Rolling Country 2023

The Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson collab album is fantastic. At the risk of picking a scab, I'll say I actually like it more than the Shires solo album from last year.

I adore Brandy Clark and thought the individual songs were all very good, but the whole of her album in its entirety was just a chore to listen to. The pairing with Carlile seemed to rob her of her wittiness. The second Carlile - Tanya Tucker album, though, is one of the best of the year so far.

do y'all have any label Bandcamps you keep an eye on for country releases? i know New West and Rounder are on there ... not sure about other stuff, either "bigger" than those or small labels that focus on country music.

I adore Brandy Clark and thought the individual songs were all very good, but the whole of her album in its entirety was just a chore to listen to.

Even the songs are a chore to listen to.

Haven't listened yet---I thought some of her earl tracks were overworkshopped, self-conscious, but really enjoyed Your Life Is A Record.

And the reason I haven't listened yet is that I'm still, believe it or not, doing a round-up of re-re-etc.-listening objects for a blogpost about the music of 2022. There are just a few sticking points left, with Lainey Wilson's Bell Bottom Country somewhut unexpectedly among same. It had taken several listens to reach a peak of enthusiasm---seemed too contrived, and also I belatedly discovered that increased volume revealed more conviction in tone and details---but I assumed that I had gotten it, and could come back to said peak several months later: no. Same process, same learning curve, all over again, even though it seemed reasonably loud at first---it's not all about the volume, this elusively problematic aspect, but for sure, if you want your sensitive arena rock country, you gotta be ready with the volume (to ride it back a little for the double-tracked armor or scar tissue, a signifying part of the looking back in candor in the finely written "Watermelon Moonshine,"but still a little too loud), ready, often enough, to throw your headphones into the maelstrom ov fun like she does her head on "This One's Gonna Cost Me," title and chorus of which become this album's thee most explicit expression of her exciting dynamic: persistent self-image of a good girl, raised right, looking for love and self-empowerment, who rat now wants to have a good good good time.
Here we have a recurring sort of Zep-hop beat at its heartiest, swaying that big horned head one more time, but now it also occurs to me that producer Jay Joyce also appreciates Led Z.'s mix of the heavy and brash with the fingerpicking side of life, and Wilson responds, going barefoot down a b-melody line to the ripples of Molly Tuttle's banjo, or for that matter under an intro of what sounds like some kind of mellotron-banjo.

(Joyce's only misfire: "Wildflowers and Wild Horses" starts with a mysterioso Lee Hazlewoodesque instrumental scrim, but then turns Lainey loose to gallop through big loud bravura rhetoric, losing Lee's control and tension.)
Beats vary, but clock gentle intensity in ballads, like when she credibly salutes "Daddy's Boots," with a bit of atypical toe-tapping added, then strips away the usual roots-view to "Momma's crazy and Daddy's mean," when it's down to "Me, You and Jesus" getting through: "Me" first, part of the candor again, "Jesus" the only mention, that's how young and desperate she is in this flashback, "You" can be anybody she trusts, trying to hold on to this isolated, shared undercurrent of faith and hope and getting by is the point, and not so loudly that Momma and Daddy will hear.
Followed immediately by "Hold My Halo," cause cuz she's paid her Dew Drop Inn dues, gonna ride that electric bull one more time tonight. See there always has to be a justification, which could get annoying in the uniquely narrowcast "Weak-End" (yes we know you're lookin' for love, but that's not all, not in them places), if not for distraction of the gently antsy beat), with need for alibi and recreational therapy at its funniest and near-rowdiest in "Smell Like Smoke" ("It's cause Ah been, through, Hellll.")
Wiki sez that one was "tacked on" to streams and downloads: too bad for CD and LP buyers, because it and the other tackee, "New Friends," are antipodal highlights. After the 4-Non-Blondes cover--where she conscientiously delivers teeming verbosity rushing to the accidental but still stupid comedy of anticlimatic "Whut's going on?"---Wilson returns to the vibrant twilight of "You, Me and Jesus," now resolving to find new friends, rather than just moping over that guy---atta girl, as she says in song of that title, also a gentle one, though given the louder ones, one might wonder just what kind of friends. TBA.

A retraction, and apology for my disgraceland display of effusion for xpost American Heartbreak: I now find myself unable to continue past track 10 or so, what with Zach B's abject drops of remorse and desire and insight and obsession with self and other continuously and monotonously sliding off the Mellenplate---the Mellentemplate leaned on by so many raspy bluejean-jacketed young and not so young men of country for the past 20 years, at least. Not that the Coug himself wouldn't do his damndest to build a listenable record around such inclinations. I mean, good luck with patching yourself back together, ZB, but if you want musicmaking as therapy, maybe get with Mary Gauthier, who has all that experience writing with war vets.

I mean that seriously, but there should be a good producer who can stand to this sort of thing some of the time.

Willie's First Fourth of July Picnic was 50 years ago today
Michael Corcoran

Just as magic mushrooms grow out of cow manure, the musical event that put Austin on the map on July 4, 1973 sprouted from a financial shitshow on the same Hurlbut Ranch. The three-day Dripping Springs Reunion in March 1972, dubbed “the Country Woodstock” by promoters, anticipated crowds of 60,000 a day for a mix of country legends- Buck Owens, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Roy Acuff, etc.- with hip, offbeat favorites Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Roger Miller, and Tom T. Hall. Projections were 160,000 short, as a total of only 20,000 came through the gates. The crowd for Friday’s bluegrass lineup, including Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs was a paltry 2,000. Biggest day was Sunday, with Willie, Kris, Rita Coolidge and Waylon playing to 12,000. It was “a successful failure,” according to Mike McFarland, one of the four promoters from Dallas who lost their asses.

No apologies necessary. An album as long as Bryan's will have more than enough okay things. Nevertheless, I like the album. You hear Mellencamp in your average country guy? Really? I wish! Those tropes can get them through a lot of bilge.

Have you read this: https://www.stereogum.com/2223439/zach-bryan-came-out-of-nowhere/reviews/concert-review/

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-country/bandcamp-best-country-june-2023

Ben Salmon for Bandcamp likes Brennan Leigh, Fust, Tanya Tucker, the Kody Norris Show, Jenny Don’t & the Spurs, and Jason Isbell, Caitlyn Canty and a few more

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/country-musics-culture-wars-and-the-remaking-of-nashville?mbid=social_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=tny&utm_social-type=owned

Morris had recently had a few skirmishes online with right-wing influencers—notably, Brittany Aldean, the maga wife of the singer Jason Aldean. Morris had called her “Insurrection Barbie”; in response, Jason Aldean had encouraged a concert audience to boo Morris’s name. Both sides had sold merch off the clash. The Aldeans hawked Barbie shirts reading “don’t tread on our kids.” Morris fans could buy a shirt that read “lunatic country music person”—Tucker Carlson’s nickname for her—and another bearing the slogan “you have a seat at this table.” (She donated the proceeds to L.G.B.T.Q. charities.)

In country music, the city v rural= corrupt v moral binary has existed for a long, long time.

Let’s think about how Aldean’s latest anti-city song is part of a longer tradition in country music, rather than an outlier. pic.twitter.com/rWQP4bmJMd

— Amanda Marie Martinez (@Amammartinez) July 17, 2023

Good point

Jason Aldean shot this at the site where a white lynch mob strung Henry Choate up at the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., after dragging his body through the streets with a car in 1927.

That's where Aldean chose to sing about murdering people who don't respect police. https://t.co/gBL7FlaBS2 pic.twitter.com/eGfmMc8HAI

— Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman) July 17, 2023

I prefer Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, et al's takes on small town life as ceaselessly nosy, gossipy, and conniving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRdkrDk0BQ0

truer lols were never loled

xxpost Well duh, Aldean's song is so far beyondo Buck's---which is the xpost fussy small towner gone to Beeg Sheety, the funnier for seeming sincere enough, as Buck perhaps remembers his own first impressions----butt young Jason started out closer to Buck's and Miramda etc.'s view---as I mentioned in an early 00s discussion of rednecks vs. hillbillies (in songs and videos)"

Of course, irony brings a nice tang to the New Earthiness of recent country, which is a healthy countertrend to the anxieties of life during wartime. (And now floodtime, and so on.) So, with CMT cornpone-playa Jason Aldean bringing the sight of "the neighbor's butt crack, as he's nailin' up the shin-gles" to the New Earthy party on his hit video "Hicktown," sure, I'll salute it. But Aldean's music reminds me of driving a pickup truck over railroad ties and bad roads, just for the heck and the habit of it. Which can be fun, like the song. Yet even before the price of gas went up so much, it was kinda dumb to drive around like that just for the heck of it -- and obstinately so.
And that -- whether it's self-mocking or self-righteous or surrogate-seeking or mostly commercial -- is what representations of "redneckism" come down to, most of the time: that 'necks are dumb and obstinate.
Hillbillies, on the other hand, are more likely to be crazy and sexy. You might look perfectly normal, but if you have a recessive 'billy gene in there somewhere, one of these days you're just gonna jump out the window and go whoopin' 'round the mountain with Bugs Bunny and Dolly Parton.

aldean's song, incidentally, was struggling to rise much further than its debut position on the country airplay charts, and is now seeing a major sales/streaming boost as a result of this

the ppl from the morgan wallen thread who argued that his popularity was ascendant anyway and that his post-controversy gains had little to do w/ vindictiveness felt by fans (and non-fans engaged in the culture wars) should take note

i hate to be cynical, but both the lyrical content and video seem to be constructed to dogwhistle as loudly as possible while also also carefully making sure to remain (barely) within bounds of plausible deniability ('all the protesters in the video are white!' 'the lyrics don't even refer to race!' etc.) and i do not doubt that aldean & co. basically expected and aimed for this controversy to occur. this is the sweet spot that some among the meticulous pro songwriters and imagemakers of nashville aspire to hit nowadays. absolutely repugnant

it's been some years now since maga-wave right-wing grievance songs would semi-routinely sell rly well on itunes for a few days, maybe even scrape one week's billboard charts, then fall away. now here we are with a major country star trying to tap into that with his mainstream radio-promoted single. i doubt this will be the end of it. last year country radio had a hit with a lyric trying to sweetly normalize the popular framing for anti-abortion legislation (heartbeats/8 weeks/whatever). (or was it 2 years ago? i can't stomach actually listening to country radio anymore.) now here were are this year. what next?

i really really disliked that new yorker article about nashville. the writer admits in the piece to conceiving of it as a strawman battle between sexist racist nashville and the queer POC underground upstarts and frankly it never recovers from there. in particular i find it insane that someone could write that many words about contemporary challengers to mainstream country & not write a single word about zach bryan, who is easily the biggest threat to conventional nashville in decades & has spoken out to support trans people to boot. if you go see a show of his he is attracting the bro-est of the bros, while also being a bro himself, but bcuz of that his voice has the opportunity to matter more than anyone else in that piece, from marren morris & jason isbell on down. which isn't to say it should be a zach bryan article but to not even mention him once immediately called into question whether the writer really understands the subject she's writing about. and relatedly to that there is no actual writing about music in that piece, and how that is functioning w/in the changing landscape of nashville -- when you're writing about music culture, the music itself is pretty important. very little to no mentions of streaming and how that is changing things etc -- we get the tired example of morgan wallen vs the dixie chicks w/ no context about how the music industry has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. just really poor stuff & the new yorker's recent music issue was great so it was disappointing to see

the ppl from the morgan wallen thread who argued that his popularity was ascendant anyway and that his post-controversy gains had little to do w/ vindictiveness felt by fans (and non-fans engaged in the culture wars) should take note

i don't think we need to have this convo again but it was shown definitively in that thread that the "post-controversy gains" were confined to the first week, to the tune of +8 million streams, and after that he bled tens of millions of streams for months on end. which isn't to say that there aren't country music fans who are inspired by reactionary politics, bcuz of course that's true and there's examples of it all over the place transcendent of just country music, but on a factual level i would adjust this statement moving forward bcuz it sounds surface level true but if you have access to the data it just... isn't. in reality the data shows the opposite of what is claimed -- there was a small reactionary bump in the first week but a vast more number of people fled for the hills. in reality, it wasn't until "last night" (two full years) that his streaming numbers returned to what they were in the week before the video leaked.

which is all to say that i guess we'll see where this aldean thing goes. any artist in any genre who generates any sorta mainstream headline type controversy sees a minor increase in streams in the immediate week following (link), but i'm not sure that tells us anything about the world that we don't already know. it seems like there is institutional pushback against this but how much does that matter? i'm honestly not sure. it mattered more than people realize in the case of morgan wallen, but only for so long. the push-pull between institutional power and democratic power is one that defines american culture in general right now, and even w/in music, is quite similar to stuff that happens in rap, pop, etc. aldean has his supporters, but even w/in nashville he is a figure of division, not unification, and leaning into his own marginalization may mobilize his fanbase to buy/stream his music, but it will also isolate them. and that's pretty much the best that can be done in an economy where consumers can bypass institutional barriers and provide direct support via purchases or plays.

I've been enjoying Isbell trolling him, that's for sure.

Adeem with a response.

Alright I caved to my record label and did a cover of the new @jason_aldean song. Please share it around & enjoy! I love COUNTRY MUSIC! & how inclusive it is!! pic.twitter.com/RPCUyy1FiS

— Adeem the Opryist (@AdeemTheArtist) July 20, 2023

the Nate Silver of country racism

remember when tim mcgraw released "sundown heaven town"

Adeem The Artist was really good when I saw them play a month or so ago.

their album is excellent ... released at a terrible time (early December of last year) in terms of getting the attention it deserved.

Adeem is awesome, it's been great to watch them catch fire a bit this year.

I've been enjoying Isbell trolling him, that's for sure.

Some of his tweets have been good, and while it was interesting to learn that Aldean didn't write the song himself-- Kurt Allison, Tully Kennedy, Kelley Lovelace and Neil Thrasher wrote "Try That in a Small Town," bashing Aldean for not writing the song himself seems kinda less effective as a troll dis as lots of singers use songwriters.

FWIW, I don't think Aldean has had a single writing credit since something like 2009, which is impressive. Even Morgan Wallen (who Isbell has also trolled for his team of writers) has several on his latest record.

I think one of Isbell's lines of attack was essentially that with no skin in the writing game, Aldean was in no position to defend the song.

Seriously how do you defend the content of a song you weren’t even in the room for? You just got it from your producer. If you’d been there when it was written, you’d be listed as a writer. We all know how this works. https://t.co/4trCw0S98k

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) July 20, 2023

Feels somewhat beside the point

For sure, which is why it's trolly. But it also sort of underscores the/a crux: Aldean has no personal stake in this song, it's purely cynical/mercenary, which is what makes it extra offensive. If he was more involved or more talented, he could have tried to make it better, or less offensive, or maybe even worse or more offensive, but as it stands, it's just laziness, because it represents zero effort or investment on his part.

Honestly, that's not unrelated to a lot of what's going on with the GOP these days: just a total, cynical lack of conviction. They parrot what they need to say to appeal to the fabled base without really giving a shit about anything, let alone consequences. It's about the sale, not what's being sold.

Has Aldean responded to any of his tweets?

I doubt it. A few others have on his behalf, though:

What really gets me about this is that it’s saying “if you don’t believe you can physically overpower me, you aren’t allowed to publicly disagree with me.” What does that say to the people in your life who aren’t big strong boys? They just have to shut up? https://t.co/MRL8trpgBl

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) July 20, 2023

Aldean and his MAGA supporting wife Brittany ( whom Maren Morris referred to as “Insurrection Barbie") are just in their Fox News right wing world and not aware of much beyond that, likely including the ugly history of where the video for the song was filmed.

Asked whether she believes Aldean had direct knowledge of the Maury County Courthouse's frightening history, Phillips points to interviews where Aldean has boasted, "I haven't read a book since high school." Regardless, Phillips describes a long legacy of white supremacy in Columbia and neighboring communities — including Pulaski, Tenn., where the Ku Klux Klan was founded — that should not have escaped the consideration of the robust music industry personnel behind the video.

That's from this NPR article about the long history of rural vs city theme, and the history of it in country music

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/22/1188908968/jason-aldean-small-town-vs-city

But it also sort of underscores the/a crux: Aldean has no personal stake in this song, it's purely cynical/mercenary, which is what makes it extra offensive.

see for me i've always found this particular line of criticism used by isbell to be a bit odd not just bcuz it's beside the crux of the issues that ppl have w/ wallen & aldean, but also because i've always understood country as a place where people didn't really care who wrote the song, as long as the song is good? like, the idea of the song -- the hit -- is so sacrosanct in nashville, even more so than in other genres including pop, that ppl (certainly w/in the industry including artists themselves) see the singer to be a vessel for some sort of greater power that has delivered to us this great Record. the message is more important than either the messenger or its author. ppl like george strait & reba who are some of the most commercially successful country artists of all time pretty much wrote barely if any of their songs. maybe country fans' attitudes towards authorship have waxed and waned over time, but the auteurist idea of the singer also being the songwriting & musical genius behind the music feels to me like it's been given far more weight in rap & pop than it ever has in country.

look, it's great marketing for isbell. he's preaching to his choir when he talks about authorship & places himself athwart modern mainstream country. i don't think *he* is being cynical but it's great brand work for him anyway. in general i think his voice is a very valuable one as a counterbalance to conventional industry wisdom & culture. but i don't buy the idea that aldean is selling something cynically bcuz he wasn't in the room when he wrote the song, or that it makes for "lesser" art (lmao, in this case) -- but this message board raised me to be a poptimist so that is how i see things. it almost gives aldean too much credit imo to position this as cynical marketing... of course he is intending to court/create controversy, but i think the guy is actually just an asshole w/ repugnant politics who is seeking to connect w/ likeminded people at the expense of common decency (this would be one major way in which he is different than wallen, who has dutifully re-conformed to societal norms while peddling his hugely successful album)

Yeah, I don't think Aldean has given much of anything a second of thought, which is the reactionary way (exacerbated by being an asshole dumbass). Whereas someone like Isbell gives everything a lot of thought in a Socratic effort to be less of an asshole dumbass. Two different approaches. Reading a bit more into it, plus taking his other posts into consideration, I get the impression Isbell finds it kind of a personal affront that someone wouldn't even make an effort to at least participate in the songwriting process. For sure Isbell is something of a poptimist himself, despite his own personal rockist inclinations. But I think that's because he considers himself a rock musician first and foremost and cedes authority to artists in other lanes. Certainly mainstream country straddles the line in a unique way. On one hand, it's often all about keeping it real, projecting authenticity, honesty, that sort of vibe, while at the same time embracing the tools and artifice of pop (session dudes, hired songwriters, chasing trends). Again, I think Isbell is largely trolling because he's a position to do so, knowing that most people can't write as well as he can, but at the same time is probably legit irked by the success of someone in his ostensible field who doesn't even try despite having the tools and means to do so.

I got into a fight on another blog when several writers said I was too clever by half by not thinking Isbell's response particularly witty or at best beside the point (it might've mattered a little if another non-writing country singer had called him out).

Another angle I am seeing on this is from folks who say that critics should have ignored the song and video because calling it out just gives it more attention and encourages more conservatives to embrace Aldean for a song that wasn't initially doing well. Not sure I buy that. I don't think ignoring a hateful song and video by a big star is a good approach and will make the song and the message disappear from the country music world. Ignoring it might have lessened the chance of crossover attention, but I think CMT only dropped the video because of the attention (and yeah I get that people can see video elsewhere and hear the song elsewhere).

Lefsetz in his email is pushing the line that the left should just ignore the hate -- Don't be knee-jerk, think about this. Stop amplifying heinous behavior. You're only emboldening believers. If you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. Now people know more about Jason Aldean than they do about Biden and his economic policies, something the left has been trying to amplify for weeks under the label "Bidenomics." Once again, the left has lost the battle. Will it lose the war? Yes, if it continues to turn nothingburgers into conflagrations.

I will say it really speaks to something about the right wing for this guy to sing a track that has a key moment where it's anti-gun reform, a guy who probably just missed out on getting killed on stage in the worst gun massacre in US history. Still fighting for the rights of guys like St*ph*n P*dd*ck after all that.

I think Isbell is giving this chud way too much credit obv and probably attempting to debate him on deeper points is def beside the point.

Can't imagine Isbell giving much of a shit about sacred Nashville traditions, the old timers he associates himself with were songwriters.

Lefsetz is such a numbnuts

when does cmt even air videos? late night? (a quick perusal of the schedule online suggests they're aired between 4 and 9am...) from the billboard 'exclusive' article revealing it had been pulled: "It is unclear how many times CMT played the video before pulling it on Monday," i.e. they weren't actually monitoring video play on the network themselves + were likely tipped off to the removal by someone who cared enough to pay attention, which frankly was almost no one until the story broke

As someone who has lived many years in small towns, I notice that their cops do get shot by other local residents, hardly ever by people from cities, except occasionally those in the same metro area (not like all those sinister aliens on The Andy Griffith Show).

Although maybe somebody will now compare statistics (not me). Of course it's also about how to deal with with such an event. (My thoughts, the end)(dyl has covered most of them).

Regardless of statistics and debates on same, point of course is that Aldean presents a false dichotomy. Thank yew and good night.

FWIW, Aldean is from Macon, which is not a particularly small town. I guess he's just singing about the small town in all of our hearts. Well, maybe not all of us ...