Nashville Types Who Don't Suck

Another George Jones type is Randy Travis, and he's a little better. I've only heard his first two albums ('Storms of life' and '12x5') but they're both good.

rides on trains: RIP

:*(

good nashville bands that spring to mind... many of them aren't so "country"...

-silver jews! (if dave berman would only play live.... )
-glossary
-heroes and villians
-tan as fuck
-paul burch and the wpa club
-lambchop
-Paul Booker & The Dynomite Operators (as much as i don't care for them, paul booker is a fixture.)
-dave cloud (an outsider juggernaut... remember the elvis impersonator in gummo? that's dave cloud.)
-cheetah chrome (yes, that cheetah chrome)
-hayseed dixie (ac/dc with banjos...)

there are other names out there... probably bigger talent i'm ignoring... damn it... there's a few lovely lady singer songwriter types that are actually very good and not nasty glitz trash hollywood nashville royalty.

anywho... probably not the list you wanted.
m.

and where's that rascal Chris Gaines got to? I only heard the one album...any ILMers "in the know" on when we can expect a follow-up?

Alan Jackson is pretty great. The whole Lot About Livin' (And a Little 'bout Love) album is solid. After that I confess I don't have much in depth knowledge. I too would like to see more recs on this thread. I like the early singles I heard from Toby Keith and Shania Twain. Not too fond of the recent stuff from those two. Destroy Garth Brooks and especially that Martina McBride.

I used to hate Garth but find in the last couple of years I've become nostalgic for all the songs I got sick of in the early 90s. And that duet with George Jones "It's a B-double-E double R You In" was GENIUS.

honestly, "alt-country" is way more real country than most of the other crap being pandered by the big names in nashville.

look at the greats of the past. all of those folks were downhome, poor, and from a real place that spoke to people. look at all the outlaws!

the big stars like toby keith and shania and stuff are completely un-real.

i realize it's totally off-topic. i just get a little sickened by the big country stars. who's gonna go play at folsom prison these days? it won't be clint black.
m.

It takes the fun out of it to judge one genre by another genre's standards. Are the Replacements more real than Korn? Sure, but that doesn't matter to a 14-year old. There is a lot more real honesty going on in mainstream country than in mainstream rock, IMO. In country they talk about marriage and kids and mortgages and real life. Alt-country is certainly very honest, but it's a lot more abstract. I love how real mainstream country is. < /sweeping generalizations >

Dan, I dunno does she? She's had a few number one country hits and lived there, so who knows? She's terrible though.

i'm sorry.

i didn't realize...

i suppose after living in nashville for a few years and watching thee glitz up close i just feel pretty disgusted at it's portrayal of being real.

does alt-country artfulness remove itself from reality? cause in that sense i could see where you're coming from. big, nashville country is in a sense taking someone's mom or dad, putting a lot of make up and nice clothes on them, and letting them sing very un-artful songs someone else wrote. (see clint black's "Iraq & Roll".) that is quite real to me. and i'm being very sincere. it's nearly embarassing, but yeah, it's real in some sense.

didn't garth brooks work at target or something? i can't remember.

help me speak in circles and contradict myself.

i really don't mean to be a troll...
m.

No Alt-Country, no Americana, but like New or Hot Country Artists who are actually all right

And you came in talking about the Silver Jews (?!) and confused arguments about authenticity. I just found it frustrating because I would like to discover some good new music and hate it when these type of derailments occur.

When it comes to music, I don't care about who wrote it or how they look, I care about how it makes me feel. "Red Ragtop" "I Hope You Dance" "Just Another Day In Paradise"--these make me think about relationships and the world and hope and dealing with the real world. There's a tremendous amount of songcraft that goes into most Nashville hits, and if we're interested in discussing music, I think it's a mostly untapped vein here.

Although to say "help me speak in circles and contradict myself" is not particularly nice, if you're implying that's what I'm doing. If I'm expressing myself poorly, say you don't understand and I'll try again.

Amateurist, I'm not ignoring you. I just got swept up in that song b/c I heard it on the radio. Feel the ILM love.

Also maybe there are people moving from Shania to Patty Loveless to ??? . . . but we're just not in the same milieu, so we wouldn't know. Certainly more people are buying alt.country records than a few years ago. Were they all rock fans before?

Teeny: I didn't mean you in particular.

Needed to clarify that, or else I sound like an ass.

oh no! i was being hard on myself! first i claim that alt-country is more authentic... and then i sort of make a case about how in some ways, country is more down to earth, and hence, more accessible to your average small town person. something with a little more artfulness might come off as "weird" to a someone who just wants something good to line dance to... or something that speaks rather plainly about broken hearts.

i'll just shut up now because i've already derailed the original intent of this thread. my foul. since i had nothing good to say, i should've kept my mouth shut.

gillian welch... gillian welch... perhaps my only worthwhile comment in this context.
m.

But I wonder when you say look at the greats of the past. all of those folks were downhome, poor, and from a real place that spoke to people; do you honestly think the alt-country artists of today come from less priviledged backgrounds than the current crop of Nashville stars?

I have good memories from my country days of Travis Tritt and Diamond Rio. "Independence Day" by Martina McBride was pretty good. And Garth has quite a few good songs.

But I wonder when you say look at the greats of the past. all of those folks were downhome, poor, and from a real place that spoke to people; do you honestly think the alt-country artists of today come from less priviledged backgrounds than the current crop of Nashville stars?

no, that's a good point. many of them don't. and that's part of how i contradicted myself in this thread and am feeling the nonsense in what i said above. someone like johnny cash or merle haggard lived the stories they sang about in some way. that made their art more connected to truth. and it was quite plain. and some alt-country kind of takes that new-fangled angle of today's artiness and applies it to country, which in many ways can be very interesting, but doesn't necessarily make it more true, or very plain and available to someone from a rural perspective who wants it's straight, just like their whiskey and their religion. hell, plenty of alt-country is made by somebody in a big city who has no good connection to life in a small town and it's all romanticism. that's not so real either.

i think i just like my artists a little more desperate and a little less stretch limo SUV pick-up with a hot tub.

gillian welch ... she did some of the stuff on the "oh brother where art thou?" soundtrack...

can i say it again?
m.

the new faggot cunts are great!

i think i just like my artists a little more desperate and a little less stretch limo SUV pick-up with a hot tub.

um m, we need to have a talk... ;-D

People like this still exist? (Not safe for work)

gygax, for you, we can have two of those.

by the way... the nfc's are "tan as fuck" + josh from phase selector sound... the reggae dub band... http://www.roir-usa.com/pss.htm ... yes, that's right... the future of nashville is:

DUB!
m.

you'll be getting some dub* tonight

*dub mixes of jet engines

Uh... no. The only thing I've heard of him since then are his covers of "Little Sister" and "Train in Vain." I liked the former. But I fully agree with your rating of "This Time."

Best Tim McGraw Album: Place in the Sun.
Best songs on Tim McGraw's new album: Comfort Me, Tickin' Away, Red Ragtop, That's Why God Made Mexico, Illegal, Sing Me Home, Who Are They, Tiny Dancer.
Best Tim McGraw song to mention the Village Voice: Who Are They.
Best Tim McGraw song mentioned by My Name is Kenny: Where The Green Grass Grows
Second-Best Tim McGraw song mentioned by My Name is Kenny: Refried Dreams
Best Tim McGraw song to rewrite "Indian Reservation" by the Raiders:
Indian Outlaw
Best recent song by Tim McGraw's wife: One
Best early song by Tim McGraw's wife: Wild One
Another song by Tim McGraw's wife that's just as good: The Secret of Life
One Album which would be immeasurably better if Tim McGraw was the singer: 69 Love Songs
Best songs on Kenny Chesney's most recent album: Young, Big Star
Best song on Kenny Chesney's Greatest Hits album: How Forever Feels
Best country album of 2002: Toby Keith, *Unleashed
Best country single of 2002: Ty Herndon, "Heather's Wall"
Best Taylor Dayne single of 2002: LeAnn Rimes, "Life Goes On"
Best country album of 2001: Montgomery Gentry, *Carrying On
Best rock album of 2001: Montgomery Gentry, *Carrying On
Best anything album of 2001: Montgomery Gentry, *Carrying On
Best songs on Montgomery Gentry's current album: Break My Heart Again, Free Fall
One band that *might* rock harder than Montgomery Gentry: Turbonegro

In Nashville country, there are producers (Mutt Lange, most obviously) as enamored of middle-eastern modes as Timbaland is, and other boundaries are being exploded left and right. Faith Hill and Toby Keith are singing what amounts to soul music, and Montgomery Gentry are rocking as hard as any garage-revival band in Detroit, and LeAnn Rimes is making full-fledged disco albums, and Brooks and Dunn are collaborating on stage with Sheila E. Most rock critics can't hear any of it, of course, but they still think Wilco are brave for tip-toeing outside of alt-country, which may well be the blandest, most conservative, most whitebread-anal-compulsive sub-genre in rock history. How come when alt-country bores stretch a little it's considered godhead, but when Nashville types, who've been doing it unabashedly for years, do it, it's considered the essence of cheese? How come rock critics never fully embraced the Dixie Chicks, who I often love (the album rocks fine until it slows down halfway in), until they retreated back into acoustic *O Brother* bluegrass? I considered voting for "Long Time Gone" as a single, but its stupid pandering line about Haggard and Cash pisses me off. You don't hear rock people whining in their songs about how modern rock music doesn't sound like Elvis and Chuck Berry, do you?

Chuck is being called to the front lines to deploy badly-needed hair metal mix tapes to our troops.

First lyrics on metal mix tape for the front-line troops:
Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.
Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.

And he can't get the time of day from any of the Nashville labels.

http://www.brandongiles.com/