No Picture

Grammy Wish List

September 1, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 14

brad-paisleyYesterday marked the end of the eligibility period for the 2010 Grammy Awards, which will be presented in January. To accommodate the earlier award ceremony, this year’s period lasted one month shy of a year: October 1, 2008 – August 31, 2009.

It’s been something of an underwhelming year musically from my perspective, but I have a few nominations that I’d like to see:

George Strait

  • Best Male Country Vocal Performance: “El Rey”
  • Best Country Album: Twang

Strait’s been on a roll since It Just Comes Natural, releasing his most consistent string of albums since the mid-nineties trifecta of Easy Come Easy Go, Lead On and Blue Clear Sky. It’s often been said that Strait could sing the phone book and make it sound great, and “El Rey” proved that he’d do just as well with la guía telefónica.

Todd Snider

  • Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album: The Excitement Plan

This category has been great at acknowledging artists who essentially make acoustic music that isn’t particularly commercial, with previous winners including Nickel Creek and Emmylou Harris. Snider put out one of his strongest albums this year, and he’s long overdue for some Grammy love.

Brad Paisley

  • Best Country Album: American Saturday Night
  • Best Male Country Vocal Performance: “Welcome to the Future”
  • Best Country Instrumental Performance: “Back to the Future”

Paisley has reaffirmed himself as a creative force to be reckoned with and deserves to be amply rewarded with multiple Grammy nominations this year. The rock edge to his token instrumental track is a refreshing new take on his guitar-playing virtuosity.

No Picture

Shania Twain Starter Kit

August 30, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 47

shania-twainThere were two solo artists who changed the course of country music history in the nineties. The first was Garth Brooks, who ushered in the boom years with his mega-selling albums No Fences and Ropin’ the Wind. The second was Shania Twain, who permanently altered the female point of view in country music with her mega-selling albums The Woman in Me and Come On Over.

Twain’s debut album was decent enough, with some charming singles like “What Made You Say That” and the Gretchen Peters-penned “Dance With the One That Brought You” being among the highlights. But it was the combination of Twain’s pen and Mutt Lange’s production that made her a superstar. Throughout her career, she’s been a champion of mutual monogamy and carefree independence. She didn’t protest for women to be treated with equality and respect so much as write from the assumption that no other option had ever existed.

In truth, all three of her self-written albums are essential listening, but if none of the 60 million albums that Twain has sold are in your personal collection, here are some tracks to help you get started:

Ten Essential Tracks

“Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?”
From the 1995 album The Woman in Me

For all the heat Twain gets for being too pop, it’s hard to imagine anything this country getting played on even country radio today, let alone pop radio.

“Any Man of Mine”
From the 1995 album The Woman in Me

There were two songs from this album that essentially powered it toward becoming the best-selling female country album up until that point. I’ve always preferred this one over “I’m Outta Here!”

No Picture

Martina McBride Starter Kit

August 28, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 17

Martina McBrideShe’s one of the most successful female country artists of the past two decades, and though it was the 2000s that brought her most of her accolades, Martina McBride became a star in the nineties. She also released her strongest music during that decade, and her first three albums remain her strongest efforts to date.

For those of you who know McBride for her AC-flavored work in recent years, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the diversity of styles she explored early on in her career. Here’s where you should start:

Ten Essential Tracks

“Cheap Whiskey”
From the 1992 album The Time Has Come

It predates her breakthrough hits, but anyone who watched CMT back in the early nineties will remember the powerful video clip that accompanied McBride’s stone-countriest performance.

“My Baby Loves Me”
From the 1993 album The Way That I Am

It took this song 20 weeks to reach the #2 position, a glacial pace back in 1993. But the “Born in The U.S.A.”-borrowed power chords still sound cool today, so it’s no surprise that this was a big hit.

No Picture

Sugarland, Live on the Inside

August 27, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 12

SugarlandSugarland
Live On the Inside

stars-4.gif

Sugarland has gone ahead and brought back the bootleg.

Their latest release is a CD and DVD combo that captures the essence of their live performances in two different ways. The DVD goes the conventional route, capturing one concert from start to finish in Lexington, Kentucky. The duo performs nearly all of their hits, and it’s a show with very little filler. They’ve had quite a few hits over the past few years, and they’ve held up well.

Sure, there are few of them that pack the punch of “Something More” or “Stay”, but they do their best to keep the older material fresh by updating the arrangements, and their unlimited and contagious enthusiasm for being on stage makes even the trite ones like “Settlin'” and “All I Want to Do” quite entertaining.

They make a darn good case for another Entertainer of the Year nomination. There are so few country artists who are able to radiate joy from the stage, and those that can do it end up with the audience in the palm of their hand, willing to do even ridiculous things like blow bubbles or sing a song about a drunk driving death in perfect unison.

No Picture

Country Music Firsts

August 24, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 40

pamtillisOur readers have clearly responded well to our Back to the Nineties features this month. (Fret not, there are more on the way.) Part of the reason is that so many of you, like myself and Leeann, first discovered country music in that decade.

This isn’t too surprising, as the nineties helped establish country music as a genre with widespread appeal. The suburbanization of once-rural America reached its apex, and at the same time, CMT deeply penetrated the cable market. For you newbies, the channel was 24-hour videos back then, with remarkably democratic video rotation.

A clip in heavy rotation would only be seen two more times a day than one in light rotation. This is the reason both Mutt Lange and Sean Penn discovered Shania Twain through her “What Made You Say That” clip, which was played extensively on the channel despite the song stalling at #55 at radio.

The New York country radio station back then would do a “Country Convert” feature every morning. A radio listener would call in and say what song converted them to country music. Newbies to country music back then had a religious zeal to them, and would work very hard trying to convince others to fall in love with the music.

No Picture

Kellie Pickler, “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You”

August 24, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 4

Kellie PicklerPoor choices lead to a lack of cohesion on the latest Kellie Pickler release. There’s such an incongruity between the softly sung verses and the bombastic chorus that it’s hard to get a handle on how she’s asking the titular question. Is she angry? Sad? Disappointed? Disbelieving? Take any twenty seconds of the song, and you might get a different answer.

The song would’ve been more effective if they’d picked one approach. Simply removing the overwhelming backup singers in the chorus would’ve made a huge positive difference, as they destroyed the intimacy that Pickler’s performance had established in the first verse. Alternatively, they could’ve some backup singers or a tougher-edged production in the first verse to properly build up to the blowout chorus. Either approach would’ve been better than the confusing mishmash we’ve been given here.

No Picture

Chely Wright Six Pack

August 20, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 26

Chely WrightIt seemed like Chely Wright was on the cusp of stardom for her entire career, releasing several albums in the nineties that garnered enough interest to keep her signed but not quite enough to make her an established star. She finally scored a big hit when “Single White Female” went #1, and the album of the same name would eventually be certified gold.

But she wasn’t able to maintain the momentum with her follow-up project, and that #1 hit remained her only trip to the top ten. In recent years, she released an outstanding EP called Everything and a full-length album called The Metropolitan Hotel which was one of her most consistent efforts.

“The Love That We Lost”
from the 1996 album Right in the Middle Of It

Her biggest pre-MCA hit was remarkably intriguing, especially on the first listen when you’re trying to figure out what she’s looking all over the house for.

No Picture

Deana Carter Six Pack

August 20, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 9

Deana CarterDeana Carter was one of the first post-Shania Twain female country stars, and she quickly proved she could sell in big numbers. Thanks to the omnipresent smash “Strawberry Wine”, she soon owned a debut album that went platinum five times over.

Radio and retail weren’t as kind to her follow-up projects, and she’d establish a pattern that would later be repeated by Gretchen Wilson – big hit, big debut, sophomore slump, third-album bomb, go indie. Her more recent albums are worth checking out, but acquaint yourself with these major-label essentials first.

“Strawberry Wine”
from the 1996 album Did I Shave My Legs For This?

In an instant, Carter became a star. She was nominated for five CMA awards on the strength of this hit. She won Single of the Year, and Matraca Berg and Gary Harrison shared Song of the Year.

No Picture

BlackHawk Six Pack

August 19, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 10

BlackHawkA group of veteran industry songwriters and performers came together as BlackHawk, and were quickly signed to Arista Nashville, a label that had already had success with Exile and Diamond Rio. Their debut album was a smash, selling double-platinum and spawning five hits.

The band wasn’t able to match that success with future projects, despite scoring a handful of hits from their next three albums. Their sophomore set managed to sell gold on the strength of lead single “I’m Not Strong Enough to Say No”, but future projects would miss that mark. The act also left a bad taste in the mouth among some industry members when they publicly complained that less successful acts were winning Vocal Group over them, a blatant reference to The Mavericks.

Still, they produced some great songs that any casual fan of nineties country will be familiar with.

“Goodbye Says it All”
from the 1994 album BlackHawk

Their debut single demonstrated their ease at crafting hooks tailor-made for country radio.

No Picture

The Mavericks Six Pack

August 19, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 20

The MavericksEven though they never made it into heavy rotation on country radio, The Mavericks were still one of country music’s most lauded bands in the mid-nineties. The CMAs named them Vocal Group in both 1995 and 1996, and they won similar honors from the Grammys and the ACMs.

Despite not reaching the top ten with a single, they enjoyed a platinum-selling and a gold-selling album. In Canada, their albums continued to reach the gold threshold. “Dance the Night Away”, which barely dented the country chart in America, was a sizable hit in the United Kingdom. Lead singer Raul Malo has gone on to record several solo projects, along with producing other acts, including yesterday’s Six Pack featured artist Rick Trevino.

“What a Crying Shame”
from the 1994 album What a Crying Shame

Essentially their breakthrough hit, it found them ditching the political themes of their debut album for Orbison-channeling heartbreak instead.

“O What a Thrill”
from the 1994 album What a Crying Shame

A wonderfully romantic ballad that’s remarkably sophisticated.

1 234 235 236 237 238 337