Articles by Dan Milliken

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Discussion: Non-Hit Singles of the Decade

November 4, 2009 Dan Milliken 59

BillboardPop on those thinking caps; we’ve encountered a dilemma that Wikipedia alone cannot remedy!

See, like any warm-blooded entertainment blog, CU totally gets off on ranking stuff. So naturally, we’ve been hard at work piecing together our opinions on the decade’s finest albums and singles. The former category has proven easy enough to probe; the latter, however, presents a significant challenge, since singles that aren’t mainstream hits are often swept under the public carpet as the years go by.

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Review: Ryan Bingham, “Country Roads”

November 2, 2009 Dan Milliken 1

Ryan Bingham_2Hey, here’s something new: a gritty-sounding Americana dude singing about open roads and not giving a damn. Pretty novel, right?

Well, no. But there’s a fierce vitality to Ryan Bingham’s “Country Roads” that transcends the song’s somewhat hackneyed Dylan-on-a-dirt-bike aesthetic. The opening snare fires off like a racetrack gunshot, and the harmonica-driven sound that barrels out after it is so recklessly joyful that it makes every word it touches sound brand-new – and better, somewhat universal.

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CMA Noms ’09

September 9, 2009 Dan Milliken 78

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It’s that time of year again! For each category, we’ll look at who’s broken in since last year, who’s been booted out, plus some initial thoughts. As always, we invite you to share your own opinions in the comments. Without further ado:

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Miranda Lambert, “White Liar”

August 7, 2009 Dan Milliken 26

miranda whiteI think someone’s in a little songwriting funk. The #37-stalled “Dead Flowers” had intriguing lyrics but a generally bland sound; this one has the inverse problem. The melody and production are reminiscent of Little Big Town’s best rustic country-rock, and there’s a much more commanding hook here than “Dead Flowers” had, but the effort is compromised by throwaway lines like the chorus’ closing “And I don’t know why, white liar.” Don’t know why what, MirLam?

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Picking the CMA Nominees: Music Video of the Year

August 6, 2009 Dan Milliken 25

Ah, Music Video of the Year. The awkward stepchild of the CMA Awards. Aside from provoking fewer blog wars than the bigger races, it’s also the category that apparently takes the least effort for voters to fill up, since predicting the nominees is often as easy as asking yourself, “well, which songs are probably going to be nominated for Song and Single?”

Nevertheless, music videos remain an important aspect of an artist’s public image, and sometimes even rise to the level of legitimate art. Keeping in mind the eligibility period (July 1st, 2008 – June 30th, 2009), below are the five videos I would most like to see recognized as such by CMA voters. Interestingly, four of them were breakthrough videos for their artists:

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Alan Jackson, “I Still Like Bologna”

July 27, 2009 Dan Milliken 14

Jeez, talk about your “Good Artists Gone Bad.” Alan Jackson’s latest manages to take two things I really like – honky-tonk music and silly song titles – and make them seem duller than a bad Learn-To-Type program.

It’s almost the kind of song Tim McGraw’s “Back When” once poked fun at, actually, except the subject matter here is the progression of technology, and this doesn’t even feel like enough of an effort to warrant spoofing. I mean, there’s not much to say about a song whose first three minutes basically break down to, “I kind of like my plasma T.V….but also, I kind of like whippoorwills.”

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Michelle Branch, “Sooner Or Later”

July 24, 2009 Dan Milliken 11

…Or as I’m going to call it, “Michelle Branch copying Taylor Swift copying Michelle Branch.”

For real, though. It’s like the thing has passed through so many levels of self-consciousness that most of the personality just got rubbed out of the mix at some point, leaving behind only a flimsy song and recycled production.

It’s not unpleasant listening, but it’s difficult to avoid comparing to Swift’s similar (and superior) “You Belong With Me,” and even harder to enjoy in the context of Branch’s own body of work, which has seen both pop and pop-country with much more passion, maturity and distinction.

Remind me why we can’t have The Wreckers again?

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