Metalheads Respond to Pistol Annies

...(a)lso I voted for Pistol Annies; that was a really good record. It might sound like Dolly Parton's Greatest Hits but its soul lies somewhere between Cut and Nebraska...

― Drugs A. Money, Thursday, February 2, 2012 9:54 AM (1 hour ago)

I wish it sounded like Dolly! I couldn't get past the production to give a shit what they were saying.

― EZ Snappin, Thursday, February 2, 2012 9:57 AM (1 hour ago)

I still don't get that complaint! I think the whole old-timey sound gives the record a kind of edge, in ways that I am just not talented enough to delineate...

― Drugs A. Money, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:01 AM (58 minutes ago)

I didn't hear it as old-timey, which is probably on me not them. I dig old-timey.

― EZ Snappin, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:03 AM (55 minutes ago)

Re: PA -- I love old timey, and I made the mistake of watching a Pistol Annies video instead of just listening to the song.

― La Lechera, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:06 AM (52 minutes ago)

I'm just going by what kjb and emil.y were saying (or at least what I thought they were saying) more than anything EZ...

I dont...get your complaint either?

― Drugs A. Money, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:07 AM (52 minutes ago)

iirc it was really glossy. Not to my liking, and that impression made me not like the song because...I am a feeble minded monkey?

― La Lechera, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:11 AM (47 minutes ago)

It's old-timey instrumentation with a bright. unnatural sheen (to my ears, at least). That's what I meant by production; I would bet they would be much more my thing live where the mix and mastering wouldn't have that gloss.

― EZ Snappin, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:12 AM (47 minutes ago)

I think La Lechera and I both were bothered by the same thing

― EZ Snappin, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:13 AM (46 minutes ago)

but we should probably take the conversation elsewhere and leave this for metal

― EZ Snappin, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:13 AM (45 minutes ago)

well I spent most of my year being forced to listen to country music radio, so the productions sounds really understated to me.

Like I'm listening to "Beige" right now, and it still sounds to me like a dolled up version of one of the slower cuts on American Beauty

I mean, this is all subjective opinion--I mean, I never expected it to not have pop sheen, so I wasn't disappointed...

― Drugs A. Money, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:17 AM (41 minutes ago)

^oh sorry yeah another thread

― Drugs A. Money, Thursday, February 2, 2012 10:17 AM (41 minutes ago)

"Lemon Drop"

http://youtu.be/SlPnTILCXms

I listened to a song and thought it was total garbage

"Beige"

http://youtu.be/EnvXGol1wTE

xp sorry m@tt punks have to start their own thread

Honestly though I'm pretty used to ilm championing one or two shitty new popular country records a year by now

RIP those one sub brooks and dunn dickheads who had the cowboy rapper

which song did you listen to?

oh god

are you going to try to make me listen to another one? if i did, which song should it be? i will not watch the video this time.

there's no videos to these; they're just music tracks

http://youtu.be/x-OaJ3p5uPk

"Housewife's Prayer"

^try this LL? be warned: it's a bit mopey

ok

I will grant that this sounds better than the rest of the glop that passes for country music (if those awful spotify ads are to be believed?!)
I will also grant that this probably resonates pretty well. The lyrics are real, and surprisingly frank. That's good.

I am just not one of those people. To me the sound of going off the deep end isn't slow and langorous, it's way more noisy and/or less sedate. It's aiming at a demographic to which I do not belong (aside from the fact of being female and American), but I can see that it's aimed well.

I hope that makes sense. In sum, it's good but I don't like it.

I'm still hearing the same sheen, though the slow songs are in general better than the more up-tempo ones I heard before. I know pop-country isn't my bag, so maybe I'm lumping it in with other things unfairly. But there is nothing at all old-timey about it to my ears, either in mix or production.

I liked this record and voted for it!

i have listened to "hell on heels" thx to the track poll and that was enough for me. i think it might be the worst song on that entire countdown

Wait why is Alfred not on this thread yet.

hes scared of metallers

wait no gucci gucci made it, so its the second worst song on the countdown

that's cool, and an interesting criticism...

I'm not sure how to respond to it yet

xp to LL

metallica will record with pistol annies

"Hell On Heels" was my introduction to them as well and it sure didn't make a good impression.

m@tt do you remember when ilm fell for Big n Rich (and flooded the 2nd hand market with them shortly after)?

I will also say that it was less pink spray paint than I expected it to be.

heres what i said abt hell on heels on the tracks thread so no one has to load it:

i am at work so i am just kinda grabbing listens when i can but the problem with that pistol annies song is that its a boring by the numbers lifeless plod done by fairly average singers that know all the right twangy country tropes to hit + faux lyrical empowerment through money grabs. its fucking dire.

plz note: yes i do have open ears for country but this is not any good

wow interesting - i love this album to bits but the production is just not something i noticed, in a +ve or -ve sense - it's all about the vocal performances and songwriting and lyrics for me. i've said this elsewhere but it's a particularly resonant recession album imo

m@tt do you remember when ilm fell for Big n Rich (and flooded the 2nd hand market with them shortly after)?

My girlfriend -- a massive country music fiend -- was actually pretty impressed I had that around! And Miranda Lambert for that matter.

I'm surprised as I thought you sold your entire collection.

unless you kept some cds back "to impress the ladies" you old dog you

re: "Housewife's Prayer"

I mean it isn't "Frankie Teardrop": the "setting my house on fire" line is a well-deployed shock tactic to grab the listener but at the same time grows naturally out of the very real frustration that the rest of the song is grounded in. She probably won't burn her house donw (though she may); she just really really wants to

also EZ, jjj: I would give some of the other songs posted itt a listen. "Hell on Heels is cool but it is a little gimmicky maybe...

Also I will add that I worked in a record store in the south (NC) when Dixie Chicks hit it big, and while I could see the appeal, it was just never my thing back then either.

Burning the house down shouldn't sound so depressing -- it should sound scary because it is a scary thought.

I've listened to all you've posted. I like the ballads much more, but can't get over the slickness of the sound.

i like what i've heard of this album. not enough to buy one, but i dug them. i liked big & rich too. the one album anyway. but i can't say i've listened to it since that time. i probably don't have my copy either. but it sounded great back then to me!

i don't think i heard ANY 2011 country. the playlist for the country station here is pretty bad.

I'm surprised as I thought you sold your entire collection.

Wrong on both counts -- the bulk of it was given away to my old radio station, and I have a fair amount remaining, but mostly packed away for convenience. In the case of Big and Rich, I had long since ripped that (and everything else), so.

i cant find the country pop fans listen to metal thread :(

I like some Big & Rich songs.

i don't think i heard ANY 2011 country. the playlist for the country station here is pretty bad.

The one LA country station out here, if suffering from the same sclerotic limitations as any hits-focused station does, has been fairly reasonable these past few months. If anything the locked-in-loop of hair metal/classic rock that defines so much of it has been bemusing to hear; the lyrics and delivery really ARE the sole core differences among so many of the performers.

haha Kerr i totally should do a 'pop fans listen to Windhand' thread

also: Ned otm. Country radio is weird.

lyrically, i thought this song was fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCnt-drXsiU&ob=av2e

Burning the house down shouldn't sound so depressing -- it should sound scary because it is a scary thought.

i think it sounds scary - she sounds completely bleak and numbed on it, which fits into the description of the prescription pills she's addicted to (a recurring motif throughout the album)

i love the way the character on most of the songs could be the same woman, but the album swings between ballsy defiance and utter collapsed hopelessness

sounds like hell
country hair metal
*shudders*

i guess thats the music all the blonde girls featured in the audience of 'live' 80s metal videos listen to now.

okay obv Scott there are much better country stations where you live than where I live

George i think the thread should start with metal poll winner Hammers Of Misfortune. I'd love to see what 'ordinary' ilm thinks of stuff like that.
Would love to see lex,tim f etc giving their opinions on metal albums/songs , but it would be silly to do it with extreme stuff.

Pop country is glam metal with pedal steel in place of guitar histrionics. Warrant's "Heaven" is a perfect modern country song.

i think i heard that song i posted on THE RIVER here which is kind of a boomer americana npr-ish station.

yeah I completely agree w EZ; I'm surprised no country superstar has covered "Heaven" yet

also kinda embarrassed at how "Heaven" was like one of my favorite songs when I was 7

Glad to hear THE RIVER soldiers on. It always struck me as somewhere between npr and Paste magazine.

THE RIVER playlist is kinda fun to look at:

http://wrsi.com/pages/8936738.php

Pop country is glam metal with pedal steel in place of guitar histrionics. Warrant's "Heaven" is a perfect modern country song.

Well it's hardly a new observation, Chuck had it pegged two decades back and the introduction on country in the recent essay collection sums up the reasons and the functions why for a certain age group. But obviously it didn't stop there, otherwise there'd be no younger fans! Still it was amusing when my girlfriend agreed on the hair metal front.

says it all really:

Time: 02/02/2012 11:38 AM Artist: They Might Be Giants Title: Ana Ng
Time: 02/02/2012 11:30 AM Artist: Wilco Title: Whole Love
Time: 02/02/2012 11:26 AM Artist: Old 97's Title: Murder (or A Heart Attack)
Time: 02/02/2012 11:22 AM Artist: Bob Marley Title: Get Up Stand Up
Time: 02/02/2012 11:20 AM Artist: J.j. Cale Title: Call Me The Breeze
Time: 02/02/2012 11:12 AM Artist: Dr. Dog Title: That Old Black Hole

It definitely isn't a new phenomenon or an original observation.

xpost

That's a weird playlist

Cool music you can listen to with yr kids?

aw i like the pistol annies album a lot. i know very little about country music, though, so m@tt's observation likely applies to me.

also not a metalhead i probably shouldn't be here, huh

Tangential but interesting note -- in Erin MacLeod's story on Celine Dion ruling Jamaica she also mentions this as a side note:

If you expect Jamaica to be the home of reggae and dancehall, you’d be right, but it’s also home to one of the most committed groups of smooth adult contemporary and country music fans. If there’s one thing that Jamaicans love, it’s darned good singers singing darned good songs. From bad men to rude bwoys to Rastafari to uptown top-ranking folks, Jamaicans are just as, if not more, likely to love Kenny Rogers and Air Supply as they are the Marleys, Buju and Kartel.

I'd love to know more about country in Jamaica, makes perfect sense, really.

i believe this album is classified by the record biz as "down home country" i.e. not exactly old-timey but with more or less traditional instrumentation and more or less traditional chord changes, no matter how glossily produced.

this is a tremendously fun and cathartic record imo. the only track that doesn't really do it for me is "beige", which i want to like but the singing doesn't feel strong enough

i am not a metalhead but i played one in junior high school

you must have heard some of the zillion reggae country covers over the years?

x-post

I never found it odd Toot's covered John Denver. Just kinda made sense in my head.

xpost

yep ok listened to housewifes prayer and i think i might hate it more than hell on heels actually. i can not stand this main singers voice, and the delivery is so mannered, its a total non-starter for me. lyrically edgy shania twain = DNFW. are there songs that are not ploddingly slow that someone can point me at, because thats the other thing - both this and hell on heels just draaaaaag

they really love marty robbins in jamaica. i can appreciate that.

that's my favorite track

xp

oh and another amendment - i forgot the lana del rey track so actually i need to bump hell on heels to third worst track result

you must have heard some of the zillion reggae country covers over the years?

Not as much as I should have, obv!

my favorite country rock cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDy7-eq7OGM

"The Hunter's Wife"

http://youtu.be/apBPxoM7o9o

^give this a shot, JJJ! It has a cool honkytonk vibe to it

"takin' pills" is a good uptempo pistol annies song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjAa40YDELs

Okay, that "Midnight Rider" cover is amazing.

idk who's heard miranda lambert's solo stuff in this thread but she's basically the reason people paid attention to pistol annies in the first place - "gunpowder & lead" is so bad-ass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHGPmbu3QNk

its not very uptempo lex (and thats coming from someone who listens to the slowest doom metal out there)

I have a lot of love for "Gunpowder & Lead"

i think miranda lambert might be the one whose voice jjusten hates :(

Jim reeves is popular in nigeria

i don't think i am an actual metalhead either, but i don't know where i fit in ever

imo:
lana - dislike, strong
pistol annies - dislike, with caveats
gucci gucci - love in moderation
marty robbins - love immoderately

make of that what you will

NKOTB was really popular in Colombia in the mid 90s.

Well, maybe not "really popular" but I knew a few people who genuinely thought they were good. New Kids.

I like "Gunpowder & Lead" more than any Pistol Annies song I've heard.

yeah, jim reeves was huge in jamaica too. lots of great jim reeves reggae covers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeNzhpX2vGI

When I was on Grand Cayman, it seemed like every other song on the radio was Kenny Rogers. And "Members Only" by Bobby Bland. It was not what I was expecting at all.

ok i just listened to gunpowder and lead and now i am wondering why they watered this lady down so much on the pistol annies album.

well she was a willing participant! i think they were going for a specific sound for the personae they were presentin on the pistol annies album.

the title of this thread reminds me of this:

http://youtu.be/uLAJ0v_5THQ

oh wait is this pistol annies some sorta country concept album because ugh then

idk I was under the impression that Miranda wanted to do a country girl-group?

Longtime friends, Monroe, Miranda Lambert and newcomer Angaleena Presley debuted their trio girl band Pistol Annies, with their song "Hell on Heels," on April 22, 2011 on CBS' airing of ACM Girls Night Out. The trio surprised the audience in place of Miranda singing with now husband Blake Shelton. The girls, who all met through working in the industry, have dubbed nicknames for themselves via their band name. Lambert serves as "Lonestar Annie," Monroe "Hippie Annie," and Angaleena as "Holler Annie," as she is from the hills of Kentucky. Per Lambert, whether or not the Annies would release an album will "be up to the fans." The single "Hell on Heels" was released for purchase via the Pistol Annies' website on June 12, 2011. The Pistol Annies' album Hell on Heels was released on August 23, 2011.

Lonestar Annie
Hippie Annie
Holler Annie

^^^ poll

Hippie Annie all the way

None of these Annies

which yeah makes some sense because country stepford wives is pretty much my exact reaction, so if you are saying theres sort of an intent behind the sorta plasticated neutered vocals and the slogging tempos then huh. i mean i still dont like it but if its intentional then i think it worked i guess? thats weird tho.

xpost oh i guess not? well then sorry peeps this album just sucks

that was all wrt concept album which is apparently not true but idk

haha i don't read the personae as stepford wives!

I mean, there are three female stereotypes there and I am not identifying with any of them whatsoever. That makes me kinda sad tbh.

Little Annie Fanny

Manny Annie

Grannie Annie

Polk Salad Annie

oh horshoe i dont know anything abt the intended personae i am just talking abt the "flatness" of the vocal performances.

also shit like this "Per Lambert, whether or not the Annies would release an album will "be up to the fans." drives me crazy because its such blatant pr bullshit

i don't know that i identify with most artists i listen to tbh. it's not really something i expect to happen. i feel like the album explores some narratives about femininity and sometimes defiantly picks up and champions pieces of them ("hell on heels") and sometimes renders the incredibly sadness of falling short ("beige") and is sometimes defiant about being regarded as a failure as a "lady" ("bad example.") the experiences rendered on the album are pretty far from my own (though i agree with lex that it's zeitgeisty about the recession. i think that's why "housewife's prayer" means the most to me) but they are interesting/moving. to me.

a lot of the pr surrounding the album is hard to take, yes.

i am kind of a miranda lambert stan, i guess.

http://media.ideaanddesignworks.com/idw/covers/little_orphan_annie/LOA1cvr400.jpg

about femininity and class, i should say

hs - I don't usually identify at all, but I am not usually courted this actively either, ie the various "Annies"

also: as I said, Pistol Annies were p much shut out from the country radio station that I was exposed to--I learned about it from ILM--so I was blissfully ignorant of most of the PR bullshit

yeah i mean the patter about the kinds of annies they are didn't really influence my reception of the album. when i talk about the personae i mean as i understand them from the lyrics, essentially.

i wish we got ANY PR about the album in the UK

stuff they've said about it feeds into something i've long kinda thought about how in girl groups, women feel able to express various sentiments that they don't necessarily feel able to express in their solo careers: sentiments that can be quite hardline or unsympathetic or raw or exclusionary of men. destiny's child vs beyoncé. electrik red.

Sad but not surprised at people taking swipes at whole genres (e.g "gloopy" country music, whatever that means).

like i said i think that miranda lambert song is pretty good, im just trying to sort out what they (whthr thats her or the band or the producer or whatever) decided to do to her vocal and why. i am not nearly as crazy abt the songs/songwriting either but that can be hard on first/second listen or whatever, but i think whoever was talking abt production upthread was dead on, theres something terribly processed and empty sounding going on with the vocal tracks here.

my comment abt the pr thing has nothing to do with what i think of the album btw, that line just was obnoxious enough i had to react

i do understand why you find it offputting, Amanda. some of the narratives of femininity they pick at magpie-like are offputting (mostly in "hell on heels," i think) but i think that's kind of what the album is about, dramatizing the limiting nature of those narratives and the attempt to willfully wrest something from them.

people been doing it to country and metal for years.
on ILM its indie it happens to

xps

Alfred - nobody said "gloopy" in this thread before you did.

george started this thread lets see what non metal fans say about metal

Poptimists get into ...METAL?!

that's a good point about girl groups, lex. maybe the performance of femininity is automatically more foregrounded with them?

This was my #1 record of the year. I won't go into another spirited defense of the thing, as I've done it in several other forums and newspapers; but what grabbed me was how each woman carves a space for herself in the songs, but is generous enough to ask for sisterly support from the other two, which is an apt extra-diagetic metaphor of what happens in the songs themselves: women in mid-sized towns married to men who see them as accessories, women who are accustomed to seeing themselves as accessories, finding succor in booze, pills, and dreaming.

It's a minor record (a bit like Wilburys meets Trio) but no record last year thrilled me so much.

I will grant that this sounds better than the rest of the glop that passes for country music (if those awful spotify ads are to be believed?!)
I will also grant that this probably resonates pretty well. The lyrics are real, and surprisingly frank. That's good.

― La Lechera, Thursday, February 2, 2012 11:18 AM

La Lechera, the reason you don't identify with any of the Annies is that they need you to join their band. You are the Missing Annie. You're from Chicago right, could you be Prairie Fire Annie or something?

pretty sure thats not an indictment of country per se alfred

haha i don't read the personae as stepford wives!

Quite the opposite – they don't want to BECOME stepford wives.

sorry alfred .Searched for gloop not glop.

"glop" != "gloop", fyi

pretty sure thats not an indictment of country per se alfred

yeah yeah I know – somewhere in the empyrean there's this gorgeous thing called COUNTRY that was once awesome but nowadays there ain't no more Willies and Hags. I get it.

ha I've grown to hate lots and lots of country music in the last year btw. I tend to agree with LL more than disagree

Alfred please pop over to george's thread and let us know what you think of the songs there

I made a typo.

You're really reducing what I meant, but whatever.

is the new miranda lambert good? i love "mama's broken heart," but haven't listened to the rest yet.

I have a friend who really loves stuff like this, and she thinks I am a heartless robot.

Maybe that's the missing Annie. Short Haired Robotic Annie.

Alfred might not know that I am George, Kerr

anyways yeah anybody who wants to listen to Uncle acid and Windhand can be directed to the Poptimist listens to Metal thread

La Lechera, I don't want to single you out because you liked the record; I had a problem with some of the assumptions made about country. I'll be the first to admit that I really didn't start listening to modern country until eight or nine years ago, and I had to train myself to accept genre conventions.

you are def not a heartless robot, Amanda. also, i often feel like a robot these days and i love this album, so.

the new Lambert isn't that good, alas (xhuxk will disagree). Four or five good songs though.

well i cant speak for LL but my read on it is that theres something to be said about the invasion of overglossed pop production into the country market but thats a whole other topic kinda - ie my feelings that miranda (again judging from a few songs on both sides) seems to have been heavily sanitized as a singer on the pistol annies production end, and thats a shame

many xposts to alfred

or maybe not!

I'll be the first to admit that I really didn't start listening to modern country until eight or nine years ago, and I had to train myself to accept genre conventions.

my life is far too short and precious to waste any of it training myself to like Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift

however it is not too short and precious to spend time on this thread, apparently

george i just want to see if Alfred or others dismiss metal in the same way he dislikes it happening to country. (though everyone might dismiss it completely by not reading or posting )

your guys' take on this record is like the exact opposite of mine: "Baggage Claim" seems way more like sanitized fanservice than anything off of Hell on Heels

I don't! Metal is The Great Undiscovered Country.

xpost

maybe Kellie Pickler should cut a metal record

(the new Kellie Pickler btw is pretty good).

that's a good point about girl groups, lex. maybe the performance of femininity is automatically more foregrounded with them?

yeah - i think there's something inherently theatrical rather than personal about the format, so it's both easy to "play around with" archetypes without becoming/being seen as that archetype yourself - particularly if those archetypes are dislikeable or transgressive. people are much more accepting of the idea that women can inhabit characters and roles in girl groups, i guess.

to return to a point someone made earlier: the title track wouldn't work if it was revved up like Gretchen Wilson. I like its ominous midtempo swag, as if the women wanted the Hell on Heels archetype to sink in with listeners before deconstructing it on other songs.

i like the title track as cartoonisly sociopathic overture before the rest of the album looks at how they got there (or how they got to fantasizing about being there)

yeah that seems otm to me, both dlh and Alfred

it is a creepy ass song for sure

listening to the rest of the album really does throw the title track into a different light - it almost feels like the album's conclusion, like the album's a story being told in flashback

infinite annies

eternal annies

dreamboat annies

the long-awaited collabo between doug boatgorilla and miranda lambert.

please lex and co have a listen to the youtubes on george's thread when you have a chance. I'd love to see what you think.

top 10 along with uncle acid!

gonna listen to the actual pistol annies album brb

this is ok i guess, kinda rootsy for modern country

i don't think the songs are that great

the jessica lea mayfield record from this year is way better than this

^^^

the new McGraw record might be better than this.

really? because i've definitely tried to get into McGraw before and thought it was mostly awful.

He can be maudlin but he's singing better than ever. He's got a duet with Ne-Yo!

I like this one – a guy's take on "Famous in a Small Town."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfZW3xZ8O0Q

I don't really think this record is overproduced or too glossy. It basically sounds like a real band playing with real people singing. So it's pretty traditional in that sense.

I've also been trying to puzzle out the significance of the opening track. I guess it's not too uncommon in genres where role-playing is more accepted, such as hip-hop, to have a track bragging about wealth, success, and status lay comfortably alongside tracks about a hardscrabble struggle for survival.

they're not really bragging about wealth/success/status on the opening track; they're bragging about preying on those who have it as a fantasy solution to the problem of hardscrabble survival.

the songs aren't that great

i got into country in the 90s quite a bit, some kinda low level mainstream-ish dudes were pretty good, like gary allen, charlie robeson (i saw once live) and chris knight, they seemed to go for this kinda thing, like a first album steve earle thing, but better than this

Not sure Chris Knight and Gary Allen (not to mention Earle) sound at all like Pistol Annies tbh.

no they don't but they kinda have the same vibe of being kinda "old school" or rootsy but felt like they were trying to be a commercial nashville thing and not fit into the No Depression thing, is what i meant

I've a buddy who pretty much only listens to Dwight Yoakam among country artists. And I love Yoakam -- especially his early nineties period! But you (not you specifically) can't dismiss Lee Ann Womack for not sounding like Yoakam.

btw if you want a good hard rockin' country dude, try Eric Church!

i wanted to, but that "homeboy" song kinda turned me off

lol country music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP2MKYGggd8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R03Xakd91Xw

Can't stand Eric Church. I haven't listened to those youtubes, but the album of his that I heard - Sinners Like Me - was really strident.

Current country dudes I've heard that I can deal with, part or most of the time:

Jason Aldean
Josh Turner
Rodney Atkins (part of the time)
Brad Paisley (guitar solos and maybe 1/4 of his songs)
Charlie Robison (probably my favorite of these, but I've only heard Good Times)

jessica lea mayfield?? i don't see the comparison..

i don't know what it is about tim mcgraw but hearing his music almost always triggers some hyperspecific childhood memory of boredom.. like having bubblegum-flavored fluoride trays wedged tightly into my mouth and a suction hose droning dryly away as i stare up at the speckles on the ceiling of my pediatric dentist's office

Jason Aldean has highs and lowws but I really really love Amarillo Sky

I like the most recent Justin Townes Earle album - not sure how mainstream of country that is.

I liked metal more (and more metal) than country last year, but this was my Nashville Scene ballot; i.e., the country I liked most:

Rolling Country 2012

Ha xhuxk, Sunny Sweeney's "From a Table Away" was top 3 in my singles ballot this year

I voted for that single in Pazz & Jop in 2010. Liked the album okay, but thought it was really spotty -- especially its second half.

yeah I agree about the album; best songs were the first three for sure

An entire thread and no mention of the way Lambert sings "shit" in "Trailer For Rent" like she's savoring every last drop?

Anyway I agree w/ Alfred; a slight album that was far and away my favorite thing to listen to last year. Much better than Lambert's solo output, give or take a "Dear Diamond" (which would fit in beautifully as PA track) or some of the ones she didn't write.

lol country music

― the parable is the parable of the (Lamp), Thursday, February 2, 2012 5:58 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

proud of this comment, bigot?

Honestly though I'm pretty used to ilm championing one or two shitty new popular country records a year by now

RIP those one sub brooks and dunn dickheads who had the cowboy rapper

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, February 2, 2012 11:05 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I figure that would be Big & Rich and they own Yob or whatever.

hey now

let's hear them write a song as good as Wild West Show.

I'm a metal fan btw, but a slightly bigger country fan.

Popping pills is great!
i like the album.
i made a spotify playlist of like 95% of the music on the ballots from the Rolling Country 2012 thread:
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/33rxzh6aMbjrRBuiUyuWoO
I'm exploring

nice playlist

that would be Big & Rich and they own Yob
let's hear them write a song as good as Wild West Show.

Yeah, honestly -- I listen to tons of metal, and most of my favorite albums last year were metal albums, but call me when a metal band makes an album as good as Horse Of A Different Color. It's been what, a quarter century now since any have?

Plz text me your number so I can call you thousands of times also plz text me a time machine.

horseshit. PA = Great!

last undeniably great metal record? um AFD, maybe? oh, wait, that's just hard rock now, right? never mind then.

Horseshit, PA? I thought that was Taylor Swift's hometown.

if you think there's been no great metal albums in the past 25 years then you're nuts

i. am. nuts.

glad we cleared that up.

http://www.pistolannies.com/news/pistol-annies-celebrate-record-store-day-vinyl-rel/

Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, a.k.a. the Pistol Annies, will commemorate Record Store Day with the vinyl release of their critically acclaimed album, Hell On Heels. Released in August of last year, the album has already yielded a Gold single with the title track.

In addition, there’s a widget available at http://www.tweematic.com/pistolannies/ that features an animated record player where fans can listen to the album with the “fuzz and crackle” feel of a well-loved and worn vinyl record. By sharing the widget, fans are automatically registered to win an autographed copy of the album and a Sony USB Stereo Turntable to play it on. Fans can find a list of participating independent record stores on the site as well.

“The music of the Pistol Annies is the three of us truly being ourselves—not only in our songwriting and storytelling, but also in the way we perform as a team. We wanted to make music that people talk about but might not want to admit and it’s the kind of raw and honest country music that deserves to be on vinyl,” said Miranda.

The trio was born during a songwriting session with Lambert, a.k.a. “Lonestar Annie” and Monroe, a.k.a “Hipppie Annie.” While writing and sharing stories, Monroe decided that Lambert and Presley, a.k.a “Holler Annie,” needed to meet, and a midnight phone call with the three of them launched the group. The three of them wrote and co-wrote every song on the album and were joined by Pistol Andy, a.k.a Blake Shelton, on the song “Family Feud.”

Honestly though I'm pretty used to ilm championing one or two shitty new popular country records a year by now

RIP those one sub brooks and dunn dickheads who had the cowboy rapper

truth bomb re: ILM of a several years ago

but this seems to have gradually disappeared w/ the village voice crew

thanks for the reminder

In addition, there’s a widget available at http://www.tweematic.com/pistolannies/ that features an animated record player where fans can listen to the album with the “fuzz and crackle” feel of a well-loved and worn vinyl record.

Beginning to really hate this kinda shit.

Honestly though I'm pretty used to ilm championing one or two shitty new popular country records a year by now

RIP those one sub brooks and dunn dickheads who had the cowboy rapper

truth bomb re: ILM of a several years ago

but this seems to have gradually disappeared w/ the village voice crew

― the late great, Tuesday, April 17, 2012 1:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So glad you no longer have to put up with a few critics with different taste than you. It must have been hell for you feeble minded fucks coming on this message board and being FORCED to buy Big'n'Rich CDs by Eddy & Kogan or whoever.

lol u mad doggy

must be hell for you to put up w feebs like me

http://www.pistolannies.com/henhouse/

so Neil Young mentions driving down country roads listening to this album on Rhapsody. He loves it ("Those girls can sing!").

Nice!

for tradition's sake, not because i am a metalhead or the following comment has anything to do with pistol annies, but i'm gonna revive to say one thing:

eric church is boring (not talentless, just BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG)

that's all, carry on

ha -- Eric Church's Chief is my top 2011 recurrent. I thought I didn't give a shit abut Mellencamp/Stones gee-tar raunch in 2011 until "Drink in My hand" came along.

Just like Pistol Annies, I don't begrudge anyone their preferences, but if Eric Church were a store, I would not shop there. For anything.

I would shop there to buy presents for Alfred.

then we'd get a beer.

yep. Sounds like a plan next time I'm in South Florida.

ll otm

Eric Church is good times

I am deeply amazed that I have lived to see the day when ILX is repping for Eric Church tbh.

I remember kind of liking the song 'Homeboy' bcz of the lead guitar in it, and then gr80 posted it in the 'is this racist?' and I just went u_u

I suppose "Homebody" codes racist because the narrator is saddened -- that's key, I think, cuz Church sings it without anger -- by what his boy has become, but tonally it's more complex.

*Homeboy

Ha that was not the reading that song received in that thread

oh yes I know

New album available for pre order on itunes.

For the time being, I'm imagining that "Annie Up" is a nod to The Slits.

"Workin' Man" on the new album is almost definitely their most metal song fwiw (though not nearly the record's best track -- in fact, I'm not even sure I like it much.)

With the release of the May 7 album, fans of vinyl music will also be able to Annie Up anywhere vinyl is sold

vinyl music just sounds better

lol vinyl music
aim better, pistol annies copy writers!

For the time being, I'm imagining that "Annie Up" is a nod to The Slits.
― how's life

see i was thinking MOP

Lol

New album is pretty great!

unhappily married is an early stand out

it takes a while but yes it's quite good

Agreed on Unhappily Married.

the album kinda flamed out for me by the third or fourth day, solid but not outstanding somehow.
Brandy Clark is still worth a spin though. No idea why this isn't a hit:
http://on.aol.com/video/brandy-clark--get-high----conference-room-country-517714963

holy shit i did not realize this was out

hush hush

OK hush hush is awesome

God I love these ladies

I Feel a Sin Comin On ... :o

"Don't Talk About Him, Tina" is my jam.

I really like this album!

i came back after awhile; it's worth a weekly spin still

Every time I play it I get more pleasure. Now I love it as much as the first.

the ballads are better than the rockers on the new one (maybe on the first one too). "Dear Sobriety" is the best song I think? Monroe's vocal tells the story better than the lyric; on paper the title doesn't look like it can scan, but she makes it pour.

I have an idea for Pistol Annies. I want them to cover "Running Dry" from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. I think it would be poignant and cool to hear some country-style female voices singing that song in luxurious harmony.

saw ashley monroe live last night and she was great... did a few annies tracks and a few new cuts off the third album including one called "Dixie" that sounds like a killer single to me.

Hooray!

http://www.npr.org/2014/10/05/352770648/first-listen-angaleena-presley-american-middle-class

been looking fwd to this!

She's the last piece in the puzzle that includes Lambert, musgraves, Monroe, clark. Curious!

How I learned to start loving the thread title.

on first listen it's pretty good.

Amazingly great interview/round table here

http://www.wonderingsound.com/feature/angaleena-presley-american-middle-class-slate-creek-interview/

This is so so so so so so good.

amazing interview!

Presley: I’m judging the companies and the corporations and the government and the mines and the money and the corruption.

<3

for a while i was worried that they'd be talking to the interviewer but not to each other, i was glad (and impressed!) it became a proper conversation

we've been talking a bit about the album on the country thread - one of the albums of the year for me

I want to love it but it's not impressing me like Monroe's did; it's the arrangements.

foo fighters are trash, glad to see them sideswiped in that piece

Hubbs: What Angaleena shows in that song, I think, is a father and a daughter who are both called out in the chorus as being members of the American middle class. (“I got my education at a school they could afford/ The scholarships went to the rich and the grants went to the poor/ So I stood behind a little downtown bar/ spending money, books and gas/ to be a certified member of the work-too-much/ American middle class.”) He worked in the coal mines, she went to college — albeit in a hardscrabble way — working really hard to put herself through college and, implicitly, going to whatever college she could afford. He would’ve been born into the working class; she came of age in a time when she was called middle class. And we see how they’re both struggling, even though she now has a college degree and got out of the coal mines. The shift of the term is almost illustrated in the narrative of that song.

Presley: I agree with that. And in the chorus of the song, it’s like, “Tear this poor house down/ when you know how to build it back.” The message my parents always gave to me was, “Go out and get better than what we have.” But in reality, what happens is you go out and you get exactly what they have. You’re just the next generation.

that first album is still wondrous

The attitude in the first two thirds of this thread is depressing as hell, I gotta say. I don't know what's corny about three women who harmonize this well singing songs this sharp and sweet.

http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/miranda-lambert-promises-new-pistol-annies-album-in-2018-w495470

And she might not be moving on exclusively as a solo artist. Pistol Annies — the all-girl trio she formed with two artist friends Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley about seven years ago — might become a priority again this year. It’s a collaboration that even now, five years after their second album Annie Up, seems to come so naturally for the three singer-songwriters.

“Literally the other night I had a song that kind of just came out of the air to me, and I sent a verse and a chorus to the girls. And nobody said anything. Not, ‘Hi, how you doing,'” she recalled. “Everybody’s in different directions, which is always why Annies takes a while.

“I sent them half a song, and then within three minutes, I had a whole song. They both sent me a verse back. And I was, ‘And, we’re back.”

Lambert, Monroe and Presley aren’t promising anything specific, but they are planning to use 2018 to get some music written.

“We’re very much in the spirit of the Annies right now,” Lambert said.

http://www.cmt.com/news/1791014/whats-next-miranda-lambert/

https://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/pistol-annies-reunite-on-miranda-lamberts-tour-w517472

press release:

(DALLAS, August 14, 2018) — Angaleena Presley shared the news of her pregnancy from the stage this past Saturday with the help of Pistol Annies band mates, Miranda Lambert and Ashley Monroe.

Lambert invited the Bandwagon Tour’s surprise guests, Presley and Monroe, on stage to perform, but before they dropped a note Miranda said, "Since we're at a hometown show and both of them are married to Texans, we wanted to share some big news with you. See, one of us is drinking, one of us is smoking and one of us is not taking our pill! Holler Annie's having a baby, everybody!"

ayyyy

http://www.npr.org/2018/09/27/652181978/pistol-annies-release-three-new-songs-in-preview-of-new-album-interstate-gospel?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

extremely good news. hoping to see them here in L.A., need to swipe some tix as soon as they're available.

Good album!

Man, reading the comments above was like visiting a Trumpist's Twitter feed.

New album is pretty good. Who is playing guitar, that dude is killing it.

i like this record a lot

New album is pretty good. Who is playing guitar, that dude is killing it.

― Josh in Chicago,

My first thought on hearing "Sugar Daddy."

Gonna pick this up when the vinyl comes out later this month.

Hell on Heels is so classic. I think it's weird there was a lot of criticism about the album's perceived glossiness and sheen bc it seems to me it would appeal to a lot of people who have issues with mainstream country music. The songs themselves are just a great mix of pensively sad and unabashedly outlaw.

and country music has had gloss and a sheen since the LBJ era

i can understand if people don't like certain production styles that make the music sound brittle or over-compressed but i think a lot of country production (this album included) is very warm and generous to the songs.

and separately, a lot of country music is where you want to turn if you miss hard rock chops from the '70s and '80s.

i feel bad every time this thread pops up
i do not begrudge anyone their enjoyment of this band or their personas or production choices.

it's good that pistol annies are loved by people

imo I think Pistol Annies are a synthesis of all three artists and their styles, though i think for anyone I've ever tried to gateway-drug into this corner of country I recommend Angaleena Presley's solo albums, which are exceptionally good and far more low-key in their production and their eye is cast pretty strictly on small-town issues with a POV from a blue-state type who loves living in her red state.

the new album is kinda rootsy and doesn't really have much of an audible sheen except in that it's really well-recorded and the guitar tones kick ass

(i love sheen) (but also i think this album sounds really cool)