Rolling Country 2014

Joygoat, if cocaine counts, there's Merle Haggard's "Wishing All These Old Things Were New, though it's not exactly a party song; and Shooter Jennings' "Little White Lines," if that's what it's about. For the leaf, there's Shooter's "Busted In Baylor County."

Dierks Bentley sang “"you can grow marijuana way back in the pines/or work for the man down in the mines” in “Down In The Mine” a few years back. And I'm pretty sure there was another song on the same album, Up On The Ridge, that talked about smoking pot or at least generically “getting high,” but I’m drawing a blank on which track it might have been.

So far I like Dierks’s new album even less than Eric Church's, by the way, if only because I'm way less likely to return to its best songs. Only songs I like much on Church's are "Talladega" and "Like A Wrecking Ball," though maybe half of the rest (including the current single) is at least tolerable. Agree with Alfred (at least so far) that it's his worst album; in fact, I'd been predicting that since I heard an advance EP of song snippets last fall, and finally confirmed it this weekend.

Interestingly given something said above, @nn P0w3rs (who thinks it's a great record) told me on facebook that she thought "poptimists" would have trouble with the new Church album, since (she says) he's obsessed with being "authentic" (or something like that). (I didn't know whether that meant she thought I was a poptimist or not. I also still don't believe there's any such thing, but that's old news.)

Frank probably deserves an answer to what he said upthread about what I'd said about lazy Nashville Scene poll voters. And he's probably right (though I'm not sure that previous discussion he linked to had to do with singles results mirroring album results, which even if not lazy makes for a boring and not particularly useful singles list) -- not to mention that I'm probably just as lazy sometimes. But mainly I need to give it more thought.

Music City Roots streams Wednesday night live audio-video shows from Nashville, with a variety of performers, playing with ye olde-tymey live country radio format (extended into TV Age via brief occasional on-stage commercials, presented, usually, by Hee Haw/Dazzy Duk-style gals). Tonight's line-up headlines Shonna Tucker & Eye Candy (regular/steel guitarist John Neff, a founding, recurring, now adamantly ex-Trucker, with guys from Elf Power, I think). Haven't yet gotten that much into late-'13 debut album, but live glimpses so far were promising.
The show starts with Julie Roberts, whose first album, past the starpower of her first single/video, was pretty disappointing. But she may have had more control over the unexpected 2013 return, which I haven't heard, or heard of, 'til I read this round-up(also: Jason D. Williams, Willie Sugarcapps, and The Barefoot Movement--better than their name, hopefully)
http://musiccityroots.com/here-comes-the-sun

Lots of prev. shows still in the archive, last time I checked. All the ones I've seen are two hours long.

Oh, and I keep forgetting: Kacey Musgrave/Dale Watson's Austin City Limits sets are still streaming, for now (gotta set up a PBS.org account, but just takes a sec).
Not crazy about his albums, the few I've heard (hers either, consistency-wise), but he plays somewhere almost every night, so should be tight, right? Autopilot, possibly, but http://video.klru.tv/video/2365170232/

Jamey Johnson (who, like Shooter Jennings* everybody seems to have already forgotten about in all this Eric Church hoopla, though maybe I just haven't read the right reviews), "Can't Cash My Checks": "You can't make a good living these days 'cause the truth just won't sell/So if you go out my back door just over the hill/You'll see all these plants that's been paying my bills."

* -- who put out a way more metal -- and even worse! -- album than The Outsiders a couple years ago by the way.

Also pretty sure Kid Rock's mentioned weed at least once or twice, if he counts. (If nothing else, "Picture" -- a #21 country hit that talked about cocaine, though possibly not in the radio version -- ought to.)

And really late-period Kid Rock should count, in part because Church's "That's Damn Rock'n'Roll" is basically a late-period Kid Rock song.

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2013:

1. High Top Mountain, Sturgill Simpson

wow, wish i would have seen this talked up more in the world at large a la kacey et al

well, this is a hell of a song

http://sturgillsimpson.bandcamp.com/track/some-days

I'm getting pretty tired of the state things are in
Sometimes I feel like cutting a vein, just watching it bleed
I'm tired of laying it down, getting nothing on the other end
and people only wanting to be your friend when you got something they need

Well I'm getting pretty tired of being treated like competition
When the only one that can hold me down is inside my head
Whats a honky gotta do around here to get a little recognition
Start to think I might be worth more to everybody if I was dead

I'm getting pretty tired sitting around and wasting time
I'm tired of taking blame when I ain't done nothing wrong
I'm tired of other people trying to take what's mine
and I'm tired of y'all playing dress up and trying to sing them old country songs

Well some days you kill it and some days you just choke
Some days you blast off and some days you just smoke
Well now maybe I do and maybe I don't
Everybody says they'll be there but in the end y'all know they won't

would be strange to be in an audience for it, i think

the haden triplets, album release party at the bootleg theater, los angeles -- more old-timey/retro than this thread tends to go, i think, but i like the album, which places occasionally raggedy sisterly harmonies over pretty arrangements of country and bluegrass standards. recommended if you like the carter family and you find yourself missing 1947 and the knitters were too rock for your taste. the tempos are all almost aggressively slow, which doesn't bother me on the album, but onstage i really really wanted them -- needed them -- to rock out at least a little. i kept waiting. they kept getting slower. but they and their band, a mostly acoustic five-piece but with ry cooder playing electric lead for at least half the set, were endearingly loose, unpolished. they were less precious live than on record. and ry did rock out on his corner of the stage, sitting on a folding chair and playing wonderful ry cooder lead bits. first show in a long time where i was continuously thinking, "more guitar solos, please." they played an awful lot of songs by brothers -- louvins, stanleys, everlys -- which is maybe an inside joke because they're sisters, or maybe when you're doing country and bluegrass covers you don't really have a choice. i was also amused when, after playing a couple jesus songs, they said to their friends in the audience, now you understand why we can't pay the temple israel fundraiser.

...can't *play* the temple israel fundraiser.

Ha. Charlie's kids

I clicked on that Sturgill Simpson Bandcamp link and this is the portion of his bio that's immediately visible:

Sturgill Simpson's authenticity stands out like an island of hope in a sea of tacky. Pure and uncompromising, devoid of...

I came back without even pressing play on the song. Might go back and try again later.

I'm new to Eric Church; picked up Chief and The Outsiders at Target last weekend. Chief is very good, The Outsiders is pretty bad. I listen to way too much Cannibal Corpse, to name just one, for his lyrics to get me worked up, but as far as the music's concerned, I'll just cut 'n' paste what I put on Facebook: "I feel SLIGHTLY less baffled (in the 'did I get the same CD I read about in the reviews?' sense) and ripped off after this purchase than I did after buying the first Big & Rich CD. Slightly. I guess the lesson here, which I fortunately only have to re-learn once a decade or so, is to never take advice on country music from pop critics."

hey let us know if there's any other music you almost listen to but don't

All right, I went back and listened. You'd think a guy so wound up about authenticity would have rounded up a live drummer. The voice is very Waylon to my ear, and since I'd been listening to that Nashville Rebel box from 2006 or so recently, I was OK with that.

"I feel SLIGHTLY less baffled (in the 'did I get the same CD I read about in the reviews?' sense) and ripped off after this purchase than I did after buying the first Big & Rich CD. Slightly. I guess the lesson here, which I fortunately only have to re-learn once a decade or so, is to never take advice on country music from pop critics."

You posted this on Facebook a few days ago, and I'm baffled why you're posting it here when just about everyone on this thread has written at length about country.

Seriously: xhuxk, dow, Kogan, a few others here review country albums all the time and probably send Nashville Scene ballots yet they're "pop critics" reviewing country music? And you condescend to (a) them (b) pop music?

They weren't the critics I was talking about. I was talking about Powers, Harvilla, and all the other people who've suddenly bubbled up to rave about Eric Church's new album.

Of course it was xhuxk who sold the world on Big & Rich...

http://www.savingcountrymusic.com/scathing-jason-aldean-concert-review-censored

man there's already a lot being written about that without stooping to that SCM bullshit

and under armour didn't complain (they can get fucked anyway tho)

I'd call myself a rock critic writing about country. But I wouldn't object to the designation "pop critic writing about country."* Face it, my sensibility isn't country's, and I don't want it to be. (Not that country has but a single sensibility.) And maybe my not being country makes me a better critic of country.

Fwiw, I think many or most country critics started off writing about rock and pop, though actually I don't really know a lot about who writes or wrote about country. The three books I have about country are by Nick Tosches, John Morthland, and Bill Malone, only the last of whom I'd designate more a country critic than a rock critic.

As for authenticity, I'm all for it, and think as a writer and thinker I'm authentic, in that I seek the truth, challenge assumptions (incl. some of my own, sometimes), take account of good counter-arguments, don't lie, don't write in bad faith. When I think of what underlies most people's idea of authenticity, and why arguments over the "real" just will never ever go away, and shouldn't, I think of the Big Youth line, "Marcus Garvey say... black people will never know themselves until them back against the wall," meaning you don't know who you are until you've been tested, and you don't know whether an idea's good until it's been tested, and so forth - i.e., you're willing to stand up for something when it costs you to do so. The trouble is, people take a shortcut, make a fetish of paying a price, so they think paying a price for a stance makes the stance right, and paying a price for a belief makes the belief true. And they take further shortcuts, making being downtrodden and persecuted a mark of authenticity. So they mistake the markings of authenticity for the rightness of a stance and the truth of a belief, and their test for whether something is right becomes a tallying of what sort of person supports it and what sort of person opposes it, rather than whether (if it's a belief) it matches evidence or is consistent with one's other apparently true beliefs (if it's not, you gotta rethink something) or, when it's a stance or action, what its consequences are, what it builds and what it tears down. But as long as power is unjust and truth is corrupted, people will find authenticity in whatever looks to be embattled, whether it's old gone masculinity or sneered-at girlie pop. All this is understandable. I think Sturgill Simpson is lazy in donning the mere trappings of "authenticity," which ironically makes him seem phony to me in his presentation, but that doesn't mean there's no value in his singing and no truth in his experience.

Also find the word "authenticity" to itself be too much of a shortcut, that it waves its hand at issues without spelling them out, and I prefer the adjectival form, "real," attached to some noun. (Also think I wrote at more depth and therefore better about this stuff here and here, basically about why I'm not an antirockist.) But I really have no respect for people when they're saying, in effect, "It's these other people who are all hung up on authenticity, but we know better than to care about it." I know better than not to care about it.

*And my number one country singles of various years have included songs by Miley Cyrus, Marit Larsen, and 2Yoon (my justification for my Marit vote included the statement, "Norway's a country").

is that what simpson is doing, donning trappings? i kind of thought that the number of songs about him as a performer/songwriter and the music business were sort of meant as a stab at threading the needle between being inauthentic by choice (ruled out) and being authentic naturally, as if there were a way of doing the latter that he had in mind but could not do without the reflexive me-and-this-business self-consciousness. but his way of doing it -with- that stuff seems like it's not exactly reducible to 'donning trappings'. sometimes it seems to me like even a matter of deliberate incongruity with the expectation that as a performer he'll only 'perform' country-unhappiness, country-life-problems etc. that first verse of 'some days' doesn't sound performed: it sounds like the kind of uncomfortable admission that a songwriter operating under a more conventional/stylized form of 'authenticity' might have looked askance at, and taken simpson aside to say, hey, look, if we could change this to make it more… soulful, heartfelt… wouldn't that be better? but he leaves it that way.

Talking about "authenticity" is difficult. Frank says it quite well above. You do got to think about it, "realness." Of course there is that aspect to music, and all art. It seems rather basic, but you do have to remember that art is both subject matter and an attitude toward subject matter, as well as an attitude toward formal elements which themselves become the subject matter, in many cases. I suppose this is why writing or thinking about country clearly can be so difficult for people. Of course I give a damn that Merle Haggard really lived the life he writes about, but Merle Haggard cares about how well he can make up stuff. So I think there's a disconnection between artists' intentions and audience expectations now, when "pop" or "rock" critics think about this stuff, that perhaps did not exist back in the olden days of country music.

Here's me on Jerrod Niemann's new record, which raises some of these authenticity questions, in its comedic way.

i think the general ILM position on "authenticity" is fairly well understood, and i am in general agreement with that piece of the hivemind. but this is an interesting place to at least try talking about it, as country and hip-hop seem to be the two genres where the elusive idea of "authenticity" seems to be a core value that is as important to the music as it is to discussion of the music. there are plenty of "real country" radio stations out there. not sure if there are any "real pop" stations. i'm fascinated by sturgill simpson, who i saw for the first time at sxsw. he stood between a guitarist and bassist who both were dressed head-to-toe in two very different takes on authentic country dress. guitar guy looked like a longhaired southern rock acolyte. bassist looked like he was auditioning for the lead role in a tv show about an alt-country band from brooklyn. and standing in the middle, sturgill himself, in short hair and dad jeans, looked like a dental equipment salesman in a breakfast buffet line at a convention. he didn't seem like he was trying at all. which maybe is just a different way of trying. i loved his voice and the sound of the band. don't remember a single song, though. (and then i was surprised to go online and see the cover of his upcoming album, on which he looks like the very picture of an authentic country outlaw.)

frank k's take on authenticity is great.

country and hip-hop seem to be the two genres where the elusive idea of "authenticity" seems to be a core value that is as important to the music as it is to discussion of the music.

Well, don't forget metal. That fits, too.

Also want to mention that the first reference to "authenticity" on this thread had to do with Eric Church, not Sturgill Simpson (who I've barely paid attention to myself, but then again I've never had much stomach for Waylon's singing, either).

Told Edd on facebook that the new Jerrod Niemann is a major disappointment for me, seeming both dumbed down and reined in after his first two (the second of which made my Pazz & Jop ballot a couple years back.) I like the new David Nail and Eli Young Band albums more, though they've both done better in the recent past too. Beyond that, country is drawing a blank for me so far this year like it hasn't since I don't know when. (New alt-country/folkieish one by Mary Gauthier -- who I think Frank has mentioned before, though I forget in what context -- actually sounded tolerable enough in the background that I'm committed now to figuring out whether there are actually any memorable songs on it.)

I did do these 3 mixes for Rhapsody in the past month or two, though:

http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/square-dance-tronica-mix

http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/country-dance-remixes

http://app.rhapsody.com/blog/post/rnb-covers-country

Wow, those look weirdly appy when clicked on; I had no idea. Direct links to the actual complete playlists, fwiw:

http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.139659102

http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.141201242

http://app.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.136642041

More discussion of Eric Church (don't think this March 12th piece was mentioned upthread):

http://www.popmatters.com/column/179709-the-outsiders-of-country-music/

A recent CBS Sunday Morning interview with Church depicted him, purposely or not, as a popular kid, the class president, who learned that dark sunglasses, stubble and drug references brought the biggest cheers from audiences. So he decided to turn up the “outlaw” aspect of his persona.

Might sit down on my diamond plate tailgate
Put in my country ride hip-hop mixtape
Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain

Luke Bryan 2013 video still getting airplay

No talk in here about the "lost" Johnny Cash album?

it's pleasant

No talk in here about the "lost" Johnny Cash album?

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Monday, March 31, 2014 2:55 PM

Alas, after one's wilderness years, much shit is left behind.

That refer to the Cash album, btw, not your ILX handle.

I wanted more chatter about the Jerrod Niemann album; what I've heard is pretty damn anonymous. Last album was a breakthrough, maybe the most ambitious bro country album of the last three years.

The Cash album is worth checking out---after all those death's door and beyond albums (although The Man Comes Around was really good), it's startling to hear him hale and even sassy---not that the lead-off, suicide-by-cop song is sad on the bridge, but otherwise he gets caught up in the vicarious thrill (singing about those who will take any kind of release), his trademark empathy with dark underdawgs now (in early 80s, when album was cut) enhanced by career and marital tumult. He's pretty chirpy throughout--what the hell, he can still do this, even if little else is working out---and he and June are still cool together in the studio; Waylon shows up too---however, the only tracks so far grabbing me are the sleaziest: when he and she are going over Lover's Leap in a Cadillac he ain't nearly paid for, cheering like Slim Pickens riding the Bomb; and a tale told by a guy who claims to have banged a country star---he ain't no groupie, he's just bold and lucky (JC has this kind of barroom BS down cold). Could be too creepy, but has a novelty punchline. But maybe Columbia agrees that the best tracks were the ones with NO country radio chance back then, and likely now. I'll listen some more; whole thing is a nice pick-me-up.
Really been enjoying most of these recent posts---oh, and this just in from Cary Baker (HW's live radio work, especially on the Health and Happiness Shows, really have a pleasing range, so looking fwd to this)

http://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20140328/49/3f/b9/d8/eb1cdb0e87a1c03c0689e42a_440x314.jpg

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED MUSIC FROM HANK WILLIAMS
SURFACES IN THE GARDEN SPOT PROGRAMS, 1950
On May 20, Omnivore Recordings will issue 24 songs and jingles recorded
in Nashville, and last heard generations ago.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Omnivore Recordings will soon release the full-length version of The Garden Spot Programs, 1950, featuring 24 performances, unheard for 64 years, from country music legend Hank Williams. Rescued from obscurity, these shows originally aired more than six decades ago; The Garden Spot Programs, 1950 collects material from the four episodes now known to exist. Due out May 20, 2014, the set follows the release of Omnivore’s collectible 10” vinyl Record Store Day EP sampler.
From hits to standards to songs rarely (if ever) performed, this is pure Hank Williams, including playful between-song banter. Featuring fully restored audio, The Garden Spot Programs, 1950 is an exceptional listening experience. Painstakingly transferred, restored and mastered from original transcription discs by Grammy Award winning engineer Michael Graves. Williams’ daughter, Jett, is excited that her father’s lost material is not only seeing the light of day decades later, but will be available on CD, digital and LP.
The CD packaging contains rare photos and liner notes from the collection of set co-producer and Williams biographer Colin Escott. Also available on LP, the first pressing will be on limited edition, translucent red vinyl (with black vinyl to follow), containing Escott’s informative notes and a download card.
Escott writes in his notes: “Set the time machine for early morning on KSIB-AM, Creston, Iowa. February 1950. Country radio was beginning its slow transition from live music to DJ shows. Live music and DJ shows were augmented by transcribed shows. After buying 15 minutes of airtime on small-market stations, sponsors would prerecord shows with well known artists, duplicate them, and ship them out on 12 or 16-inch transcribed discs.”

“That’s how Hank Williams came to be on KSIB in February 1950. Sandwiched between the local ‘live’ acts, it was almost as if he were visiting with Skeets and those Radio Rascals. His sponsor was one of the nation’s largest plant nurseries, Naughton Farms, seven hundred miles south in Waxahachie, Texas. Given that Naughton was a big player in the nursery business, Hank’s shows were almost certainly shipped to many small stations, but only KSIB’s copies survived. Those of us who have studied Hank’s life and career had no idea that these recordings existed.”
Any music from Hank Williams is worth celebrating. Discovering material that has been unheard for generations is monumental.
“It’s incredible to me that we’re still finding new recordings by my dad — great ones at that,” says Jett Williams. “No one even suspected that these recordings existed. We partnered with Omnivore Recordings for this release, and I especially love it that they’re taking my dad back to vinyl.”
Track Listing:
1. The Garden Spot Jingle
2. Lovesick Blues
3. A Mansion On The Hill
4. Fiddle Tune
5. I’ve Just Told Mama Goodbye
6. Closing/Oh! Susanna
7. The Garden Spot Jingle
8. Mind Your Own Business
9. Lovesick Blues
10. Fiddle Tune
11. At The First Fall Of Snow
12. Closing/Oh! Susanna
13. The Garden Spot Jingle
14. I Can’t Get You Off Of My Mind
15. I Don’t Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)
16. Fiddle Tune
17. Farther Along
18. Closing/Oh! Susanna
19. The Garden Spot Jingle
20. I’ll Be A Bachelor ’Til I Die
21. Wedding Bells
22. Fiddle Tune
23. Jesus Remembered Me
24. Closing/Oh! Susanna

Tracks 1 - 6 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #4
Tracks 7 - 12 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #9
Tracks 13 - 18 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #10
Tracks 19 - 24 taken from Naughton Farms Garden Spot Show #11
Here's the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr6-DuFS0aE&feature=youtu.be

"not that the suicide-by-cop song *isn't* sad on the bridge" and tastefully earnest all through, but yeah a trace of "let's do it!" too.

I wanted more chatter about the Jerrod Niemann album; what I've heard is pretty damn anonymous. Last album was a breakthrough, maybe the most ambitious bro country album of the last three years.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 31, 2014 9:42 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Need to hear it, but so far have just read about it-- how he records in his home studio and uses auto-tune and rap and then brings that to his producer who reels him in a bit on some songs. He's getting married and has a song or 2 for his fiance also.

Rolling Stone contributor said:

he does take his brand of country music to sonically innovative and admittedly polarizing levels. Take, for instance, "Drink to That All Night," the album’s first single. Its lyrics alone read like a good, old-fashioned drinking song that the Luke Bryans and Toby Keiths of the country world have cut a million times. But Niemann throws listeners for an Auto-Tuned loop by practically rapping two verses over an electronic dance beat. The track travels into a more familiar, country-rock neighborhood by the chorus, but it remains one of the most unique songs to crack the country singles chart’s Top 20 in a long time.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jerrod-niemann-on-his-innovative-and-potentially-polarizing-new-lp-20140324#ixzz2xaGLDyE6

I'm guessing the writer is not giving enough credit to listeners who at this point, may not be stunned by autotuned vocals and rapping

I liked the first and loved his second album.

Just listened to "Drink to that All Night." It is catchy pop, and that verse referenced in the Rolling Stone piece is not "polarizing" and likely doesn't throw anyone for a loop.

Need to hear the whole thing a few times to see whether I agree with Edd's Nashville Scene piece closing lines from his review:

With its high-grade instrumental backdrop, High Noon never lets up on the studied eclecticism. But as Jones could teach you, keeping it simple can often let the real insanity of country come through, and Niemann seems far too sane to approach that level of expression.

Niemann's "Come On, Come On" from the new one is kinda nice. "Donkey" uses old-school rapping and goofy lyrics --ride my donkey to the honky-tonkey. I like the line in one song about "I'm not Shakespeare or Kristofferson..."

But I hear less "studied eclecticism" on this one than Edd. Lots of standard pop-country with a few songs ("Drink...", "Donkey") nodding to other genres. But the eclecticism on those cuts does sound a bit studied.

And as for the other country singer getting press, Sturgill Simpson has apparently meshed his more traditional sounds with lyrics:

Inspired by the writings of American psychonaut Terence McKenna and Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” Simpson sings about the bardo of Tibetan Buddhism in the baritone of Waylon Jennings.

“I’ve been reading about the idea of cyclical lives — it matches up to the idea of string theory and a multiverse,” he says in a deep, dead-serious voice. “So I wanted to write a record about that instead of another song about broken hearts and drinking.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/sturgill-simpson-a-country-voice-of-and-out-of-this-world/2014/03/31/46277cce-b8f9-11e3-899e-bb708e3539dd_story.html?tid=hpModule_1f58c93a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e

Hook it up to Joe Diffie's "Third Rock From The Sun," which xhuxx IDs as a country song about chaos theory.
Good points on the aforementioned prev. unreleased Cash album, and this somewhut chaotic stage of his career--had forgotten about Johnny 99 and "The Chicken in Black":
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/03/johnny-cash-eighties-man.html#entry-more

Rat off, der Jerrod has nice sub-audiophile headphones appeal. But I know what Edd means about mebbe being "too sane": he certainly sounds too sober to call us us all aboard the bro-country party train. So he does better when he just takes his place on the bandwagon, settling in for some cool, low-key salesmanship, dispensing with the expected yeehaw on "Donkey" and "She's Fine," the latter being one of the most appealing, maybe seductive, as he undulates over the steady banjo and bass, with Colt Ford's rap adding a little more counter-rhytmic appeal ("undulates" like some of the prev. album's Carribbean-associated tendencies getting assimilated/re-emerging just a bit, as happens on a couple other of these tracks). The relatively bluesy "The Real Thing" also has some suavity, its bent-note reflectiveness fits with the one negatory track, "I Can't Give In Anymore," where he's tired of rolling around, having gotten the "Space" he wanted (good opening track, with electric stars spangling the chorus, but as always, no over-selling). I suppose he might establish himself as an older bro Chesney for the electrically inclined, but even several of the better tracks plateau in attention-keeping, even though all are under four minutes. I'll listen some more, but seems like (ahead of any cherrypicking, to put the ones I've mentioned with keepers from prev. albums), this setseems like less than the sum of its parts, kind of a (sub-)Nashville Skyline.

Also NS re quite reasonable, underwhelming follow-up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/business/media/losing-a-few-hay-bales-country-music-goes-mainstream.html?emc=edit_th_20140407&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=31119931&_r=0

Now America's most popular music radio format. Country's live concert audiences have grown, and Rolling Stone is looking to cash in:

Rolling Stone recently opened an office on Music Row, a formerly residential strip in Nashville, and is preparing to introduce Rolling Stone Country, a new website. “I am convinced Rolling Stone will provide a lens into the genre that currently doesn’t exist,” said Gus Wenner, the director of RollingStone.com and a son of Jann Wenner, the magazine’s founder.

While country broadcasters typically give their stations names like “The Wolf” or “The Coyote,” suggesting rural stereotypes, Lew Dickey, chief executive of Cumulus, said his new brand captured a broader and more upwardly mobile audience for the genre.

“We wanted to eschew the conventional stereotypes in the format and go with something more aspirational,” Mr. Dickey said. “Nash is cool; Nash is fun; Nash is relevant.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/07/acm-awards-big-winners-best-and-worst-performances-most-awkward-moments/

list of some of the winners and nominees:

Entertainer of the Year
Luke Bryan
Miranda Lambert
Blake Shelton
George Strait (winner)
Taylor Swift

Male Vocalist of the Year
Jason Aldean (winner)
Lee Brice
Luke Bryan
Blake Shelton
Keith Urban

Female Vocalist of the Year
Sheryl Crow
Miranda Lambert (winner)
Kacey Musgraves
Taylor Swift
Carrie Underwood

Vocal Duo of the Year
Big & Rich
Dan + Shay
Florida Georgia Line (winner)
Love and Theft
Thompson Square

Vocal Group of the Year
Eli Young Band
Lady Antebellum
Little Big Town
The Band Perry (winner)
Zac Brown Band

New Artist of the Year
Brett Eldredge
Justin Moore (winner)
Kip Moore

Album of the Year
“Based On A True Story…” – Blake Shelton
“Crash My Party” – Luke Bryan
“Here’s To The Good Times” – Florida Georgia Line
“Same Trailer Different Park” – Kacey Musgraves (winner)
“Two Lanes Of Freedom” – Tim McGraw

Single Record of the Year
“Cruise” Florida Georgia Line
“Highway Don’t Care” – Tim McGraw feat.Taylor Swift and Keith Urban
“I Drive Your Truck” – Lee Brice
“Mama’s Broken Heart” – Miranda Lambert (winner)
“Wagon Wheel” – Darius Rucker feat. Lady Antebellum

Song of the Year
“Every Storm (Runs Out Of Rain)” – Gary Allan (Written by Gary Allan, Hillary Lindsey, Matthew Warren)
“I Drive Your Truck” – Lee Brice (Written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, Jimmy Yeary) (winner)
“Mama’s Broken Heart “– Miranda Lambert (Written by Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally, Kacey Musgraves)
“Mine Would Be You” – Blake Shelton (Written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington, Deric Ruttan)
“Wagon Wheel” – Darius Rucker feat. Lady Antebellum (Written by Bob Dylan, Ketch Secor)

lmao at justin moore winning, or even being nominated for, new artist. his first country #1 was onoly what, 5 years ago?

Not to get purist! Just to have another Top Ten (which won't get counted in the poll, but neither would they as Hon. Mentions, my ongoing catchall category.)

This new category may be called Countryoid.

I wish I liked the Cash album as much as her Civil War ballad and as much as I love "Little Man."

Me too (though my wife likes it). We saw Rosanne Cash live around this time last year and I liked the songs better(they seemed to have more energy and life and less formula)

Yeah, works better live, esp. when she also includes "Ode To Billy Joe" and includes some of her older songs with the new ones

Listened to Angeleena Presley's American Middle Class, giving it the added advantage of contrast with arty artisanal artful Rosanne. It does grow on me, but still got mixed responses. Like-tolove the writing (for the latter, line about the girl who's compared to "a saddle in a one-hoss town," ouch!)and performance of "Ain't No Way," but the understated, breathy drawl can let me drift away when she doesn't let the instruments do enough of the dirty work, and seems willfully simple when the writing does. She and I come from similar backgrounds, and I'm still there, incl. financially, so obviously not smarter or for that matter better (or worse) off with the out-of-town book learnin' either, but I know she knows there's more to it than the title track rants about---oh wait, she'd be "Better Off Red," if all those things that she learned when the bluegrass poison of Eastern Kentucky State Babylon could just fall out of her head.

But of course, she's just giving us the unflattering truth of what she thinks sometimes, including the easy connection to "American Middle Class," and "Knocked Up" too, after spilling the beans in "Dry County Blues" (which drifts away a bit toward the end, but that's part of the point about that way of life)(ditto [a day in the]"Life of the Party," kinda generic but again context y'all, and nice picking), and especially "Pain Pills" (my fave, with the "backup singer" caught in echolalia and bouncing off the particle board, times the monster guitar she finally lets off its leash---although it's real good on and important to "Grocery Store" as well). After all that, "Knocked Up" 's wry delivery understates & underlines the notion that she hasn't really turned up her nose at *all* the secular local customs. Still, gets a little tedious, but maybe that's part of just movin' right along folks, life and life only. Fine line between the mundane and quotidian, yep.
"Drunk" okay set piece, you know the plot from first couple lines, didn't Brandy Clark do this? "BLessing and A Curse" is better, with bracing music, even though no hairy solos, good she can do it this way too; "Surrender" is even better with the candor again, though not quite spelling out what she's surrendering too, except it's not a sense of (ultimate) defeat, just "I can't do it alone," which I hope means she's realizing she can't rely too much on vocal power/distinction, and that she will also be a Pistol Annie as long as that works.
Hon. Mention, I guess. End of another minority report.

"if all those things that she learned, when the bluegrass poison of Eastern Kentucky State Babylon *entered her*, could just fall out of her head," I meant (still not that good, but a little clearer).

Should have just quoted the line instead of parodically paraphrasing it, but anyway.

Oh yeah, staying in Pistol Annies might help w writing as well, at least re feedback, also trying different co-writers beyond PA.

Eric Church, The Outsiders
First track has me thinking this is hick hop in black, with a touch of metal, ready to square off in the parking lot with rich yearbook pix/cheerleader hawgs of bro country--like Metallica presented as a dark alternative to gaudy Hollywood hair metal and Van Halen pop "metal." Also, as later songs elaborate on, it's for older bros, or bros who have been around long enough to have relationships to negotiate, and other long and winding roads, sometimes with twists which have barely turned (don't ask, just---don't...). Not serenading gals when not serenading selves and each other, in instant selfie nostalgia for the present nights, "Beer In The Headlights" and all that bro-mance.
But some people liked Metallica and hair metal and pop metal, and some of this is mainly nostalgic, like Chesney remembering race tracks more than pickup tracks, and the older bro is grateful to the lady who pulled the iron thorn from his paw, put a pin back in his grenade, and maybe introduced him to the band who pace his "Wrecking Ball" before it can explode beyond some kind of luric macho as written, mellow as murmured customary boudoir code.
Oh yeah, the band! Always on point, and if if this okay (studio) character actor & storyteller (effectively low-key and informative when guiding us around the "fer-tile loins" of Nashville Babylonia, although it doesn't work as well when he turns on Her mate, the Devil), much more Chuck Norris than James Hetfield after all---which really is okay, at this point!----but if he ever managed to give his Nashville Cats in black more than Music Row's latest angles, arcs and novelty songs--sure would be good to hear them rise to the occasion, rather than have to hold back just a little too obviously, by sounding so ferocious so on cue----so as not to upstage the guy up front.
That can happen live, when everything isn't mixed beyond perfectly, but go for whatever you go for, and be prepared to stay for the band (do brace yourself for the worst-"sung" version of "Talladega" you can imagine, and then some). Still, considering the heavy, agile, always attentive playing, and the clever gimmicks of most songs, and of course Church's adequate studio delivery, overall it's an Hon. Mention (much more consistently listenable than Florida-Georgia, for inst.)

"Talladega" seems to be nostalgic for bros drinking and driving, on some occasions, so touching all bases---and most songs address how "you" make him feel, much more than touching on whoever, whatever you may be otherwise (whereever? Mostly real close, or real gone, to/from vicinity of the monologue). Not even any "By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be risin'", no wondering what Bro's doin' now, or would be if he hadn't crashed, no "I drive his truck"---no trucks, as prev. mentioned. And no blood relatives, other than a son you thugs, mugs, dealers of drugs better not touch, or "(little smirk)I'll let the Dark Side out to play..." (darkwing music in background)
So it's all at least as self-involved as a lot of male-sung mainstream pop country, which is to say, as a lot of country, whatever the special sauce.

Merry Country Christmas and adios for a while.

After the Christmas basket, before the turkey & dressing, a palate cleanser:
Terri Clark, Some Songs: "Some songs/Need air/Some songs/Need a girl." Yep,'n' some need the return of the No-BS Canadian Queen of Hat Country, with just enough of ye olde rodeo/hangar clangor, Chris LeDoux's pioneer prescription of "Aerosmith in a cowboy hat," balanced by her own, sometimes romantic, often dry POV: you gave her your word, darlin---riiight, she heard that, "So I took it down town and I cheated on you," how do like them onions? She's been around, and is still ready get some messy details on the fresh white T; more where that came from. And her new theme song is the typically forthright "Better With My Boots On." Others incl. "Here Comes Crazy," "Don't Start," "Wheels Down," "Bad Car," "Just Add Water," and "Feelin' Pretty Good Right Now." If you need some car music for holiday travel (to see The Interview, to buy the new Garth at Wal-Mart, etc.), try this, and her Greatest Hits 1994-2004, whether or not you can find that "worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux" (Hi Garth, who is not on $P0T1fy, so won't get considerd by me in this poll, unless I find a nice-priced used CD).

Rosanne getting really hearty w the arty re The River & The Thread, also slinging hot chestnuts from The List, on latest Beale Street Caravan. Listen local, or here---although, unlike most of their archived shows, you gotta join to listen---but you also get backstory of The Gentrys' Memphis garagemark "Keep On Dancin'":http://bit.ly/1CNZPg4

Listened to Angeleena Presley's American Middle Class, giving it the added advantage of contrast with arty artisanal artful Rosanne. It does grow on me, but still got mixed responses.

― dow, Wednesday, December 24, 2014 6:02 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, this was one of the more disappointing releases of the year for me. Gave it the benefit of the doubt and returned a number of times, but nothing grabbed me quite like her best work for the Annies. Sadly, the best of the bunch for me are the ones with serious talent co-writing (“Grocery Store” and “Surrender”).