Big & Rich: Album of the Decade?

-- chuck (cedd...), May 27th, 2004."

am I reading this wrong?

" (My single of the year so far, which may not make my top ten list unless I find out what it is, may well be This remix of some Montgomery Gentry-like hard-rocking country song I heard on Bethlehem PA's Cat Country Radio station featuring a unbelievably hard-swinging '70s arena metal 16th note drum funk break, which eventually turns into an extended rap section by a guy named, um, Cowboy Somebody. I only heard it once. If anybody has ANY idea what it is, I absolutely beg that they tell me.""

Looks like this is "Rollin (The Ballad of Big & Rich)" by Big & Rich featuring Cowboy Troy, first (!!!) song on THEIR album, which means the cut immediately preceding "Wild West Show," which is ANOTHER one of the year's best singles so far. Rap lyrics from the lyric sheet, holy fuck: "BAak home we love to dance/We could be two-steppin' or ravin to trance/And when the party is crunk the girls back it up/We've got the systems in the cars and the 20s on the trucks..."

-- chuck (cedd...), April 26th, 2004.

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actually, listening to the song with cowboy troy in it again, though, i doubt it will make my top ten singles.......and it may not rock as hard as I thought at first....very weird to hear without warning on country radio, though.
(The press release calls Cowboy Troy "the world's only six foot five inch, 250 pound black cowboy rapper, who throws down in three languages and has a degree in economics to boot." "Wild West Show" has a chorus that goes "hey yaaaaa" and guitars that totally sound like a spaghetti western or something, and Big and Rich say that their fans listen to Ludacris and Outkast and Kenny Chesney and Johnny Cash and Kid Rock, and that "Nashville's going to catch up with that"...."Life's as large as you want to make it.")

-- chuck (cedd...), April 26th, 2004.

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Or maybe the song with the rap in it (not the only one on the album, it turns out, though the most blatant one) DOES rock as hard as I thought it di.d (Hey, I just noticed part of it is rapped in Spanish too, cool, and then it goes into a hamsterdance squeak for a second). (And the album verges toward rock en espanol now and then, too.) Well anyway, I got a few months to decide if the song'll make my top ten I guess. Album looks like a top ten possibility for sure. (PS Did I mention Will to Power cover both "Man of Constant Sorrow" AND "The Bottle" by Gil Scott Heron on THEIR new LP? I can already tell this year's top ten is gonna be impossible to whittle down. And to think some people out there still think music sucks now. Jeezus. THEY suck.)
-- chuck (cedd...), April 27th, 2004.

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If I hear one more redneck comment blindly on terrorism (a la that idiot Toby Keith), I'll flip.
-- uh (enochsnowj...), April 27th, 2004.

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That song sounds totally dope, chuck. You know, of course, that Rich of Big&Rich co-wrote "Redneck Woman," right? And that the best song on that Gretchen Wilson album is a gospel song about drag-racing chariots? And you've heard the scratching on "If you ever stopped loving me," right?
And to Eddie: I admire your brave stand; like I said, I used to feel that way, that there were whole segments of the country that I could snub because they weren't as enlightened as me. Then I realized that that is really fucking arrogant so I stopped. I was so much older then, etc.

-- Begs2Differ (cibul...), April 27th, 2004

I just saw the CMT premiere of Big & Rich's new vide, "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)", it was the most delightfully over the top thing I've ever seen.
-- Al (hoteloper...), May 15th, 2004.

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Damn, I turned on CMT, and they showed just a little snippet of it, and Big and Rich had top hats and frilly shirts on and stuff and were being interviewed between SheDaisy and Kenny Chesnesy clips, but I totally missed their video. I'll see it eventually, though, I'm sure. The album is FAR AND AWAY the best album of 2004, though. ANY genre.
-- chuck (cedd...), May 17th, 2004.

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Rollin' is a truly fantastic single that I would love to see performed live at, say, the Illinois State Fair whilst drunk. Thanks to Chuck for the tip.
-- frankE (frankeeeeeeee...), May 17th, 2004.

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It's not Randy Newman's "Rollin'," is it?
-- J0hn Darn1elle (edito...), May 17th, 2004.

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Been watching CMT and a lot of stuff sounds like U2/Police/Simple Minds/Midnight Oil! Is this a new development? In the video of Paul Brandt's "Leavin'" he's 'playing' an acoustic guitar while there's this 'Another Green Joshua Tree World" delay-pedal'd-distortion+huge-floor-tom drone happening!
-- dave q (scrape10...), May 17th, 2004.

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Perhaps it means that beat wise country can only get up to 1979 or so but that guitar wise ye olde 'modern rock' is safe now.
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), May 17th, 2004.

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Big & Rich's beats go well past 1979. (So do Shania Twain's and Leann Rimes's, actually, and probably some other people's.) And Big & Rich's concept of rollin' has more to do with Fred Durst's or *Rawhide*'s than Randy Newman's. (Though their album does have a song about not being the right height for the town they live in, for whatever that's worth. Not to mention a sort of Hoagy Carmichael mint-julep lazy riverboat ballad number that Randy might appreciate.)
-- chuck (cedd...), May 17th, 2004.

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Are Big & Rich the Country Neptunes?
-- The Huckle-Buck (handsomishbo...), May 17th, 2004.

the wierdest thing about the Big and Rich thing last nite, was whoever the girl singer that performed before then (didn't see her just caught her right as she got done)....suddenely raised her hands in a jesus pose and exclaimed "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN....COUNTRY MUSIC.....WITHOUT PREJUDICE!!!!" (George Michael reference?? you never know??) and then fell into the crowd like one of those trust building excerises and they caught her and then Big and Rich came out and the one dude was wearing a weird top hat....
I were very confused.

-- M@tt He1geson (mat...), May 27th, 2004.

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I will now be hearing all Dan's posts in the voice of Cowboy Troy (?)
-- Andrew Farrell (afarrel...), May 27th, 2004.

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Wait, was the girl singer Gretchen Wilson (who now has the second most popular album in the United States, half written by half of Big & Rich)? Did she do "Redneck Woman"?? Must've been. Damn, I missed her..
-- chuck (cedd...), May 27th, 2004.

It also contains a track about how the protagonist is always getting his ass kicked.

Alternatively, just describe in 50 words or less, in clear and simple English, the music of Big and Rich and why it's worth bothering with.

i just picked this up
it is indeed ass-kicking
country hip-hop funk

i'm not sure where it
will end up in my top ten
(or more like top five)

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0422/eddy1.php

And this is related (and they're inside a picture frame, too!!):

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0422/eddy2.php

this is even worse than kid rock.

1. That they are a total and long-deserved slap in the fact to the sexless white-bread goody-goody PURITANISM of country, as typified not only by alt-style No Depression horseshit but also by such semi-talented superstar bores as George Strait, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson, Clint Black, etc (all of whom have a few great moments, but who cares. Especially now.)

2. That their sudden ubiquitousness on country stations may well represent the most quantum leap taken by ANY musical genre in, I dunno, decades. At least.

3. That the preacher stuff at the beginning and rap in the middle of "Rollin'" always make me think of "Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out)" by the Hombres.

4. That the way they pronounce "sit-TAY" and "prit-TAY" in "Save a Horse" always reminds me of old funk guys, especially Larry Blackmon of Cameo, and I assume this is absolutely intentional.

5. That the way they suddenly exclaim "...and we made LOVE!" in the same song has more sex in it than any country, rock, rap, pop, OR dance song to hit the radio in recent memory. Prove me wrong.

6. That their album could easily wind up being the first album by anybody that I give 30 points to on a Pazz and Jop ballot. Ever.

Disclaimer: What I mean by this is that, since I've owned the album, I've ASSUMED that was only the sixth or seventh best song. But maybe I'm wrong: maybe the A&R people at Warners Nashville know something I don't. I would not have picked this track as one of the most obvious early singles, either. But if all the songs that sounded even better to me the first 20 times I heard the album sound even better than this one when they get released as radio singles, watch out...

I mean "slap in the face," duh.

Also holy fuck the end of Real World!

too "somber"/boring
as a single but on disc
it sounds very nice

good contrast to the
Western Myth song at the end,
but both are like "eh"

my daughter's fave song
is "six foot town", she always
laughs, "he's a giant!"

--and andrew OTM end of 'real world'--

easily best couplet of the year

first it wasn't easy--
Changin' Rock & Roll and minds

I play guitar and I play my songs in the swuuuuuuuunnnshiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

Haha, I just heard this last night for the first time and when "Wild West Show" came on I was like, "is this the Mission?" Roll on goth-country takeover!

While I do think Chuck may be taking it a bit far with some of his declarations on this one, here I think he may (may) have something. To the above quote, I'd say that the difference lies what B&R walk in the video and talk in the music is where he has merit.

Chuck, I get what you're saying here, and I kinda agree, but do you really think Big & Rich is that big a leap from the ironic jiggle-and-bling videos that have been all over mainstream country for at least the past 5 years? the quasi-hip hop bravado of Toby Keith, etc? I mean, B&R definitely are the most dramatic shift in this direction so far, but I don't see it as that surprising or unprecedented.

Yeah, really remember those old Hank Jr all my rowdy friends videos....and that God Bless Texas one from about 10 years ago?

refusal to bend,
if we're feeling ten feet tall
then screw the midgets

FWIW, "the race thing" is probably the most irritating thing on the record to me. I can't really listen to Love Train (even though I love the fact that they just decided to call their song Love Train, as if it didn't matter that there already was a Love Train--it's a great little snapshot of their "Fuck it" attitude) because the lyrics are just too hard to take: "The whole color thing's never made sense to me." Really? It hasn't? That's shocking. You think we should all just get along? Can I subsribe to your newsletter? To me, this line by itself undercuts some of the other actually interesting stuff about race on the alum.

xpost

I think that attitude is total horseshit. They might as well sing "some of my best friends are black!" Though that's obviously implied on the record, of course.

What tractors, Yancey?? You mean the country group by that name, from a few years ago, who I remember nothing about, assuming that was even their name? Were they even any good? (I thought they were some corny retro act, but maybe I was as wrong about them as I was about the Kentucky Headhunters, who I stupidly ignored back when they actually had hits.) I do know that some people think Kenny Chesny's tractor is sexy, though. (Unless that was Marc Chesnutt's tractor; I forget.)

xpost

Overall, I still prefer DBT's lyrics but I think Big and Rich have got better hooks, both great bands in my book.

"not nearly as parrot-like as..."

What about lyrics? Surely B&R's are more Buffetesque than those others folks', no?

Big and Rich are quite
aggressive and flashy in
their lyrical approach

The rhythm section might be better (or worse) now that Isbell's wife is playing bass for them (Earl Hicks left the band, right?)

and that's true about Shonna Isbell being the new bassist, when I saw them play last year here in town she was terrific, a great new addition.

Anyone who likes the black cowboy rapper, whatever the fuck his name is, is batshit - he's TERRIBLE. That song he's on is inexcusably awful. Awful kanawful. Totally without merit.

Overall, I dig the album. Not sellin' it back. I'm definitely sold on the homoerotic angle yall got goin upthread too, even the booklet speaks volumes.

Are there any available solo recordings? Who's who? Does Big do most of the lead vocals or is it John Rich?

http://wmm.warnermusic.ca/ecard/big&rich/

i just put this up on friday afternoon and it hasn't been sent out yet. there appear to be problems with the windows media stream, so i recommend choosing the realplayer option for now.

are there other bands in country, or bluegrass, or anywhere doing the same thing?

and they do, as chuck noted way above, have great voices.

(and speaking of two-parts, one other band that big & rich vaguely remind me of is fountains of wayne, and i can see power-pop fans being all over this album if they ever hear it.)

My girlfriend (who says Big & Rich's harmonies in "Rollin'" always remind her of Metallica, of all people): "Drain STH, I think. Abba. I guess they may have more than two parts though."

Also finally saw the CMT awards on rebroadcast over the weekend. It was really entertaining for the first hour-and-half, then my wife got home and I told her how good it was and then, bam, Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban and other snoozes. I insisted we keep it on until the Gretchen Wilson/Big & Rich thing, though. I wonder what Ray Price thought about multiracial cowgirl hoochie dancers?

But, as energized as I am by the country-as-classic-rock/ country-as-dance-music, genre-hopping stuff Chuck is pumping, I think "Remember When" (that's Alan Jackson) is about the loveliest thing I've heard in a long time.

Okay, so now she says the harmony intervals in "Rollin" (and apparently a few other Big & Rich songs) are exacly the same intervals used in "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas and parts of "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. Which would seem to be some kind of medieval interval, used in European folk music and some bluegrass, but rarely in mainstream country..assuming, as an entirely interval-illiterate person, I am repeating/understanding this right. (Most of the harmonies on Big & Rich's album apparently use the more usual country intervals.) Also, the Bee Gees and other people have apparently have used constant harmonies, so maybe it's not as rare as fact-checking cuz suggests above. Or maybe it is. (I find this topic fascinating, partly because it makes me feel completely stupid and incompetent as a critic who never even notices such details!)

The suggestion upthread that this isn't totally new is OTM, of course. It seems like Nashville has been building to this for years, but the fact that Horse of a Different color still feels so fresh and like a storming of the gates is a real testament to how good it is. Or something like that.

Me too! And it's really beautiful. I hadn't thought medieval, but the Metallica comparison is a good one. The upper part (is that Rich?) is constantly changing his harmonic attack, sometimes in standard thirds, sometimes, um, other stuff, and sometimes going to an octave apart, I guess for extra impact. The album only exists as a tape in my car right now, so I'm not sure, but I think my current favorite is the note on "TON" in "feelin' like TONto."

My fave is "er" in "take me farther" on Holy Water. It soars.

And whoever thought anyone'd mention Metallica as vocal harmony forerunners? Fuckin' sellouts!

the bee gees use a bit of everything. lots of solo singing, lots of two-part and lots of three-part. they mix it up, like almost all normal harmony bands do. even the classic two-singer bands tend to blend a variety of approaches, from solo verses to call-and-response bridges to close two-part harmonies to lead-line-plus-wordless-backup-vocal part.

the thing that intrigues me about the big & rich album is how relentlessly and obsessively it features one of 'em directly harmonizing with the other on nearly every word of the entire album. they don't switch to call-and-response. they don't take solos (save for a minuscule number of lines, like the first line of the verse in "live this life" and a stray line here and there in "drinkin' 'bout you"). the singularity of the approach is maddening and brilliant.
it's high concept. (or high lonesome concept, if you will.)

It's that later they're going to introduce their orange one, then their green one. (I am quite jealous of y'all, in any event.)

yeah, them and cowboy troy, and they were all really nice guys, and they kept thanking me for my voice review, and they complimented me on my cowboy shirt and stuff, but we didn't have time to do any kinda in-depth interview about their lifestyle proclivities or anything....

Hey, nice!

so are there any other ny shows, or did they just go right back home, dammit?

and, speaking of dammit, i wish i'd known about that after party. sigh.

Has this actually vibrated your eardrum, Chuck? I'm intrigued...

As to whether anything has surpassed this as my own album of the year, I can respond in one syllable: no. I've moved from song to song and vibe to vibe on it and still love it. Doesn't get as much play as back in June, but it's still tops.

Based on the five tracks I've heard, this seems to be among the most OTM notes on this puppy.

I'll be buying this week.

>Big and Rich Save A Horse, Ride a Cowboy.

This is not country--it is on country radio, country music television,the country station on Yahoo Launch, and reviewed as country by Chuck Eddy in the Village Voice. I am glad that it is well liked, that it is getting notice and that it is the Video to Watch according to Yahoo,and the most requested on my local country radio station. The thing is that the whole thing is too camp, too sexy, too artificial, too glam to be country. It shows off too much, its all about the egos of Mr Big and Mr Rich. A a real cowboy doesn't give out 100 dollar bills to random bar patrons, there is a New York reference and no cowboy ever came to NYC--Joe Buck excepted.

This is country. It quotes Willie Nelson who is always automatically country. Not only does Willie come in to play, so do horses and that makes it doubly country (see Beer For My Horses by Toby Keith and MrNelson). It features getting drunk and making out in the back of apick up truck (not fucking, the fucking is implied, no this is just a little touch football). The title is that slightly risque pun that has been done since the beginning. As well, there are the fiddles...country has fiddle solos, nothing else does. Plus it combines sex and salvation--Jesus and Jezebel have been recent development, but they are there--Jason McCoy's Born Again in Dixieland is the only one that comes immediately to mind.

It might be hip hop. The highly self aware samples that are found through out the track and what begins it. (anyways aren't horse samples in, what with the newish noisy Missy Eliot). Then the handing out random money and buying rounds as a way to win games of masculine performance, would fit in quite well. As well, the mention of the phrases Bling Bling, Escalade, Freak Parade and Getting Buzzed. Then there is all the talking in the third person "having as big and Rich time", and some of the fiddle solos are thoroughly electronic.

Looking at the video, and how Big and Rich look like a fagged up Brooks and Dunn--if Brooks and Dunn weren't fagged up enough as it is, plus all of the heavily sexualised weirdness(Drag Queens, Dwarfs,Chorus lines of business suited girls in elaborate garters) , plus how they use the same bridge that Kenny Chesney used for the Young video, which couldn't be more earnest, and this couldn't be less. Maybe it is a conflation of pop and country music trends, a careful, ironic gloss on the nature of where things are, but that care is taken to make sure that it is more fun--its like he is countryfying the same shit that everyone else has been listening to in the last few years (ie Crown vs Kristal, the girls drinking long necks, etc.)

I wonder if this cross pollution is worth doing...country took from the alt boom a new traditionalism in subject matter, but not musically in a way that makes anything interesting. This might be a thumb nose to how fucking boring things have become, how treacly and how poignant. We used to have big summer anthems that came blaring from sexy boys in pick up trucks, and there hasn't been one in a long time-- this one isn't the most usual sense but it might just work until we get something really new tweaked.

Anthony Easton

I will not ever need to listen again.

"holy water", "wild west show", "save a horse", etc., etc. have stood my quarterly review. this made my best of the decade and will undoubtedly be in my year end best-of list.

that's when it started
to make sense to me at first
it's got, like, layers

Quite a few. Drags a bit in the middle, I think, but that's some damn good hard rock there (along with everything else). It's sorta like what Kid Rock was/is trying for, but better.

Heh. Interestingly enough, this is often what I was thinking about many (not all) reactions to Justified.

MANY (NOT ALL)

If needed, I will e-mail an mp3 of that on an endless loop.

people have been writing about how the album sounds, not just what it stands for, ever since the thing came out (all through this thread, and elsewhere). ditto justin's album, so i don't get that complaint at all. but that's just me. + "real world," "save a horse," and "wild west show" are three of the best songs on the album, to my ears. though it's still neat how people gravitate toward different tracks.

i think an album can have enormous merit and *still* be sort of misjudged (not necessarily "overrated") by its critics on account of what it represents in the marketplace. but like i said, this is a skepticism i'm happy to put aside right now. i know many people have been writing about how the record sounds--the reason i'm more open to it than my reaction to the single would normally allow.

xpost

This will sidetrack massively if I really get into it, but I'll just say that more than once I had a (completely individual) sensation that if that album didn't exist it would have to be invented, that it can be seen to function as a massive wish fulfillment of (in the VERY VERY broadest of terms) early 21st century teen-pop-into-hip-hop in the highest of profiles. Please note I say 'seem to function,' though, and that Chuck's observation is fully accurate.

As for Big and Rich again, they can't get loud enough for me. I want speed-metal chords as hooks next.

I'm betting it's Metallica's cover of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page." Which it doesn't sound like really, but ...
Nevertheless, I'm having trouble getting overly excited about this album as a whole. There are certainly some fine songs, and I understand the thought process behind it, but ... eh. I guess I'll give it some time.

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Is genre-crossing all it takes to become the album of the year these days?

And didn't Kid Rock kind of do this already?

Yes he did. But Kid Rock is getting very hard to defend, because a lot of groups (Big and Rich especially) are doing what Kid Rock tried to do, except a billion times better.

That's Big Kenny and John Rich, with rappin' sidekick Cowboy Troy, who's black, which of course, is treated as a huge novelty. Billed as "country without prejudice" - in other words, country that recognises that other genres actually exist - this monumentally straightforward record's claims to innovation are like asking a woman to be wildly appreciative that her husband just about manages to cook a fry-up once a month. Horse of a Different Color sounds like Billy Ray Cyrus driving a juggernaut - that's how innovative it is. If you squint really hard you might just be able to convince yourself there's something faintly homoerotic about the whole ghastly enterprise, but that's pushing it. Actually, peek inside the booklet and you will find Kenny and John wearing Wild West-style dresses and, natch, ironic expressions. Like the Bush twins at the MTV awards, this is arch-conservatism in a half-hearted search for cool. Big? Almost certainly and hence, quite probably, rich too. Not, by any means, clever.

FIVE STARS

Fatbelly Jones. Marcello...well, there's nothing to say here.

I sent for a copy of the Big and Rich album and have listened to it.

Having done so, I agree with Mr Peschek's conclusions.

Like I said, it's okay to dislike the record. But you cannot "agree with Mr Peschek's conclusions," because he does not actually conclude anything. He just takes some cheap shots, ha ha wot a larf. It's adorable, just the kind of thing I need to confirm my favorite Guardian stereotypes, but it's not a review. I'd love it if you'd care to review the record, Mr. Carlin, because I know you'd back up your dislike with actual evidence so I could try to understand it.

It isn't even my favorite country record of the year, but it's NOT the Bush twins either.

I do admit, however, that the website design and colour schemes could lead to ambiguity.

So the solution is for the Guardian Unlimited webmasters to redesign their graphics accordingly such that a zero-star rating can be interpreted as such, rather than a five-star rating.

I plan to return to considering this record on my blog, my arguments supported by quantifiable fact, in due course.

So if we put Pastor Troy in a sealed container with a vial of poison gas...

...and yet, I'll read it. I'm curious about Fatbelly Jones, I guess.

best definition of rockism evah.

There's so much more homoerotica in Montgomery Gentry than Big and Rich, even though I wouldn't put it past the latter to kiss onstage. And Brooks and Dunn are the homoeroticest of all.

So, y'know, whatever.

holy fucking shit. that explains a LOT.

I say gorgeous WAY too often, Matt (especially when talking about dark metal and stuff like that) - where the heck have you been? "Wild West Show" is gorgeous like Ennio Morricone is gorgeous. Dark, too!

(PS: btw, Matt, are you gonna rewrite Bersuit or not? I need it now!! I asked you in an email a couple days ago, but I never heard back....)

I sometimes wonder if one's judgment of musical "gorgeous" has anything to do with one's aesthetic senses about women/men, visual art, etc. then of course I have a beer and put on some gilberto gil and suddenly my head stops hurting, because his stuff from the late 1960s/early 1970s is the fucking epitome of dark and gorgeous to me.

yeah chuck I'm writing it tonight, I never got your email!!!

I once suggested that 'this year's irony is next year's sincerity'. But who wants to hang around to hear those knowing post-modern genre winks we messed with last decade turning from hick-ironic to slick-moronic? Irony is interesting while it's ambivalent, it's fuzzy, it's undecided, it's in crisis, it's vulnerable, it's conflicted. When it hardens into comedy and routine, when it becomes non-negotiable and invulnerable, it's simply unbearable, like being stuck in a room with a bunch of tall economics graduates who decided to do comedy instead.

The whole sound of this record is dismal. Those horrible stadium drums, the cheesy quiz show organ skits, the silly voices, the session musician power chords, the clever-clogs calculatedness and certainty of it all... There isn't a single quirk or mistake, no crack for light or water or soul to get in through. No strangeness, no beauty, no style, nothing but The Concept.

"You play nice with your cousin Nick! He doesn't come over very often, and he's very sensitive!"

"Sorry, mom."

Anyway, whatevs dood.

I guess the crux and nub of things is that my whole aesthetic is based on an aesthetics of strangeness and danger, weird beauty, error and complexity. And certain people here -- Mr Eddy, perhaps -- seem to applaud an aesthetic of certainty and confidence and correctness. I think they may be embracing that partly because they just like confidence for its own sake, but partly because they've constructed a mainstream listener -- a radio listener -- who requires a high degree of certainty, and they want to hear music that has a chance of reaching and influencing that notional listener, who isn't a sophisticate, can't tolerate much strangeness or danger, but is nevertheless able to be coaxed away from the completely banal to something slightly more nuanced. That's how I explain this atrocity of taste, to myself.

xposts

I didn't see that thread. Were you supporting Suicide Girls or attacking it? I don't like it. The mag they were launching bombed and they never paid anyone.

Anyway, I wanted to show that I did Big & Rich's record three years ago. The similarity of the imagery in these two songs -- their 'Rollin' and my 'Robocowboys' -- is startling. Both reference cowboys, crowds, men in black. Both collide genres. Both play on the paradox of the lonely cowboy, and counterpoise him with a crowd. Theirs, though, is conformist, merely reinforcing the stereotype of the individualist in a crowd of individualists. Mine deconstructs the stereotype and shows up the paradox. (My tune also beats theirs, although I stole it from Gary Numan.) Here are extracts from the lyrics of both songs:

Ain't gonna shut my mouth
Don’t mind if I stand out in a crowd
Just want to live out loud
I know there's got to be
A few hundred million more like me
Just tryin' to keep it free

Charley Pride was the man in black
Rock 'n' roll used to be about Johnny Cash
Hey, what do you think about that
I'm a crazy son of a bitch
But I know I'm gonna make it big and rich
Yeah, I'm gonna let it rip

Hey, just wanna hear everybody sing (rollin', rollin')
At the top of your lungs till the windows break (rollin', rollin')
Say hey, Cowboy Troy...

Big & Rich, Rollin' (2004)

There's so many insiders on the outside
I think it's beginning to be the inside
And fire regulations have disallowed
Another lonely cowboy
From joining the lonely crowd

There's so many mavericks right off the map
We've redrawn the map to bring them all back
There's so many renegades off the beaten track
They're beating a track to my door
And I'm beating them back with a board

All the men in black
With nowhere left to go
Their darkness comes pre-packed
With a warm familiar glow

Robocowboys, you're dead ringers
Robocowboys, say you're singers
With your Texas Instruments

And breaking the rules has become the new rule
They're teaching it now at business school
They're all wild and crazy and one of a kind
Anarchists to a man
Everybody does it like no-one else can

And irony's a kind of sincerity now
With so many milking a once-holy cow
And alienation's a kind of belonging
A synth isn't cold any more
There's a country new wave banging on the door...

Momus 'Robocowboys' 2001

(and now I just hurt myself laughing at/with 'robocowboys', texas instruments, that's some balls I admit it)

Ha ha. Hey Momus, are you in Liquid Tapedeck, by any chance? If not, you join them! Your posts sound *exactly* like their press releases (except not as funny, but they could probably help you with that).

And now...

Neil Young - Computer Cowboy (1982)

Well, his cattle each have numbers
And they all eat in a line
When he turns the floodlights on each night
Of course the herd looks perfect!
Computer cowboy.

Well, he rides the range ?til midnight
And the wild coyotes yowl
As he trots beneath the floodlights
And of course the rhythm is perfect!
Computer cowboy.

Ride along computer cowboy
To the city just in time
To bring another system down
And leave your alias behind:
Computer syscrusher.

Computer syscrusher.

Crusher. syscrusher.

Syscrusher.

Come a ky ky yippee yi yippee yi ay
Come a ky ky yippee yi ay.
Come a ky ky yippee yi yippee yi ay
Come a ky ky yippee yi ay.

Computer syscrusher.

You're going to quote 'Hi-Tech Redneck' to me next, aren't you?

And Gretchen Wilson can fucking sing.

But they both sing *waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay* better than Fred Schneider.

hasn't jello biafra attempted to sing country songs on some of his CDs? his voice sounds more like fred's than anybody else's ever has.

Fred actually sounded great in one song on a Bosco album a couple years ago, though.

er... no.

Also no (at least for the past 25 years).

er, YEAH.

beside the point. Compared to my favorite albums of the decade that have a specific worldview (Desaparecidos, Good Charlotte, Nellie McKay for instance), Big & Rich aren't coming from a young-person-entering-the-world context. Their anthems allow for a more universal age to voice them. Plus, unlike countless albums I find rewarding (those artists, Travis Morrison, David Banner, Kimya Dawson, etc. etc.), Big & Rich - except for their theme songs - aren't as dependent on a specific persona. I'd like to think a rap group (and I think it would have to be a group) might eventually top Big & Rich for open worldview anthems this decade (hell, maybe if the Black Eyed Peas got their shit further together).

wha? huh?

noooo way....krisofferson's voice just sucks....waylon had a great voice! it was manly! just i'm surprised you don't like his outlaw stuff like "are you sure hank done it this way" and "don't you think this outlaw bit's done got outta hand"....god waylon was great.

*Big & Rich's Super Galactic Fun Pack* -- second best album of the decade?? (Just kidding. I think. But EP/DVD Dualdisc of the Decade for sure. Even Lil Jon himself might have to admit that.)

I still haven't fallen in love with the album (though I like a few of the singles), but they sound like they'd be a complete fucking blast to hang out with, and sometimes that's more important.

they are crap, ive heard the album, fuck them, fuck their accountants, fuck that fat Gretchen Wilson as well.

this is one issue im totally fine with being an out of touch snob on.

BINGO!

This made me laugh, but wait, what about Andrew WK? (And maybe "Get Low" and "Whoomp There it Is"? And probably a hundred other things.)

This made me laugh harder, though, I have to admit. I won't name names, but some critic already sent in a Pazz and Jop comment to the affect that maybe Gretchen has a great voice, but she'd be better off singing with the Wilson singers than singing country. (Hey, they have the same last name! And one of them is fat too! {Though I don't think Gretchen is, and Fonda didn't have a motor in the back of her Honda etc.) Plus Heart put out a really good album this year! Not that the P&J voter said that, I don't think.) Which I guess = lovebug's "they seem more big-rock 80s AOR than country" above. Though of course I'm not sure why that is supposed to be a bad thing (or why big-rock 80s AOR/Heart and country shouldn't be allowed to overlap, as they long have in both directions. Or why, if somebody thinks B&R and Gretchen are "not country", they can't *love* them as not-country; i.e., since when is country automatically better than not-country anyway? But I am having too much fun repeating myself and will hereby stop now.)

'country-fried beer rock'

This talk of beer commercial music reminds me of a phrase I picked up from advertising agent licensing folks: "truckrock"

Apparently it refers to the kind of spray on powerchord macho jinglemusic used in pick up truck ads.

Remember: "Get on your Pontiac and RIDE! Pontiac Ride!"

Bubba Sparxx may have something, but that Daft Punk thread got me thinking that we need some sort of hip hop space cowboy for the new millennium -- and I'm not talking about Steve Miller, I'm talking about twang with disco squelch with beats that fucks everything up.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), December 5th, 2003

*ques X-Files theme*

Bubba Sparxx may have something, but that Daft Punk thread got me thinking that we need some sort of hip hop space cowboy for the new millennium -- and I'm not talking about Steve Miller, I'm talking about twang with disco squelch with beats that fucks everything up.

...actually made Phoenix's "Funky Squaredance" spring to mind when I first read it (which I like much more than anything by B&R which I still don't understand).

they showed back-to-back episodes tonight.

I was hanging out with a friend of mine who had never seen or heard B&R. We watched some CMT. He just snickered and laughed at that B&R video shot on one of the bridges in Nashville over the Cumberland River. "What the fuck is this?"

I think it's OK, I've grown to somewhat appreciate it. I don't know any other person here in town who takes them seriously at all, they all go "goddam, those New York critics will take *anything* we do seriously." And I don't totally agree, that's just some kind of picque. B&R don't make me laugh or jump up and down or anything, but I think it's good fun, something to think about, significant enough in the evolution of Nashville--maybe Gretchen Wilson is more significant, or Monkey Gentry, you know, in terms of shifting weirdo demographix and all that. As music, well, I am not sure, again--sometimes I quite like it and other times I go, hmm...think I'll just watch Shania Twain ride and sing on her horse in a field of agave or something, she's so lovely...

comcast does the same to me! wtf?!

while i'd *love* to see this, my wife is very glad we don't have it.

in honor of the release of the new album, let us revisit what is still the best album of the half-decade, shall we?

Don't you think this outlaw bit has done got out of hand?
What started out to be a joke, the law don't understand.
Was it singing through my nose that got me busted by the man?
Maybe this here outlaw bit has done got out of hand.

ain't no stopping it now!

i pity the fool

The truth is out there

whatchew talking bout willis

There should be a poll on how many ilxors bought a Big & Rich album because of ilx. And what they thought of it.

also the last time they listened to it

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7572040.stm

Daughter slams Cash 'endorsement'

The daughter of late country star Johnny Cash has called the use of her father's name to endorse a US presidential candidate "appalling".

Country star John Rich[ implied Mr Cash would have backed Republican hopeful John McCain while appearing at a rally in Florida, according to media reports.

Writing on her website, Roseanne Cash called the remarks "presumptuous".

"Even I would not presume to say publicly what I 'know' he thought or felt," she added.

According to the Washington Post, Mr Rich, a member of the duo Big and Rich, told a crowd of supporters in Florida: "Somebody's got to walk the line in the country."

"They've got to walk it unapologetically. And I'm sure Johnny Cash would have been a John McCain supporter if he was still around."

The star then went on to sing Cash's hit, I Walk the Line.

Ms Cash, who is also a singer-songwriter, requested that in future: "My father not be co-opted in this election for either side, since he is clearly not here to defend or state his own allegiance."

"I knew my father pretty well, at least better than some of those who entitle themselves to his legacy and his supposed ideals," she added.

Grammy-award winner Cash sold over 90 million records and had hits with Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire and Man in Black. He died in 2003, aged 71.

I am really at a loss as to why there was universal praise on ilm for such a self-evidently atrocious piece of music as "save a horse (ride a cowboy)".

Why make the past your sacred cow?
I guess you've
changed, you've changed and how
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Fruit's grown rotten on the bough
Reap what you sow,
with a counterfeit plough
Yeah, yeah, yeah

That
was then but this is now

More sacrifices than an
Aztec priest
Standing here straining at that leash
All
fall down
Can't complain, musn't grumble
Help yourself to another peace of apple crumble
And
consequently:
Hearts of oak are charged and blistered
Russians should be baby-sitted
Americans enlisted

That was then but this is now
That was then but
this is now
That was then but this is now

Poetry.

I am really at a loss as to why there was universal praise on ilm for such a self-evidently atrocious piece of music as "save a horse (ride a cowboy)".

-- Freedom, Friday, August 22, 2008 3:08 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

hello and welcome to ilm

big and rich is like the snakes on a plane of the music critic community

"Save a Plane (Ride a Snake)"

I am really at a loss as to why there was universal praise on ilm for such a self-evidently atrocious piece of music as "save a horse (ride a cowboy)".

-- Freedom, Friday, August 22, 2008 3:08 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

A challop for America

Just for the title of the piece.

anthony on B&R

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/what-save-a-horse-ride-a-cowboy-did-to-country-music/260300/#

Nice!

I read the title and was shocked the article wasn't just "Nothing."

i instapapered this

Great read.

good piece.

this thread is the clearest instance of ILX totally fucking me over.
i remember sitting there, 5 tracks into the big & rich cd i had just purchased, shaking my head, reading the thread again. checking the date, no...not april 1, wtf

“Save a Horse” was meant to launch a new hybrid genre—”the South shall rock again,” wrote one critic in a review of the album that spawned the song.

no djp but I literally just spent 5 minutes trying to google the Big & Rich song "The South Shall Rock Again" inspired by Dom Passatino's Stylus review

enjoyed that piece

The second best moment in MM was when almost half the audience started singing "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)."

this thread is the clearest instance of ILX totally fucking me over.
i remember sitting there, 5 tracks into the big & rich cd i had just purchased, shaking my head, reading the thread again. checking the date, no...not april 1, wtf

Still makes me lol that so many of you bought the cd and had the same reaction z s did

the whole phenomenon of ilxors who don't listen to country checking out a country album, recommended highly by posters who listen to a ton of country, and acting like they were punk'd is just weird

article kind of conveniently ignores that Big & Rich currently have their biggest country radio hit in years (a very un-"Save A Horse"-like song called "That's Why I Pray")

no point recommending Dierks Bentley and Eric Church to ilxors :(

i was swept up in save-a-horse-mania back in 04, but i actually liked the album and started listening to more country because of it. owned!!!

tl;ip

xxpost -- my sweetie (the country fanatic) is all about Dierks but is kinda pissed with Church because she likes everything about "Springsteen" except, well, the title, in that she hates Bruce. (Which I'm all good with, as has been previously established).

maybe he coulda called it "Bruce" like the Rick Springfield song.

If only.

"Springsteen" is so good, maybe in my top 10 for the year. can't really get w/ Church's other stuff, though.

it occurs to me that Horse Of A Different Color came out in 2004, a year or two before YouTube hit big and way before Spotify etc., so i guess that was kind of one of the last bastions of the "I heard this was good so i bought the CD and wtf!!!!" blind purchasing era.

so far "Springsteen" is probably my single of the year.

"Malmsteen"

"Springsteen" is my single of the year too. I like the album but it's still working its way with me.

It's funny in that I was hearing it on every radio station in my old town, but I moved last month & here suddenly the stations are mostly rock stations! I think we have one country station. (moved from great plains to midwest) This is maybe the only downside in getting the f outta Dodge-ish.

springsteen is catchy as hell but i wish there was a reference to making out to "secret garden" just to reaffirm this dude was not a teen in the 80s

though that his video's americana is full of double-car garages is an honest update of the cliche

point out to me the teens making out to "Secret Garden."

no you perv

I'm trying to remember whether Jerry Maguire was popular enough to drag a halfwitted Springsteen outtake into the top twenty or if the tune had a fan base already.

jerry maguire totally carried 'secret garden' - there was a radio version w/ lines from the movie patched in. happened w/ 'my heart will go on' and then reached it's zenith when radio would just play bits of the titanic score w/ kate winslet gasping 'jack! jack!' over it. actually kinda miss it, would really love it if some radio station would patch in bane quotes onto 'wide awake' or whatever.

here it is! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAo7AK5aTBY&feature=related

also totally didn't realise until now he sings 'she'll let you in her mouth/if the words you say are right'. not as horrifying as realizing marty balin sings 'i got a taste of the world/when i went down on you girl' in 'miracles' but still a bit uh.

No Big & Rich inaugural poem. ;_;

is this stupid album still giving y'all chills?

is this stupid album still worth hearing for the first time a decade later? (i only vaguely remember the "ride a cowboy" song if that's on there)

much better albums have been released in the interim

whoa

/!\ http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/big-rich-to-perform-at-trump-inauguration-gala-w459115 /!\

Our Soundman just cut the Nike swoosh off his socks. Former marine. Get ready @Nike multiply that by the millions. pic.twitter.com/h8kj6RXe7j

— John Rich (@johnrich) September 3, 2018

A legitimately terrible group from the start

Be A CHUD, Wear Ruined Socks

lmao @ this youtube comment:

Patrick VanSickle
2 years ago
Can we talk about there perfect harmony with each other? Like damn, a lot of songs these days have to use computers to reach this level of harmonic perfection

the "perfect harmony" during the verses is one dude speaking while the other guy sings, & during the chorus it's them singing the exact same melody in different octaves. that is not harmony!!!

people are fucking morons especially people who like this trash band

can't believe one of the 'save a horse (ride a cowboy)' hitmakers is a moron

the bottom has fallen out of my world

it would probably be easier to just not buy Nike socks

First album's good. #saveanalbum

I went through and cut all his parts out of the album in protest. Then I threw out the rest of the album, too. Also, I shoplifted that album to begin with.

Oh, OK, so I never owned or listened to it, whatareyougonnado?

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/lil-nas-x-old-town-road-810844
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ho88VXJTBg

Wow, what a story.

really weird they don't reference the obvious debt the song owes to months of people playing Red Dead... it's right there in the video!
anyways, song isn't bad! Good meme material!

Always love seeing this thread pop up. FWIW I still love this album. Wonder what xhuck's updated take on it is.

Should post it to the "What's the least acclaimed album you love?" thread.

okay, now billy ray is on the remix. fun song!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ysFgElQtjI

lol I knew why this thread got revived.

... ok pic.twitter.com/pwJC5Vyqir

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) December 14, 2020

ilm hero

lol so many of the replies are people going "wtf is john rich?"

or how the fuck is John Rich rich?

Ha, the guy he did the bet with, Adam Gold, is a former editor of mine at the Nashville Scene. He's been loving this hilarity of course.

wonder if he laid a bet on the 2004 pazz & jop results

If anyone's curious at this point, which I doubt, the first album was almost as good to listen to as it was to write about, which is saying a lot; the second one not as much, as tends to happen with second albums (Don: "You have your whole life to write your first album, six months for the second one." Well yeah.) But it did slink into my Nashville Scen Top Ten. The third was ridiculously bad.
Other endeavors soon became relevant to Duos with one member you love and one member you loathe
Big K did some good mixes of his and OPP singles, also I liked this first solo joint (haven't heard others)---excerpted from Voice review of it and B&R associate Lil Jon Nicholson's:
Live a Little, Big Kenny's pre-Big & Rich solo album, finally given a proper release on The Disney Music Group's Hollywood Records, brings the
noise candy, not the nose candy. It's a slowly spinning saucer, serving up a skyful of Purple Planetberries,
bursting on cue, presented 2 U by B.K., a psych-pop-goes-thee-country impresario and aw-shucks-ma'am workaday wizard, bopping through amber waves with his drum machine. Kenny's as much wistful crooner as carny barker when singing through a megaphone-like vocoder
about "a place where dreams come true." He gets his comeuppance in "Cheater's
Lament." Even more so, in "Think Too Much," with virtual drumsticks bouncing off
the cello-and-viola cloud growing around his (Traveling Wilburys-flavored) Orbisonic orbit.
Yet also with a ready tip of his feathered top hat to "Dor-oh-thee, and
Lit-tle To-To," flying by in "Rather Be."

the first album was almost as good to listen to as it was to write about

oh i agree

For the rest of my life I will remain completely baffled by how this awful album became such an ilm touchstone.

I'm assuming even calling it "awful" out loud will get me FPed so I'll add, "so long folks".

No, you're fine. There's room in the manger for all walks of life. As The Big 'un always says, "It Ken be done."

I bought the album four years after this thread sprung to life and liked it quite a lot, but then again, this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

I mean, I love it when ilm coalesces around an unexpected album and pushes me to check it out, but no matter how many times I tried with this, I didn't get it at all. Still don't.

I'm going to guess--maybe I'm wrong--the coalescing had something to do with Chuck's over-the-top swoon at a moment when he was editing the Voice.

I have watched the video in wide-eyed, catatonic horror.

This happens. I never got Moby's beloved Play, much of Radiohead, much of Kacey Chambers, incl. 0 of her beloved Golden Hour ilm is the manger tho.

Musgraves! Sorry Kacey Chambers, although I gave up on you too, to put it nicely.

, this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, December 14, 2020 11:46 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i honestly don't think i am confused at all by big & rich or country music

the whole big & rich thing on ilm basically always felt like like someone handed me a cold big mac and i tried to eat it and spit it out and then i'm told i need to go to culinary school to really appreciate it

i checked out your life as a record by brandy clark this year because of ilm and that was a real treat, just great songwriting

For me, a good example of the complete opposite of this was Last Train to Paris. It took a lot of convincing to get me to care at all about what Diddy was doing in 2010, but the ilm hivemind managed it and I absolutely fell in love with that record.

sounds like a good poll!

this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

there was definitely an element to the ilm big & rich thing of some people giving themselves a permission structure to continue writing off all other country music

xpost - I'd be really curious to see what the list of "ilm event albums" looks like. These two, that Electrik Red record maybe?

for sure

permission structure to continue writing off all other country music

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Monday, December 14, 2020 12:37 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i see zero evidence of this

Peak into any year-end thread when an Eric Church single appears.

I don't really follow those too much

I guess why would anyone need permission not to like country music much less pretend to hate Big & Rich when secretly in your dark little heart you love it so much and listen to Save a Horse every day crouched in the closet in secret shame?

no one has to like anything

i was unclear, i didnt mean ppl were being disingenuous about hating big & rich, what i meant was a certain amount of the big & rich praise on ilm had a framing of "we all know country music sucks but FINALLY this is GOOD" that struck me as self soothing a little bit, giving themselves permission to continue writing off country as music for dumb racists because they like the album where the guys rap about not being racist.

yet they turned out to be racists

ahhh sorry OEO totally misread

"FINALLY these are GOOD racists!"

this place is not the friendliest toward country, a genre which mixes schmaltz, arena moves, bad jokes, and pathos in ways that confuse people (and sometimes me).

I love country music from some mega-schmaltzy eras (e.g. 1987-1997) but have completely loathed Big & Rich from day one. It's just terrible stuff and I don't get it at all.

I also hated Lonestar so I guess I do hate these guys specifically

KiNG would have to be on that ilm hive list. And chuffing Balloon.

avalanches are the classic ilm act for me. never seen them in anyone's record collection irl or heard anyone talking about them

Oh yeah, I used to put some of their early stuff on mix tapes way before seeing anything about them on ilm. I guess they weren't all that well-known in the US, but I got compliments for the tapes.

I was actually into Since I Left You before I came around to ilx, can't remember where I heard about it, probably some magazine review.

I think Sim0n Reyn0lds reviewed it pretty ecstatically in Uncut? I could be remembering that wrong.

Yeah think I first heard them on magazine bonus comps.

Ah, that Reyn0lds review was in Spin. That is definitely where I would have seen it.

I have "Save A Horse" on my Elliptical Jams playlist, mostly unplayed since March.

the first B&R record still rules--but there was a lot of great Country music in that era

Yeah, and that was when I started paying attention to it, beyond Willie---pop arena mainstream country was big fun, and I thought so much of it was going to keep being like that---spoiled me, waaaah

he paid out, it went to a military charity: https://tasteofcountry.com/john-rich-joe-biden-donald-trump-election-bet/

I met with @GovBillLee and @SchwinnTeach today at the Capital building. They told me new legislation will be put on the docket in this session to deal with "literature" that our kids are being exposed to containing obscene and pornographic content. They listened. We'll see.

— John Rich (@johnrich) January 11, 2022

sounds like a cool jerk sesh bro

The press release calls Cowboy Troy "the world's only six foot five inch, 250 pound black cowboy rapper, who throws down in three languages and has a degree in economics to boot."

Seems like he should be Big In Europe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tofbP46Ohd4

He's 6 foot 5. Probably big everywhere.