Rolling Country 2014

"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?

Yep. I guess the ACM's are like the Grammys, who similarly decide someone is a new artist years after the fact.

Sorry I've not visited in a while. I love j's image of "threading the needle," and would like to spend more time with Sturgill's lyrics to see if I think the image is apt or not. But I haven't made the time yet. Even if I eventually decide j's wrong, I like the image, enriches my sense of what Simpson could be doing, what potential lies within his music, whether or not the potential's actually expressed.

"i think the general ILM position on 'authenticity' is fairly well understood, and i am in general agreement with that piece of the hivemind"

I find this statement baffling, since I don't think people at ILM (or anywhere else, mostly) have gotten much beyond square one in their thinking through their "position(s)" or concepts of authenticity; but to the extent that there is an ILM hivemind on the subject, I believe I'm against it. I think making judgments about what's real (in two senses, real versus imaginary and real versus fake) is an inescapable part of being alive, just as making judgments about being true is inescapable. But the tendency at ILM (at least back when I was paying a lot more attention to the overall ilX/ILM than I am now) has been to go, "oh, those people are all hung up on authenticity, but we know better than to be hung up on authenticity." Which means the ILM people's own authenticity ploys and judgments go unrecognized as such, and don't get examined or understood. I don't know. Is my memory wrong? Or has ilX changed? In any event, I don't know better than to be hung up on authenticity. And I still urge you guys to read those two pieces I wrote for the Las Vegas Weekly about why I'm not an antirockist. At least read the last four paragraphs of the second one. Money quote, with some emphasis added: "Antirockism is rockism with a few of the words changed, and I don't mean that it shouldn't be like rockism or that the antirockists uncritically like pop and sneer at rock, which they don't, but rather that they're trying to get out from under the drab and the false just as much as the rockist is, they just place drabness and falseness in somewhat different locales."

Rockism And Antirockism Rise From The Dead

Where The Real Wild Things Are

Hitting me real despite some falsity--Dierks Bentley tune from the new one where he gets on his knees to believe, vocals wavering off into some negative zone, U2 guitars droning on in nagging fashion as he sings how there are no answers down here on earth. It's almost as spiritual a tune as the next one, my favorite on the record, "Drunk on a Plane."

just as making judgments about being true is inescapable

I meant to write "just as making judgments about what is true is inescapable."

Haven't taken the time to click other people's links yet, so I'm probably a hypocrite in asking people to click mine.

I enjoyed that, on the one hand Humorist was immediately driven away from the Simpson bandcamp site when he read the statement, "Sturgill Simpson's authenticity stands out like an island of hope in a sea of tacky. Pure and uncompromising, devoid of...," but then, on the other, right away challenged in effect the authenticity of pop critics writing about country. Not that one necessarily shouldn't challenge the authenticity of such critics, or that one shouldn't be put off by the fatuousness of "Sturgill Simpson's authenticity stands out like an island of hope in a sea of tacky." But all this just underlines my point that to make judgments regarding what's real and what's not is inescapable.

These are my top three country singles for the first quarter of 2014. They comprise 43 percent of the new country songs I've heard this year. Haven't yet listened to the 4minute EP to see if either of the two Yoons, or any of the remaining three 4's, followed up on the country experiment of "24/7."

1. Brantley Gilbert "Bottoms Up"
2. Rascal Flatts "Rewind"
3. Eric Church "Give Me Back My Hometown"

Still haven't heard the Church alb you've all been grousing about, but the single is hummable enough.

Dwight Yoakam and Eric Church are touring together in October and they're playing Madison Square Garden. I am really gonna try to get to that show.

anyone heard Martina McBride's new covers album?

New Miranda Lambert record's tracklist was announced a couple days ago. Looks to be in the same wheelhouse as the last two records. Quite a few tracks penned with Natalie Hemby ("Fine Tune," "White Liar," "Only Prettier," "Airstream Song"), one with Luke Laird & Shane McAnally, one with Brandy Clark, and two with Ashley Monroe.

http://www.countryweekly.com/news/miranda-lambert-reveals-platinum-album-track-list

I'm not exactly optimistic about the trend toward guest spots and away from clever cover choices (e.g., "Easy from Now On," "Getting Ready," "Time to Get a Gun," "Kerosene"--which I count), but I'm glad she keeps going back to Frank Lidell's well. She's been in remarkably trustworthy hands behind his production, and it's good to see his continued success shaping the sound of modern country through Pistol Annies, Kellie Pickler, et al.

It's strange how Travis Howard's name isn't in these credits. The guy wrote some of her most defining songs--"Mama, I'm Alright," "Famous in a Small Town," "Guilty in Here," "Heart Like Mine"--but hasn't had a tune on either of the last two records.

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
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, April 1, 2014 9:31 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The first track and single, "Turtles All the Way Down," is now up on Spotify (http://open.spotify.com/track/5AlmqxIrxgiNBKItTM5L5J). Per the article linked above:

During the album’s opening track, “Turtles All the Way Down,” he encounters Jesus Christ, Buddha, a hit of DMT, an angry God and “reptile aliens made of light.”

@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.)

Well, the words "poptimists" and "authenticity" are broad, vague, confusing, and contested, which doesn't mean that they're necessarily defective. (I'd say that words like "rock" and "pop" and "country" are just as broad, vague, confusing, and contested and that for them these are virtues.) By "broad" I mean they refer to a lot of disparate content, by "vague" that you can nail them down to a set of characteristics, by "confusing" that people mean different things by the words and the various things they mean are sometimes at odds with one another, and by "contested" that people use the words in arguments, that they argue about how to use the terms, and that one of the uses of the terms is to start arguments over how to use the terms. But it does mean that if you yourself use the words "poptimists" and "authenticity" you very likely will have to elaborate further if you want to actually say something that will get us thinking. Fact checking cuz's "i think the general ILM position on 'authenticity' is fairly well understood, and i am in general agreement with that piece of the hivemind" just screams for elaboration -- e.g., what is the hivemind's position on authenticity?

What happens with the words "poptimists" and "authenticity," though, is that they way too often get used as buzzwords, so that the people who use the words will often just wave them around, feeling that by doing so they've identified a position or a set of people or a set of characteristics and feeling as if they've made a point; and the conversations that follow go round in narrow circles. Anyway, I've stated that there's no such thing as "poptimism," and Chuck quoted this in Rock And Roll Always Forgets -- though note that what I said was conditional ("unless by 'poptimism' you mean every interesting critic ever"), so I'm not saying that the word "poptimism" is meaningless, even if there's no such thing. But I'll set that discussion aside, to focus on a different point, which is that I don't think we can get away with saying there are no poptimists.

The analogy I use would be that though there are jocks, there isn't a "jockism" or a jock ethos or a jock ethic. Of course, you can claim that there is one, but my point is that there doesn't have to be for "jocks" nonetheless to be a meaningful term and for it to potentially identify actual human beings. And back in the late '60s and early '70s there were freaks who used to hang out in front of the drugstore across the street from my high school, smoking cigarettes -- it was as if they were on stage -- without there being a freakism or a freak dogma etc. Which didn't mean that, e.g., John Koniar and Tim Page and Winn Biesele had nothing in common, but it did mean that you couldn't predict from the attitude of one of them what the others' attitude would be, and you couldn't predict in advance what their common attitudes would be. They were perfectly capable of challenging each other.

So, in the '00s (and occasionally still, I think) there was a club night in London called "Poptimism," many of the attendees having first come to know of each other on ILM or Freaky Trigger. And both Freaky Trigger and ILM were started by Tom Ewing, who had a column at Pitchfork called "Poptimist" and I think was also the person who started the (now moribund) poptimists community on LiveJournal, though Kat Stevens and Starry and several others were as important to that general LiveJournal cluster as Tom was. But certainly there are actual, identifiable people who posted at "poptimists" and who did and do frequently converse with Tom and crew online. And I was/am one of them, even if people like me and Lex Macpherson tended to be cantankerous and at odds with others on many subjects (and Lex actually made a point of leaving the community at one point); but that just means we're human beings. So in that sense I'm a "poptimist" even if I don't identify with a lot of positions that get attributed to poptimists. I mean, I wouldn't call myself a "poptimist," but someone else calling me a poptimist because I run with other people they also call "poptimists" isn't exactly being ridiculous in doing so. Anyway, there's one nexus of "poptimists" consisting of people who hang with Tom, and then there's a different set, people like Ann Powers and Jody Rosen, who also embrace the word as a self-description (or at least did so in the past), this set maybe including Carl Wilson and some others. I'm not as up with Ann as I used to be, so don't know where she much less they are now with the word.

So there are identifiable people you can locate as "poptimists," whether the word helps or hinders our understanding of what this set or sets of people actually do and say. I probably need to expand on this subject more, but not right now. But anyway, it's -- obviously -- not a given that a "poptimist" would dislike the Eric Church album, or, if she did, would do so on the grounds that Eric is attempting to be "authentic," if indeed that's what he's doing. (I still haven't listened to the thing.)

by "vague" that you can nail them down to a set of characteristics

I meant to type "by 'vague' that you CAN'T nail them down to a set of characteristics."

Rodney Crowell's Tarpaper Sky starts with a stilted Big Sky perspective "The Journey Home," which come to think of it, fits with this set's family resemblance to the kind of Dylan album, like most of 'em this century, for instance, which occasionally backfires but then glides along the scenic route as gracefully as a Model T, or Model A, anyway. He doesn't sing Dylany, but he's got a taste for juicy, sometimes dusty notes and seemingly offhand words that fall into place, like over drinks, on postcards, or maybe elsewhere: sure would like to hear Pistol Annies cover "God I'm Missing You," but it's not strictly necessary, considering the way he does it, conversing with someone who may be next to him, or miles/years away--then there's "Somebody's shadow/Is making me erect/Somebody's shadow/Like a noose around my neck." "Jesus Talk To Mama" mostly plays it straight, lyrics-wise, though a few bits like "Last night I beat the Devil to the draw" and def. that bone-rolling guitar have me thinking 'bout the kind of Saved gunmen to be found in Boardwalk Empire and Justified. "The Flyboy and The Kid" incl. a light-fingered skim/improvement of "Forever Young."
Mind you, this is unmistakably a Crowell album, but does suggest Dylan as a mostly good influence, not so far in effect from RC's actual collalbums with co-writer Mary Karr--their Kin also recruits a rich variety of other singers--and of course Emmylou (oh yeah, and his production of Chely Wright's Lifted Off The Ground, in which they display mainstream pop-country, fully-formed and new and true and gay as and when and how it wants to be, minus excess drama or dilution).
Streaming here, with good 'uns by Carlene Carter, Jon Langford, and others I haven't checked yet:http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/arts/music/pressplay.html?_r=0

That there Carlene album, Carter Girl, is something I'm not totally into yet. but it certainly is better than I feared, when I heard she was going to salute the roots, with Carter Family chesnuts. I mostly know her from my ancient, scruffy-sounding twofer, Musical Shapes & Blue Nun, where she and Nick Lowe tried for Bakersfield/Beatles (and I guess Rockpile)appeal: rocking country, rather than country-rock, Also, she had a rave-up with NRBQ-to-Nashville guitarist-songwriter Al Anderson on Austin City Limits. This album, produced by Don Was mixes old and new songs and beats in an overcast atmosphere, never anachronistic nor murky. The rhythm can be a guide, though not a cheerleader, in "Lonesome Valley 2003," where she goes to and from several funerals, and even slaps butts on "Me and the Wildwood Rose," a road song about childhood rolling with Carter ladies and little sister Rosey, later a true desperado (track record not mentioned, but the song visits her funeral). Carlene and Elizabeth Cook leave a life of crime to settle down, attended by angels and what sounds like a tumbleweed full of mechanical bulls. Elsewhere, she may lope or trot or (once) waltz through variously challenging situations, incl. those associated with outlaws, but she's always adapting, with no self-congratulation.
Hey:just give her those flowers right now, even if you think, with her own track record, you might not have long to wait for yet another send-off; and furthermore, "Kind words are no good/In a bed too narrow." Lots of family, incl. Johnny and June, sing along on the finale, "I Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow," where she's ditched again, but on the other hand, see title; and also, "Pretty girls are dancin' on the cold, cold ground," so that helps too (far as I'm concerned).

Eric Church's xpost latest isn't on Spotify, but migt check the 2013 live album they have, since I enjoyed piecing The Outsiderstogether on YouTube, from official studio and exemplary audience recordings. Fun band, springy tunes, some Zep-hop and (on "Devil Devil") bar band metal distilled to one-note solos for the climax. But the voice, even with studio padding, is really thin and so nasal he seems to be trying to reassure--himself?---that this is still country, not goin' too wild, despite all the slightly distanced, kind of tentative portents of storms and wrecking balls (saw a couple interviews where he mumbles something to the effect that he wasn't too sure, early on, about some of the producer's ideas).

Oh yeah: it's the rhythm, mainly the bass, not Carlene personally (unless she's playin' bass, thus) slappin' butts on "Wildwood Rose."

From the EMP Pop Conference 2014 thread:

I dunno who else was at Carl Wilson's country panel, but the back and forth between the panel and audience was among the most intelligent and edifying experiences I've had in four years of attending these things.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:27 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sounds like a good panel, Alfred

Heartlandia
Anthony Easton, "Hurry to Get Done: Chasing Deer and Chasing Class in Contemporary Country Music"
Jewly Hight, "Drag and Slide: Country Connotations, Clogging Steps, and the Power of Breaking Routine"
Tom Smucker, "When Michigan Moved to Tennessee and Texas: Regionalism and Globalism, the Rust Belt and the New South in the Music of Toby Keith and Brad Paisley (and Ted Nugent and Kid Rock)"

― curmudgeon, Sunday, April 27, 2014 3:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Guessing it was much better than the Lefsetz emails I just read on the huge Stagecoach country music fest out in Cali (where Coachella is held)

― curmudgeon, Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I admit that that country panel was the one time all weekend that I switched rooms mid-panel, as I was just not processing Anthony's lexicon at all. But it was clear to me that that was me, so I'm very glad to hear that other people made sense of it!

― glenn mcdonald, Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, the discussion ooncretized, if you will, Anthony's paper. The discussionists by the way: Ann Powers, Jody Rosen, me, Josh Langhoff, Jewly Hight.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 27, 2014 9:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would like to see a summary of your comments, Alfred.
So far, the folk country of Hurray For The Riff Raff's Small Town Heroes has me thinking "Snorah Jones" more often than not. While the actual Norah invokes her nickname while diligently trying to get past it, Alynda Lee Segarra tends to steer her capable l'il crew right into the warm milk lullabies. Some reference to "Southern Gothic" in their Wikipedia etc; maybe this is meant to be more normal.(Live sets, like in NPR's Newport archive, can be perkier.) Still, it's got its moments, like a perfect version of "San Francisco Bay Blues," floating like a blooming branch, in the beauty of memory and desolation (see what you're leaving behind, Babe). Also, the title song and a couple others toward the end, where she, almost as an afterthought, mentions how and where the bodies are, traces of who screwed who, guess you could call that Southern Gothic, or local history, or just small town talk, don't believe a word, though the way she undersells it when she's really cooking, is something I can't dismiss. What a flukey gift.

I was underwhelmed by my sole listen to Ann Powers' fave Hurray for the Riff Raff. Nice backstory about Segarra's move to and life in New Orleans (with ocassional busking on the street), but yeah "Snorah Jones" folky-country that is only intermittently impressive

Lefsetz with more emails about the Stagecoach Fest:

BEST T-SHIRT

"Stagecoach is Coachella with SONGS!"

http://www.npr.org/2014/05/04/307746474/first-listen-sturgill-simpson-metamodern-sounds-in-country-music

I only heard Sturgill for the first time a few weeks ago when I finally clicked on this thread. This one looks interesting - eye-catching title anyway.

I meant to pop in here last night and ask if Rolling Country thinks Sturgill's album is as great as I do. Man...it's great.

Alpine, I was just listening to a Sturgill track off his upcoming record, over at Nashville Scene.

As I've said before, I've talked to Sturgill, good guy, and I also wrote about his old band, Sunday Valley, whom I quite liked. But so far, I'm just not getting what is all that distinctive about his voice or delivery--it's good country singing (reminds me as much of Jerry Lee as it does Waylon, and maybe that's part of my problem with Sturgill: I am not a big Waylon fan) but...it seems like another version of retro country, to my ears, well done. Americana. I guess I could say the same thing about Carlene Carter's new one, which I enjoy, but does it bring anything new to the discussion? Not sure about that.

I don't follow the discussion, so I have no idea. What I'm hearing is great singing and really cool light psychedelic touches. It isn't experimental, but there's a kind of retro-experimentalism (an evocation of past experimentation, like maybe the White Album) that I like.

That may be overstating it though. It's really just "It Ain't All Flowers" that has the spacey backwards guitar. Most of this stuff is straightforward.

Yeah. and like I said, there's a refreshed quality, incl the rhythmic appeal, and she's seen her way through various losses, acknowledged directly and somewhat indirectly (the latter being more traditional and traditional-sounding, involving violence and romance), with stoicism and vitality, some cautious hopefulness, wryness. Her version of wised-up outlaw country, matter-of-fact rather than flaunting what a badass she is (of course I'm mixing in vague memories of tabloid headlines and gossip, but she allows for that, invites it, anyway finds it inevitable, sounds like).

(My posts there were on SS not CC)

Yes, sorry about that, jmm, Carlene's album keeps cueing up again in my headbox; dunno why.
Just checked that xpost First Listen stream of Sturgill. Initially, I'm put off by the way he loses the end of lines, especially on the early originals: why make an effort to write distinctive lyrics, his own true testimony of outlaw country zigzag wanderin', if you're gonna drop 'em into [unintelligible]. I thought of Jerry Lee several times before I saw that Edd picked up on the similarity too: it's a slightly louder or higher, anyway harder, rising attack (no Waylon vibrato, although that's also true of the mellower tracks that sound more like Waylon). Still, neither of those guys had a diction problem. It's def not part of the country tradition, any of 'em.
Really, really liked the one about hearing voices, the main prob being that they don't have much to say, and will go on talkin' 'til the end of time. I know those voices (in terms of social commentary, that is). Perfectly followed by the truck tape chestnut about being "somewhere, tryin' to find the end of that white line."
Thee weirdness times realness of these two is seen and raised by "It Ain't All Flowers," where he cogently reflects on mental-emotional-logistic traffic jamz, eventually resolving into a hick-hop groove with somewhut Pink Floydian morphology, also country-appropriate, since Dark Side of The Moon is a trailer park favorite from way back, fairly frequently replaced after parties. I know this from having worked far too long in record, tape and CD shops (also not-working in trailers). "Pan Bowl" is poignant, but emphasizes the looking-back overview a bit generically. Oh well, as he says, "Me and the boys are still workin' on the sound," and I'll listen some more, workin' on gettin' used to the diction, for a little while longer, anyway. look forward to his next, and will check out previous (incl. xpost Sunday Valley, hopefully; thanks for the tip).

Speaking of weirdness times realness, there are five or six keepers on Dolly Parton's Blue Smoke, also streaming at First Listen. Following current post-Album Age album protocol, the worst ones are all up front: run the gauntlet and it gets better--in this case, not just by comparison. Once she slows down a little and thinks the verses out loud, it works, especially in that silvery, pinpoint delivery, which don't hurt a bit, though she knows you know it so could. But life hurts enough, so why get redundant. "If I Had Wings" and "You Can't Make Old Friends" have as many airborne shades of blue as necessary (also "From Here To The Moon and Back," with Willie, which is also a good wedding ballad, as xhuxx noted in Rolling Stone last year, when it first showed up on Willie's To All The Girls). "Put Your Hands On Me" is an erotic gospel song, riding the supernal mountain freeway tide, with the populist goddess's more reassuring inspirations.

She cranks up some good mainstream country/rock anthems too.

I'm with Edd re Sturgill:

I'm just not getting what is all that distinctive about his voice or delivery--it's good country singing (reminds me as much of Jerry Lee as it does Waylon, and maybe that's part of my problem with Sturgill: I am not a big Waylon fan) but...it seems like another version of retro country, to my ears

Starting to get caught up with xxhuxx's March postings of his Rhapsody playlists, starting with the electro-hoedown:http://www.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.139659102"> http://www.rhapsody.com/playlist/pp.139659102
I see by this outfit that I'll have to check out the rest of A3's Exile On Coldharbour Lane, among quite a few of others. "Sweet Home Alabama" sounds perfectly at home on the Moog. "The Safety Dance" is the only one that seems out of place here (although I've never welcomed it anywhere). Got some of these, and sure wish I hadn't sold that 90s Rednex-led comp of Euro country techno pop, supposedly evidence of a whole scene, with girls dancing on hay bales in strobe lights (and dazzy duks). It seemed too harsh and trebley, which may well have actually been the fault of my neurotic 90s speakers. Sure hope the Mekons get back to their jokey smokey take on this approach, one of these decades.
(Those Electro Shine mixes on my Scene ballot's singles list, posted upthread, still sound pretty good too.)

Don't know why the hell xxhuxx's list got pasted twice; click on the second.

I really like the second Sturgill Simpson album much more than the first.

Agghh I need help! There's this country song by a woman/women's group that references Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings. Not sure in which way but there's clear references to those guys. The song is about 2/3 years old (i think?)

I was thinking that it was either an Ashley Monroe or a Pistol Annies tune, but cannot find it on their albums. Desperate to find it!
Hope someone can help :))

not sure if it mentions Kristofferson, pretty sure Waylon and Cash are though...

Loving the Highwaymen right now. Not sure if that's credible enough for y'all but it's fantastic. Need more of it.

Try the expanded reissue of Wanted: The Outlaws, which was the flagship of the Outlaw Country campaign in the mid-70s: Nelson, Jennings, Tompall Glaser, and (yay) Jessi Colter. If you like her tracks, check her comeback, Out of the Ashes. I'm not that big on Kris, but look for a couple of his early albums, The Silver-Tongued Devil and I and Jesus Was A Capricorn. Nelson, Haggard and Kristofferson have been working on a new album, out this year, mebbe.