Archive for November, 2007
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
John Rich is apologizing again. It’s been only a month since the last time he scrambled to save part of his fan base. Now, The Tennessean reports that PETA wasn’t pleased by the fox fur he wore on the CMA Awards, and fired off a letter to him stating their displeasure. His response:
“I would like you to please forward my apologies to any of your members that are fans of Big and Rich that took offense to me wearing a fur coat on the CMA awards,” John wrote PETA. “Trust me, it was never my intent to upset anyone. Also, if any of the world class designers that you mentioned in your previous e-mail would like to send me full length faux fur coats, I would be happy to wear them, and when asked by the press or fans, tell them it is a faux fur.
Karl Marx famously observed that history repeats itself – first as tragedy, then as farce. No wonder I can’t stop laughing at this!
Monday, November 26th, 2007
‘Tis the season for labels to cash in on their catalog. Here’s a look at some recent compilations from country artists, some of which are far more worthy of your holiday cash than others.
Garth Brooks
The Ultimate Hits
Garth returns to a “retailer other than Wal-Mart” near you, with an ambitious two-CD, 34-track collection, his first proper hits collection in thirteen years.
What’s Here: Thirty of Garth’s hits spanning the two decades of his career, along with four new tracks and a DVD collection that’s more thorough than the CD’s it’s included with.
What’s Missing: For a collection billing itself as ultimate, it’s amazing that some huge hits (“Not Counting You,” “Somewhere Other Than the Night”, “She’s Every Woman”) are omitted, along with a few more top five singles that belong here before the God-awful ‘The Change.” At least Chris Gaines didn’t get invited to the party.
Bottom Line: Just by existing, it’s already the best Brooks compilation available, and on the whole, it’s a better set than the now-deleted Hits from 1994. However, the bewilderingly random sequencing and middling new tracks, which include a duet – oh, I’m sorry, The Duet, with Huey Lewis, make this career overview decent enough, but hardly ultimate.
Sara Evans
Greatest Hits
The first hits package for Sara Evans comes after five studio albums, three of which have sold platinum, with another gold plaque in the mix. She’s been a favorite at radio, being one of the most consistent female hitmakers in a time frame that hasn’t been to kind to artists of her gender.
What’s Here: All eight of her top ten singles, including 4 #1 hits, along with two others – “You’ll Always Be My Baby” and “Saints & Angels” – that peaked a bit lower. Also in the mix are four new tracks, including the deliriously catchy “As If.”
What’s Missing: By only including ten earlier singles, RCA missed the opportunity to paint a fuller picture of Evans’ talent. Some of her most interesting and memorable singles, like “Backseat of a Greyhound Bus”, “Three Chords and the Truth” and “Fool, I’m a Woman”, would’ve given this set more depth without extending the playing time too much.
Bottom Line: For anybody who hasn’t picked up her previous sets, the value here is decent, but if you’ve been buying her albums or cherry-picking the hits along the way, you can skip it. All four new tracks are solid, so even die-hard fans should download the four new tracks.
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Friday, November 23rd, 2007
Looking back five years, this list will feature artists that are more familiar to recent country fans than those on earlier features. I was impressed overall by the quality of the entries here, and I remember 2002 being my favorite country music year since the mid-nineties. Unfortunately, things were going to go downhill fast, but a list where even Rascal Flatts has a song I like is no small feat.
Top 20 Country Songs
November 23, 2002
#20
“The Impossible”
Joe Nichols
A worthy breakthrough hit for this neo-traditionalist, his understated delivery is refreshing. A-
#19
“The Good Stuff”
Kenny Chesney
A modern classic and a signature hit for Chesney, it was still hanging in the top twenty after thirty weeks. A+.
#18
“19 Somethin’”
Mark Wills
A laundry list of pop culture from the seventies and eighties. This stuff makes for great VH1 specials, but as a country song? Meh. C.
#17
“A Lot of Things Different”
Kenny Chesney
Chesney’s second hit in the top twenty is a mournful look back at a life full of regrets. Heavy stuff, but quite good. A-.
#16
“Strong Enough to Be Your Man”
Travis Tritt
This is about as generic as Tritt’s ever gotten, a surprisingly personality-free love song. C
#15
“Every River”
Brooks & Dunn
God bless ‘em for covering Kim Richey and getting some exposure for one of her better compositions. Her original version is far superior, but a good song is a good song. B+
#14
“I Just Wanna Be Mad”
Terri Clark
Clark’s huge comeback single was equal parts wit and honesty. It’s the blueprint that BNA should be following as they look for another song to get her back to the top of the charts. A
#13
“Fall into Me”
Emerson Drive
Cheesy country-pop without charm or distinction. D
#12
“Forgive”
Rebecca Lynn Howard
“Forgive. That’s a mighty big word for such a small man.” It’s one of the most cutting dismissals of a cheating husband in country music history, and unfortunately the only hit to date for the very talented Howard. A
#11
“Where Would You Be”
Martina McBride
McBride successfully revisits the themes and sounds of her earlier hit “Whatever You Say”, and once again makes the rafters ring with a jaw-dropping vocal performance. A-.
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Friday, November 23rd, 2007
“Just Some Girl” by Joy Lynn White
From the 2005 album One More Time.
When Brad Paisley released the single “Online” earlier this year, I had a visceral reaction to it. A good friend of mine shared my distaste for the song, but noted that she had expected it to turn out differently the first time she heard it. She assumed that by the third verse, the character would end up a computer mogul or such, and would become the ladies man he was pretending to be.
Of course, that didn’t happen, but when “Just Some Girl” popped up on shuffle one day, comparisons to “Online” immediately came to me. The Joy Lynn White track also talks about a character living on the margins of society, not quite fitting in, but the portrait painted is far more sympathetic, even as it is made clear that this is not the kind of girl that the world embraces wholeheartedly:
She was just some girl
She was plain and stout
She was nobody’s dreamboat
Nothin’ to write home about
Her hair was not like silk
Her skin was not like milk
To the civilized world
She was just some girl
White then contrasts this with the girls who seem to have everything going for them from the start:
Some girls are born holding the aces
Ya never see tears
Rolling down their faces
And some girls have dreams
And some girls get choices
Encouraging voices
Assure their place in the world
That was the line that got my attention: “Encouraging voices assure their place in the world.” It is so easy for young people to slip through the cracks, to skate by unnoticed. As a teacher, I am fully aware of how dangerous that can be. As White sings, it can result in this:
She was just some girl
She was painfully shy
Sometimes for no reason
She’d sit at home and cry
With no one to touch her
And no one to tell her
I’ll see ya tomorrow
I love ya, sleep tight
As the character’s isolation builds, hope begins to fade for a happy ending. After a small instrumental break, the fate of just some girl is revealed:
Face down in the shadows
Of a willow
They found her
So wasted away
No one could say
What it was
It was just some girl
Someone no one would kiss
Somebody no one would cry for
Someone no one would miss
And with that, she’s gone. Just as the listener is feeling weighed down by the cruelty of this poor girl’s entire life having no value or meaning to anyone, a girl who is “someone no one would miss”, the final lines reveal there’s more to the story than we suspected:
But her mama’s gonna cry some though
Her papa’s gonna miss her so
There’s a hole in their world
She was just some girl
“Just Some Girl” raises many questions for me. Was the isolation this girl felt real, or was most of it imagined in her head? Was she surrounded by love but unable to feel it? Or did the people who loved her just fail to make that a little more clear? It’s a challenging song, one that resonates long after hearing it. For me, it’s a reminder to pay closer attention. It makes me remember back to what one of my teachers said when I was in junior high school: “The cruelest way to hurt someone is not to make fun of them, it’s to ignore them completely.”
Buy: Just Some Girl
Buy: One More Time
This is the second in a series of posts spotlighting lesser-known album cuts, inspired by the icF Music Blog.
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
Apparently going for a “yearbook” theme this year, Entertainment Weekly has released its annual list of top entertainers, with Carrie Underwood acknowledged in the “Most Popular” category:
Faith Hill was only kidding, folks, when she feigned outrage at Carrie Underwood’s win at the 2006 CMA Awards, but viewers may’ve been truly shocked by the now-24-year-old’s meteoric rise. In 2007, Underwood further solidified her country bona fides with a confident, twangy No. 1 album, Carnival Ride, that vindicated all the promise and possibility American Idol aspires to offer.
The article includes a brief list of career highlights from the year. It’s amazing to see how many awards the woman has won in just a few months! The entire list features celebrities from the world of film, television and music, but is ultimately topped by author J.K. Rowling, and EW provides an absolutely fantastic profile of the Potter scribe and the impact of her work.
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
Martina McBride deserves a tremendous amount of credit. She’s one of the only mainstream country artists, male or female, who consistently seeks out material that deals with issues beyond love found and lost. We used to have a lot of women on country radio who did this, but she’s one of the only ones left. “For These Times” doesn’t break any new philosophical ground, but at least it’s taking a look at the world and trying to find some hope for it, even if it can’t make any sense of it. Her vocal is also wonderfully restrained.
Grade: B+
Listen: For These Times
Buy: For These Times
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
Talk about your accurate titles. This is the ultimate distillation of that in-your-face element of Big & Rich’s music. If you enjoy that element, you’ll love this record. If you’re like me, and you appreciate Big & Rich for their flashes of brilliant songwriting or cheeky humor, this one will leave you completely cold. Personally, I’d rather see them send “You Shook Me (All Night Long)” out there. It would certainly sell them a lot more records than this and country radio might actually play it.
Grade: C
Listen: Loud
Buy: Loud
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
I’ve been playing the new Trisha Yearwood CD non-stop for two days now. I’m really digging it, but what else is new? It’s not like this woman has ever put out a bad album. That’s the difficult part of reviewing her work. When an artist is so consistently excellent, it’s hard for me to get a handle on how the new music compares to the old.
So when I woke up this morning, a thought popped into my head: “I wonder if Jonathan Keefe has reviewed it yet?” Keefe writes for Slant magazine, and has the very admirable trait of discussing country albums at length. I don’t always agree with him, but his writing is top-notch and his opinions well supported.
Miracle of miracles, I headed over to Slate and there it was: a 4 1/2-star review for the new Trisha CD. What I like best about Keefe’s reviews is he is able to capture the big picture of an artist’s career while still maintaining focus on the new work he’s reviewing. Here’s a sample from his review:
For well over a decade now, Yearwood has been one of, if not the, best singers recording in any popular genre, with a combination of technical power and range, an intuitive, thoughtful command of phrasing, and a real sense of presence. So it’s really saying something that she’s never sounded better than she does on Heaven. Though she’s best known for her pop-leaning ballads, it’s her bluesier uptempo numbers and her more traditional country cuts that best showcase the breadth of her skill, and the album gives her plenty of shine on both. On the fiery lead single and title track, for instance, Yearwood doesn’t “sing” so much as deliver a pew-jumping sermon, and her performance is all the more effective because of how well she uses dynamics to emphasize key lines and build momentum. Yearwood can belt and growl better than just about anyone, but what makes her such a superior vocalist is that she knows when it’s in service of the song. The way she lapses into her upper register for a near-yodel on the bridge to “Cowboys Are My Weakness” is a genuinely clever and effective nod to the song’s deliberate retro style, while the way she swallows her vowels on the traditional country ballad “Help Me” recalls vintage Tammy Wynette. It’s amazing, really, that Yearwood is still finding new ways to use her voice and all the more remarkable that her instincts are so consistently right.
For those keeping track at home, that’s a 1/2 star less than he gave Miranda Lambert and a 1/2 star more than he gave Pam Tillis. I have a sneaking suspicion that our best-of lists for 2007 will consist of similar albums in a slightly different order. The real challenge for me will be finding new things to say after Keefe’s already covered the main points better than I could ever do!
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
How lucky a parent is to give life to a country music legend. To have your life story told by a master storyteller, to be immortalized on record by someone who can take your everyday life and convey the beauty of you just doing what you did for your family. Loretta Lynn did it with “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Vince Gill with “The Key to Life.” Dolly Parton with “Coat of Many Colors.” Even Reba did it, with the little-noticed but worth seeking out “Daddy.”
To say that Alan Jackson has honored his father with “Small Town Southern Man” would only capture some of what he achieves with this record. In a larger sense, he has honored all fathers who loved only one woman, worked until their backs were broken and who truly believed that their greatest contributions are the children they’ve left behind. A deserving tribute to fathers who put family before everything else, and a comfort to the sons and daughters that miss them once they’re gone.
Grade: A
Listen: Small Town Southern Man
Buy: Small Town Southern Man
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
Musically, this is great. Entertaining to listen to because of a fantastic performance from the band, I’d be giving it an enthusiastic review if Jennings himself had shown the same energy and charm with his vocal performance. With all due respect, this sounds like somebody singing Karaoke to early Steve Earle, not like the work of a professional singer.
Grade: C
Listen: Walk of Life
Buy: Walk of Life
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