Archive for March, 2007
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
Much like her hubby Tim McGraw followed up his best studio album, Live Like You Were Dying, with a hits collection, Faith Hill is prepping her first domestic hits collection. Greatest Hits is due for release on May 22, so it’s reasonable to assume a single will be coming soon. Will it be “I Need You”, the duet with Tim that is on his newest album, Let It Go? Who the hell knows?
My real interest is in how she’ll summarize a career that has taken so many sharp turns in style and content over just six studio albums. A good compilation captures all of the artist’s development over the time period it covers, rather than just throwing together the biggest chart hits. Here’s what I’d include on Greatest Hits if I had full reign, leaving room for the obligatory new tracks:
- Wild One
- Piece of My Heart
- Take Me As I Am
- It Matters To Me
- Someone Else’s Dream
- I Can’t Do That Anymore
- This Kiss
- Let Me Let Go
- The Secret of Life
- Breathe
- The Way You Love Me
- If My Heart Had Wings
- There You’ll Be
- Cry
- When The Lights Go Down
- You’re Still Here
- Mississippi Girl
- Like We Never Loved At All
- Stealing Kisses
I left off a few top ten hits, but what can I say? They don’t do much for me. I’d drop “The Way You Love Me” also, but that was number one for way too many weeks to have be omitted.
Any thoughts on what’s missing, or what should be left off?
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
Rodney Atkins, “These Are My People”
Fantastic. I thought it was going to be another carbon-copy celebration of southern hillbilly culture, but after a few lines of that, reality kicks in, and the celebration is of the everyday life, complete with mistakes and screw-ups along the way.
I’m a city guy, but this is one of those rare celebrations of small-town life that makes it actually sound somewhat appealing to me. This guy is good. Very, very good.
Grade: B+
Listen: These Are My People
Buy: These Are My People
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
Amy Dalley, “Good Kind of Crazy”
There are the basic elements of a good song here, but they don’t fully come together. I’m a fan of Dalley, and have enjoyed her previous singles, “I Would Cry” and “Men Don’t Change.” I just think that Curb keeps throwing out records on her to see if any will stick. I don’t know if this one will, given the struggles she’s had at radio with stronger singles. If you like the theme of the song, I’d recommend “Same Kind of Crazy” by Patty Loveless instead. You can read more about that over at iCF Music.
Grade: B-
Listen: Good Kind of Crazy
Buy: Good Kind of Crazy
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
Pam Tillis performed a showcase concert at The Continental Club in Austin, Texas on Friday, March 16 during the SXSW Conference. The set list is dominated by her fantastic upcoming album, RhineStoned, but it also includes a traditional reworking of her signature hit, “Maybe It Was Memphis”, along with her cover of her dad’s “Mental Revenge” and the as yet unreleased “Don’t Leave Your Heart.
Meanwhile, Robert K. Oermann of Music Row has weighed in with his review of her latest single, “Band in the Window”:
“Down on Broadway, where the streets are paved with hopeful expectations,” there’s a band playing behind the window of a honky tonk. And nobody could sing its story better than this superb vocalist. Welcome back. I’ve missed you desperately.
I couldn’t have said it better msyelf. As good as that single is, it pales in comparison to my favorite tracks off of Rhinestoned. “Someone Somewhere Tonight” is my current fave, and she performed it at SXSW. Here are the links for each individual performance of Pam’s SXSW showcase:
Mental Revenge
Maybe It Was Memphis
Down By The Water
Don’t Leave Your Heart
Train Without a Whistle
Someone Somewhere Tonight
Band in the Window
Crazy By Myself
Life Has Sure Changed Us Around
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
Collection
February 1, 1994
It has to be frustrating for a label to see an artist that they never had success with go on to another label in town and become a big star right off the bat. All they can do at that point is try to capitalize on the newfound success by releasing material the star had recorded before making it big.
Such is the case with Warner Brothers Records and Pam Tillis. Their pop division had released Pam’s first studio album, and after that tanked, the Nashville division signed her to a country singles deal. Tillis released six singles for the label, five of which reached the lower half of the country hit parade. Ignoring the pop project completely, Warner Bros. issued Collection in early 1994, a budget compilation of her six country singles for the label, along with four other previously unreleased tracks.
Don’t let the enticing cover fool you. Yes, there are four songs on this collection that were top ten hits, but two of them were by different artists and the other two hit when they were re-cut by Pam during her early years at Arista. All four of the versions here by Pam are inferior to the eventual hit recordings.
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Saturday, March 24th, 2007
Homeward Looking Angel
September 29, 1992
Pam Tillis followed up her gold-selling Arista debut Put Yourself In My Place with an album that was better by just about any standard. She co-wrote five of the ten tracks this time out, down from seven the last time. While the trend of writing less of her own material would continue, it’s worth noting that the five originals here are collectively stronger than the seven that populated her debut. The intensely personal nature of two of the best self-written tracks form the foundation for this very strong album.
“Rough and Tumble Heart”, which had originally been recorded by Highway 101, is the tale of a woman who refuses to be jaded by the bad choices she’s made in the past, and Tillis sings the fire out of the searing lines from her own pen: “It would beat so lonely in the still of the night, and it craved someone just to hold it tight, and it never will give up the fight for a love that lasts forever.”
Even more intense is the sweeping title track that closes the album, which like “Melancholy Child” before it, alludes to the reckless youth that nearly cost Pam her life, and the humbling journey back home to the world she had left behind. As “that girl looking back in the mirror” who “sure made such a mess of things” wrestles with the bad decisions she’s made, she imagines the scene back home: “Now papa’s probably turning out the light, and heading up the stairs. And the wayward child he never talks about still turns up in his prayers.” That the papa is country legend Mel Tillis is irrelevant; the song speaks to the universal truth of parents who set their children free but never stop worrying about how they’re using that freedom.
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Saturday, March 24th, 2007
Craig Morgan, “Tough”
This is one of the most beautiful tributes to a wife and mother that I have ever heard. Every line sounds like real life. There are no forced story lines here, no transparent attempts at sentimentality. Every word feels true to me.
The verse about the wife getting cancer but still being the strong one, as the husband breaks down and cries? Heartbreakingly candid. Maybe it’s a result of being raised in an extended family full of strong matriarchs, but I can never quite buy into the female archetypes in recent songs like “She’s Everything” or “Daisy”. The women in my family are tough. Morgan might as well be singing about any one of them.
Grade: A
Listen: Tough
Buy: Tough
Saturday, March 24th, 2007
Bon Jovi, “(You Want To) Make a Memory”
Listening to Bon Jovi’s first official attempt at country music, it’s hard not to be struck by how similar the vocal and general groove is to a Keith Urban record. The band could’ve gotten away with being a lot more rock than they chose to be. They hold back for a good part of the record, and I kept waiting for their trademark sound to kick in. It’s a pretty good song, but I can’t help but think it would’ve been better for them to pitch it to Urban or Sugarland. I’m curious to hear the rest of the record, and to see if country radio embraces another pop/rock star. There’s nothing particularly country about their version of country music so far, but that hasn’t mattered much this past decade anyway, has it?
Grade: B
Listen: (You Want To) Make a Memory
Saturday, March 24th, 2007
Alabama, “The Star-Spangled Banner”
I think renditions of the national anthem are sort of like Christmas albums. They’re hard to review on the merits. Generally, I tend to like Christmas albums by the same people who make my favorite regular albums. As far as “The Star-Spangled Banner” is concerned, I like the Super Bowl performances of Whitney Houston and Dixie Chicks.
To my ears, Alabama’s take sounds listless. I kept waiting for the harmonies to soar but they stayed stuck in neutral all the way to the end. That said, I don’t see much of a need to slap a grade on this one. Check it out if they’re one of your favorite groups. I’ll throw in links to the other two versions I love since I referenced them.
Grade: N/A
Listen: The Star-Spangled Banner (Alabama)
Listen: The Star-Spangled Banner (Dixie Chicks)
Watch: The Star-Spangled Banner (Dixie Chicks)
Buy: The Star-Spangled Banner (Whitney Houston)
Watch: The Star-Spangled Banner (Whitney Houston)
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
Halfway to Hazard, “Daisy”
I blame CMT for making me think this must have something to do with Dukes of Hazzard.
Anyway, the girl “loved the hell out of him.” Guess how? Took him to the river and baptized him, though I’m not sure if that was before or after she slept with him.
Then they get married, she dies giving childbirth and he names the daughter after her mother.
Sorry if I ruined the “surprise ending”, but you shouldn’t have to listen to four minutes of this claptrap, with its wanna-be rock guitars and the duo screaming the chorus instead of singing it. Guess that’s easier than writing a melody.
Grade: C
Listen: Daisy
Buy: Daisy
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