they would be able to coax david crosby (who i assume still lives here though i have no idea) onto the stage for a song or two. instead we got mike campbell, who joined for "american girl" -- after which they kicked him off and, strangely, played more petty songs without him. marty stuart did a bluegrassy take on "runnin' down a dream" (thumbs up) and hillman did a fairly faithful "wildflowers," which apparently petty produced for him for an album he put out last year.

they also told some stories. they're not particularly good storytellers. damn those harmonies though.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, July 25, 2018 9:08 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was already hoping for an album from that tour, even more while reading your dispatch. Marty and His FS have the drive and expertise to keep those geezers functioning onstage for as long as possible.
Yeah, Hillman's always seemed better in bands, all the way back to the Hillmen, but the Petty=produced set has keepers; my comments from the most recent Nashville Scene ballot:
"Have not yet made it through Chris Hillman's The Asylum Years---some hideous harmonies get wasted on the way---but will give it another shot. Some nice tracks on the new Bidin’ My Time, especially "Walk Right Back," one of the many under-covered Everly Bros worthies, seeds of West Coast country rock at its best (he credits inclusion of this song to producer Tom Petty, who did what he could all over--Hillman's not the strongest solo artist among his peers, but has his moments, when the setting's just right, or just about). McGuinn and The Croz show up; some Heartbreakers, still radio-ready, also appear."

― dow, Wednesday, July 25, 2018 9:43 PM

Mickey Guyton did an amazing performance of “What Are You Going To Tell Her” on the ACM Awards last night

https://youtu.be/TcBwsOPmNLA

Surprise new Tyler Childers album https://pitchfork.com/news/tyler-childers-surprise-releases-new-album-long-violent-history-listen/

Good on Childers for that. Gonna cost him some fans ... which is fine, of course.

that last song is powerful damn

Video is great. Song is great. Good on him. Twitter comments are predictably awful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ3_AJ5Ysx0

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/victoria-bailey-jesus-red-wine-and-patsy-cline.jpg

Digging this today. Makes me think of Like a Rose. More honky tonk though.

I've held off on reading Edd's xpost Elizabeth Cook coverage, not wanting to be influenced while trying to wrap my own ears and brain around Aftermath, which I *think* I'm getting/is blowing mah mahnd: right off, and the more I listen, it sounds like de- and reconstructed (might be some historical irony in there) country, the keyword being "country"---her voice: accent, timbre, phrasing, also phrasing of countriod words, themes, narrative, along with elements of tune and instrumentation---all getting the sonic patent medicine treatments---Hank and co. back on the Hadacol Express, comin' round the mountain ("They'll all come to see her when she comes"? Cook sings something like that), via some kind of style-associative space-time warp/refraction (A Wrinkle In Time, minus L'Engle's Granny Jesus kisses *maybe*, although we do get something of a John Prine homage-answer-companion-song at the end, great bent ten cent stor paper valentine).
Edd mentions Bowie in his post of the link upthread, yeah, could see that, like Bowie cutting up the 70s and some of his favorite sounds---also Sturgill, especially on Sound and Fury, with his own unmistakably country voice and 'tude, bringing a "vintage" sound that never quite was, an alt.universe electro-pop-boogie express that I tagged ZZ Rex when it passed through here last year.
And if Aftermath is Bowieod futuristic, a future that never quite was, tapped for its kozmik sexy space suit flotation appeal, as he did it, why not now, when we know, as Bowie said, yet more than ever, that whatever future there will be, won't be this cool, for the most part, if any. Suspect Cook's got that in there too, one way or another.

Of course country, born as a genre in the 1920s, has traditionally had to respond to the existence of other genres, either making room for/re-adjusting elements of those, or making them conspicuous absences---meaning, you know, pop country, and the kind more likely favored by No Dep, and the kind that plays county fairs and cover-song bars etc. These Cook and Simpson albums are good examples of how to do it, how to make use of rock etc.--not the only way, but good--unlike most of That's How Fleetwood Mac and 70s Third Tier Top 40 Rumours Get Started, which works sometimes, but bad on you for producing, Sturgill, even if you were just doing what she wanted.

childers seems like a decent, thoughtful guy; that video essay is good stuff. i gotta give that album a listen.

yeah, the Childers album is great. I was unfamiliar with this guy; is his earlier work worth checking out as well?

Yeah, he won me over last year, still need to re-check his earlier stuff.
From my 2019 Nashville Scene ballot:
COMMENTS:
Top Ten Country Albums
I had the blurry, ancient impression of Tyler Childers as sounding like an (alternate-universe) Sturgis Mini-Me, humble and homespun in the way SS never was, not on this side of the line---unless you count the way he gave up on them voices in his head,"ain't got nothin' to say," but he soon lit for the territory. On Country Squire, Childers is never that resigned, or that bold, just insecure, without whinin'---full-throated even when high lonesome---and he seizes on the good times like he does the bad, knowing it could all blow up, will turn again---oh well, "Honey don't cry, you're married to a Gemini"---and even the fella who "guards the rusty missiles" tonight like he does every night, daydreaming of rustic weekend adventures, sounds like he's 'bout to fiddle-waltz over the mountain, even though he must be down below the holler, also way out West of it, unless there's something our Government never told us.
Keep trying to keep up with the words, and catching more bits every time I listen---he's playing down at the bar every night, "turnin' songs into 2 by 4s": first I thought he meant he was making them very functional, down to the essentials, but come to think of it a 2-by-4 is a humble thang: is this bar gig reductive? But he's always resourceful, and diligent: The Country Squire is an ancient camper, the basis of "a temple" for his loved one---putting up "rafters" in a camper?? I know about making trailers into ex-mobile homes, building all around those tin walls, but---anyway the music is very solid and mobile, with enough variety and continuity to pull me along, in a plausible, not-quite-"universal" way, like the words "House on Fire" has an organ burning through, around and with string band instrumentation, "All Your'n" is the most Sturgill-esque in terms of early 70s R&B crossover appeal, yet country as its title, and overall there's a good balance of acoustic and electric, incl. choice and placement of microphones.
9 songs, 35 minutes, and I've listened four more times in the last couple of days--could prob listen that many times a row.

Absolutely. Start with Purgatory.

Country Squire still sounds good.

Cool, i'll get through the new one and start exploring.

Yeah, you've probably learned this by now but the new album isn't really representative of his established sound. Purgatory and Country Squire are both pure, near-perfect country music ... if country music had stayed in Appalachia and never moved to Nashville.

He also has *a lot* more fans than most people realize, I think.