Rolling Country 2023

oops, here's link:
https://www.pbs.org/video/terry-allen-sgfb6f/

Deep summer bonus track from The River and The Stream, later on a Jesse Winchester tribute album, Quiet About It:
Rosanne Cash, "Biloxi"---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDhV5SscEgc

Maybe a controversial opinion, but I think Ro. Cash's three album run from Black Cadillac to The List to The River & The Thread is as strong as anything she's ever done, and I'm someone who thinks she already had at least 3 canon-ready albums during her commercial heyday.

I remember being a bit distracted by what I heard as the arty (pastoral woodcuts vs. country) lyrics of The River & Thread, but liked some of it, if not as much as those first two.
Emily Nussbaum tries to come to grips with today's blue Nashville under assault from within and without, but I was mainly struck by her conversation with Adeem, starting about 20-25 minutes in:

Nussbaum also speaks with Adeem the Artist, a nonbinary country singer and songwriter based in East Tennessee, who has found success with audiences but has not broken through on mainstream country radio. “I think that it’s important that people walk into a music experience where they expect to feel comforted in their bigotry and they are instead challenged on it and made to imagine a world where different people exist,” Adeem says. “But, as a general rule, I try really hard to connect with people even if I’m making them uncomfortable.”

Also, Adeem plays "Books and Records" by request, at just the right point in the interview.

re: Sara Evans, pretty sure Suds in the Bucket is one of her two best songs, the other being the near-title track from her best album Real Fine Place ("A Real Fine Place To Start".) SITB is on a pretty decent album too, but RFP is the place to uh start.

Lori McKenna's new album is solid as ever. Seeing her in a couple of weeks so need to do a bit of a back catalog review.

Also, seeing Eric Church this weekend. Not sure what to expect. Anyone seen him live?

Church put on a solid show this weekend. Though his last couple of albums aren't very consistent, he played what would be considered his "greatest hits," much of Chief and Mr. Misunderstood especially, which I consider two of the best country albums of the 2010s. He blends outlaw, swamp, and southern country rock, liberally borrowing from R&B, gospel, and soul in the mold of CCR and the Stones. He did two covers, Little Feat's "Sailin Shoes" and a rousing "Ophelia" in tribute to Robbie Robertson, both bands that seem like the kind of antecedents he models himself after.

Content-wise, he likes to walk in two worlds, playing to his audience with ample songs about drinking and getting stoned--"Livin Part of Life," "Drink in My Hand," "Round Here Buzz," and "Smoke a Little Smoke" all made appearances--and unfurling a giant American flag to rousing applause late in the set. But the songs rarely if ever seem to be plainly patriotic or about the type of macho masculinity that Aldean and others traffic in. I was struck in particular by "Never Break Heart," in which he repeats "It's okay to cry" four or five times; maybe I'm misinterpreting, but he recited the line as if addressing his male fans directly.

One topic that he returns to again and again is music itself: "Mistress Named Music," "Country Music Jesus," "Pledge Allegiance to the Hag," and "Springsteen" were all played, the latter of which remains his best track, the rare understated song that became a fan favorite and a sing-along anthem. I like how often he name checks his heroes or nods to their work in his own songs: Merle Haggard, The Boss, Elvis, Stevie Wonder, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Elvis Costello, and Jeff Tweedy to name a few, whose "Misunderstood" he interpolated for the aforementioned "Mr. Misunderstood."

“Rich Men North of Richmond” is an archetypal example of right wing populist ideology—there’s a vague gesture against elites keeping working people down, but the alleged mechanism by which they are keeping them down is by giving their tax dollars to “undeserving” poor people

— Armand Domalewski 🍌 (@ArmandDoma) August 14, 2023

I still love Eric Church like he was an ex-boyfriend with whom I remain on good terms. I roll my eyes at his mistakes, forgive him.

Eric Church remains the only arena country show I've been to honestly, it was fantastic from what I remember

xp he seems like a bit of a dork, tbqh. At one point he switched up some of his lyrics off the cuff to reference Chicago, rhyming the city with "not wanting to go home," and then bashfully felt the need to explain to the audience mid-song that he "just made that up!" as though that wasn't obvious to everyone lol.

I love him because he's a dork!

Is that "Rich Men..." song that thing with the bearded dobro dude? I saw a muted recut on FB of that video where he was intercut with clips of Trump dancing and I don't think it came off like the creator intended.

Yah, or "Lucky Charms Mumford and Sons" as Tyler Mahan Coe dubbed him.

Ah. Every generation gets the "Welfare Cadillac" it deserves then.

Not one of my core interests, no more than a sunset is a dog's, but after 2 hours ofI’m Gonna Sing: The Mother’s Best Gospel Radio RecordingsI believe that there is balm in Hank, Audrey(!), and the Drifting Cowboys. Some of the words are otherwise too other, but they do fly and waltz and traipse and discreetly boom-chick by---and this SPOILER finale fits perfectly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3mY_xdjAG8

There's also an amazing bluesiness, layers, seams, veins of loss (often mentioned) and decay and struggle and surging and searching, also the sense of justice in judgement applied to self and others, the worn poise of witness, for a moment (these are mostly v. short), on the sunny, stormy road to death and Glory, hopefully (Hank requests a little cabin in the shade of the Tree of Life, where he can maybe "shake hands with Jesus") Then there's there the one where "Death comes down, an angel from Heaven," gathering flowers for the Master's bouquet: a lovely waltz.

New Jessi:

Edge of Forever, coming Oct. 27 on Appalachia Recording Co. The project was produced by Margo Price and mixed by Shooter Jennings, Colter’s son with the late Waylon Jennings. It includes never-before-heard songs written by Colter and Waylon in the 1970s, songs drawn from sheet music discovered in an old briefcase, newer compositions influenced by Colter’s gospel leanings, and collaborations with her daughter, Jenni Eddy Jennings, and Price.

Zach Bryan just dropped his new album

My 16-year-old daughter just asked me this morning if I had heard that album yet, and I'm trying to figure out why. I mean, I like him, but that would be like her asking me if I'd heard the new Jason Isbell.

idk how many 16-y/os listen to jason isbell

Zach Bryan is way more popular than Isbell.

bryan's duet with musgraves is on track to be the #1 song on the hot 100 next week.

haven't heard the song or album yet. ian cohen said something about how zach bryan shares some emo-adjacent properties (he mentioned conor oberst and dashboard confessional) that separates him from other country folks of today. then again, he *would* say that.

Well, both albums are in essence Drake-esque mix tapes.

(I may have said so to Ian on Twitter, I don't remember)

i've only listened to the song w/ musgraves so far. i'll give the album a go since it isn't 2 hours like his last one (which i did listen to and enjoy, but you know). anyway the song is... fine? beautifully produced, to be sure. but, like, the verses sound exactly like the verses to the majority of his songs from the last album. iirc he quips about 'real writing' or w/e at one point on the album and it's like... maybe you could stand to accept some pointers from some 'fake writers' about how not to rely on the same tricks/formula for 80% of your songs

to be sure it can be remarkably effective -- "something in the orange" was the first song i heard by him and it basically stopped me in my tracks -- but, idk, despite not disliking it exactly i'm still struggling to see why this musgraves duet in particular is resonating so much. hopefully there will be other stuff on the album that i'll prefer

Because once a singer (Musgraves) is crowned a pop queen or whatever then people pledge fealty for life(style).

Zach Bryan is way more popular than Isbell.

Yeah, I knew this; he's big enough that he plays arenas, and Isbell (one of his biggest inspirations, iirc) is opening for *him* on a couple of upcoming dates. I guess I had no idea how much pop crossover he has going for him, though I suppose that's a thing right now with country music. Better Zach Bryan than fucking Morgan Wallen.

bummed he's going again with Ticketmaster for his upcoming tour after making a fuss (righteously so) about not using them on his most recent tour

The Musgraves duet stood out because for once one of those guest appearances is appropriate to the song; she sounds like she belongs.

it's like... maybe you could stand to accept some pointers from some 'fake writers' about how not to rely on the same tricks/formula for 80% of your songs

idk this template works for me? The unfussy production or non-production fits these stories about damaged lives. Hell, the mariachi horn on "Overtime" came outta nowhere.

xpost Is he? I thought he was going through Stubhub or something. Maybe that is Ticketmaster?

I dunno I thought he was going through someone else because thankfully the presale codes aren't through Verified Fan (through his own website instead and some other third party) but then I got an email from the venue today with Ticketmaster links for the two shows he's doing here in Toronto

Bryan's rise has been meteoric and is another interesting data point in the larger moment country's having this year. To see Isbell and Turnpike Troubadours opening for him (by his own admission, his heroes), is quite the thing. There's absolutely a heart-on-the-sleeve "authenticity" to Bryan that appeals to younger audiences. fwiw, I've liked his previous work and was encouraged to see from the tracklist that he's introducing The War & Treaty and Sierra Ferrell to his fans. I'd leave it to smarter minds than me to draw associations and antecedents -- I see a bit of the Boss in him, myself. At the end of the day, the songs are consistently hooky and his.

From Variety:

The tour is being promoted by AEG Presents. Tickets for most of the shows will be available through Ticketmaster — unlike the 2023 tour, where Bryan made a point of only playing venues where Ticketmaster did not have to be used for ticketing. A look at Ticketmaster presale links shows that 42 of the Bryan shows next year will be on sale through that ticketing service, out of 54 dates on the itinerary. Tickets are also available on resale sites such as Stubhub, Vividseats and SeatGeek.

However, Ticketmaster is not handling the registration process or distributing codes for any of the shows — AEG Presents is handling those duties for all dates, including those ticketed by Ticketmaster

As with his just-completed tour, Bryan is expected to keep a tight lid on ticket resale possibilities. In advance of tickets going on sale, fans will need to pre-register here to sign up for a presale code. The presale begins Sept. 6, for those who are sent the code. The general on-sale date is Sept. 8.

Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 and they control usage of most of the arenas in the US and make it hard to do shows without using Ticketmaster

i saw ZB a month ago and was not surprised to find myself surrounded by 35,000 people screaming along to every word, but still, it was something to see.

and most of them were 25 or younger.

he is, like, 5x Isbell, maybe? 10x? ... and Isbell is doing real good.

i think his songs are fine to good - some are great - but it's hard to figure out exactly what he is doing to command an A+ level fan base. he is likeable ... obviously good on social ... has the military connection ... still, football stadiums? multiple nights at basketball arenas? whatever it is, he should bottle it and sell it. that's where the real money is!

to your point: https://www.stereogum.com/2223439/zach-bryan-came-out-of-nowhere/reviews/concert-review/

I'm quite happy to hear Kacey on a country track again.

This may be a major stretch but reading the SG review Alfred posted had me thinking...is Bryan winning the demographic that was rabid about Dave Matthews in the late 90s/early 00s? Maybe more working class, perhaps, but there's an approachability/familiarity/simplicity to both artists' songwriting.

i don't know as much about emo as ian but i do agree that this album could've been on like saddle creek 30 years ago or secretly canadian 20 years ago etc. he leans into the twang in his voice & i think the songwriting codes as country but the arrangements feel as much like the americana end of indie as it does anything else to me

i love this album btw. for anyone who is having a hard time finding an entry point -- understandable given the scope of his last album -- i would recommend starting w/ the 'all my homies hate ticketmaster' live album from the beginning of the year. he really shines in the live setting imo even via recording -- you get a better sense of his personality, and the arrangements of some of the older records are flattered by the full band behind him. "god speed," "the good i'll do" & "oklahoma smokeshow" are my favs if anyone just wants to cherry pick (also all great in their recorded versions)

is Bryan winning the demographic that was rabid about Dave Matthews in the late 90s/early 00s?

i'm just going off what i saw when i went to one of the NYC shows this summer but i don't think his audience is the jam band crowd. it's gen z kids in the south/midwest who previously would've been fans of mainstream country but now have a wider menu of options to choose from. i mentioned this in the itunes/race thread but in talking to some kids in that demo about music, we're just seeing a generational shift in country where everything that was previously hot in the mainstream (sam hunt, thomas rhett, luke bryan, kane brown) is seen as corny millennial music. of course there's still corny millennials out there so those artists still have big audiences but i have gotten a prevailing sense that bryan is still capturing what is pretty wholly a country-centric fanbase, it's just a young audience growing into its purchasing power that looks at those other country artists as "yours" and zach bryan et al as "ours." obv i'm making some generalizations here but that's my read on it

i do agree that this album could've been on like saddle creek 30 years ago or secretly canadian 20 years ago etc.

opening couple tracks giving me big Okkervil River vibes

i think my favourite is "El Dorado"?

i think also the seeds of this were being planted for years. you have kids who were teenagers listening to stuff like jason isbell, tyler childers, whiskey myers. one of morgan wallen's biggest breakthrough record being a jason isbell song doesn't feel incidental to me when you're looking at the success of zach bryan et al. on the high end of this style of country we're talking about eric church & chris stapleton. those artists used to be seen as losing the battle for the soul of country, but i would look at the current landscape and say that they won the war. so anyway, i don't mean to imply that there was some switch flipped overnight regarding this generational stuff. 3-5 years ago gen z kids in the south, appalachia, midwest etc were coming into their own as music fans & making their own choices about what their music was & now we're seeing the full cultural manifestation of that shift in taste. again please note i'm talking in broad strokes here. but what we're seeing now has been in motion for some years the way we think of, like, the timeline of underground club music changing the sound of pop

the timeline of underground club music changing the sound of pop

and i mean this in a general sense too... sorry i should be more precise w/ my words. i don't want the post to read like i'm calling "underground club music" a concrete individual thing that changed pop music in one moment. but just the way we think of like... a scene grows in the clubs in some city across the world and then starts seeping into pop music before hitting a kinda cultural saturation via that subsumption. i'd think about this stuff in those terms except it's more of a national phenomenon in this case

good posts, jordan, all otm

i feel like the true roots of this movement have to go back 1. beyond Childers / Whiskey Myers (who are certainly major figures in it but feel just a tad too recent to be the forefront) and 2. to someone other than Isbell, who is also a major figure but a little too high-falutin' / progressive / small-time-in-2015 to have generated this kind of surge, especially with conservative kids from the south and midwest. (same for Sturgill, fwiw.)

Chris Stapleton, I think, is the real huge bridge from mainstream to what we're talking about here. Maybe not some revelation ... just thinking out loud. If there's someone that led to him, I'm not quite sure who it is.

anyway, i have decided that Childers is my favorite of this whole gang

i feel like the true roots of this movement have to go back 1. beyond Childers / Whiskey Myers (who are certainly major figures in it but feel just a tad too recent to be the forefront) and 2. to someone other than Isbell, who is also a major figure but a little too high-falutin' / progressive / small-time-in-2015 to have generated this kind of surge, especially with conservative kids from the south and midwest. (same for Sturgill, fwiw.)

i cede to your expertise! i need to listen to childers' music more

Good call on Stapleton, and this makes total sense to me, J0rdan:

a generational shift in country where everything that was previously hot in the mainstream (sam hunt, thomas rhett, luke bryan, kane brown) is seen as corny millennial music. of course there's still corny millennials out there so those artists still have big audiences but i have gotten a prevailing sense that bryan is still capturing what is pretty wholly a country-centric fanbase, it's just a young audience growing into its purchasing power that looks at those other country artists as "yours" and zach bryan et al as "ours."

Only add/caveat I have is that ZB seems to have captured both sides of the fence. Might be just an anecdote but I have two colleagues in their late 20s who love country music. One is a massive Stapleton and Childers fan, the other is a huge Morgan Wallen, Luke Bryan guy. Both love ZB.

Where does Sam Hunt fit? He seems to have since 2020.

I worry about Eric Church's next album.

one of morgan wallen's biggest breakthrough record being a jason isbell song doesn't feel incidental to me when you're looking at the success of zach bryan et al.

Wasn't one of Bryan's earliest youtube breakthroughs an Isbell cover, too? "Dress Blues"? That was back in 2018. I think there were a handful of youtube songs that went viral (whatever that means) a year or so before his first album even came out.

I feel like Bryan was one of the few people to successfully thread the political needle when he dissed Travis Tritt for being a dick, but then later found a way to reconcile off-camera (as it were). He came off pretty well, and I assume his background and disposition (he's stayed pretty mum on own personal politics, hasn't he?) seemingly allows him to straddle different worlds.