rolling 2004 country thread

also noteworthy: Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman".

His passion for great country music is equalled only by his hatred of Kenny Chesney and Shania Twain. I've learned of a great many bands I wouldn't have otherwise and if you're in or around Stillwater, MN you really should check out his radio show Saturdays, 1-3pm, on WMGT 1220AM.

Big & Rich *Horse of a Different Color*
Kenny Chesney *When the Sun Goes Down*
Loretta Lynn *Van Lear Rose*
Montgomery Gentry *You Do Your Thing*
Red Swan *After the Barn Goes,* (if it counts)
Warren Brothers, *Well-Deserved Obscurity*

country singles so far that could conceivably make my overall top ten
Big and Rich "Wild West Show,"
Sara Evans "Perfect"
Loretta Lynn featuring Jack White "Portland, Oregon"
Martina McBride "This One's for the Girls,"
Montgomery Gentry "If You Ever Stop Loving Me"
Red Swan "What Really Happened at Rose Lake"
Julie Roberts "Break Down Here"
Gretchen Wilson, "Redneck Woman"

Other country albums & singles and stuff that I've kinda liked
Sara Evans album
Michah Blue Smaldone
Hank Williams Jr (late '03 i guess)
Old Crow Medicine Show
Brad & Shelly "Don't Make Me Have to Come in There"
John Conlee reissue
Amanda Shaw
Julie Roberts
Toby Keith "Whiskey Girl"
Will to Power's "Man of Constant Sorrow" cover
Britney Spears's song with the Ying Yang Twins plus banjos

For more on '04 country, read this whole thread:

Holy SHIT is my reaction to You Do Your Thing by Montgomery Gentry

Though, of course, anybody who thinks that the "great country music" category and the "Kenny Chesney and Shania Twain" category are always mutually exclusive is, um, wrong. But I just checked the link, and he looks like he *might* be entertaining anyway. I like the fish!!

Hell, Jimmie Rodgers sold THAT stuff out, what, 80 years ago?? And man, within a couple decades, Bob Wills was listening to city negroes galore. Trying to pawn off dance music as country!! The nerve of the guy! Country music means PURISM, and everybody knows it, dammit!!

good albums so far unmentioned:
Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Dress Rehearsal (she might be not so great live, but her record is tight
Clint Black, Spend My Time (pretty good songs in spite of corny lyrics, they're from the heart, maybe that makes 'em "roots music" after all!)

great albums so far unmentioned:
ALLISON MOORER, The Duel (cue that whole discussion again, oh no)

great and/or good singles so far unmentioned:
Trent Willmon, "Beer Man"
Sara Evans, "Perfect"
Tracy Lawrence, "Paint Me a Birmingham"

best is when they jam,
Clint Black can still bring the heat
on harmonica

sadly though it's more
mid-life crisis than let's rock
(but that's okay too)

I may or may not have liked a Clint Black song once. I forget. (Didn't he do that one about an auction a few years back?) He usually strikes me as as snoozeful a goody-goody two shoes as Alan Jackson, George Strait, or Randy Travis (all of whom have a COUPLE tunes I enjoy -- like, a good ten-song greatest hits album by each of them, with me picking the tracks, would be a godsend, but since they're such "superstars" that will never happen, of course.)

And today I would also like to recommend the recent reissues of Marshall Tucker Band's *Together Forever and (especially) *Carolina Dreams, plus Kim Richey's new best of, *The Collection. Okay bye.

Also, by the way, I underrated Gretchen Wilson's "Chariot" upthread.

Vindicated: me!
Chuck, you need to hear Paul Thorn
for nu-country-soul.

Does Todd Snider count as country? Bob Christgau seems to think so; he told me once that Todd's what Montgomery Gentry should be, which makes no sense to me at all unless you think Montgomery and Gentry should have total dime-a-dozen voices and a nothing band. Which I don't. Though then again, I haven't heard Todd's live album, which is what I think Bob was referring to at the time. His new album is more like John Prince singer-songwriterism or something, and it's the only one I've heard. It does have a song with "Nashville" in the title, albeit a prett lame one. That said, I like the album fine, especially the song about "Louie Louie" and the one about white conservative straight male Republican Christians. He's a really good songwriter; too bad most of the record sounds like songwriting demos.

Playing the new Drive By Truckers album *Dirty South* now. It sounds even more tired than their last one; they've totally given up on trying to be Skynyrd, which sucks. Not horrible, though. Better than Patterson Hood's solo CD, I guess. So I bet it gets very good reviews.

By the way, that Kim Richey best-of is a big surprise. It's *great*!

kim richey CDs
are all over discount racks,
time to cop a few

Anyway, I do like Kristina Elam's album okay - especially the song that sounds exactly like "Everybody Wants You" by Billy Squier.
And I also like Rebecca Lynn Howard's "I Need a Vacation" single.

xpost

I think I liked Andy Grigg's previous album (didn't it have Tom Keifer from Cinderella on it? Or did he just *remind* me of Keifer? I forget), but I haven't heard his new one.

i really wanna hear the new mark chesnutt

I will probably end up voting for at least three Norteno singles in this year's country poll.

I tried listening to the new Mark Chesnutt; it seemed pretty drab and colorless, per usual. But if I still have it around here, I will give it another chance sometime, I promise.

Best Drive By Truckers album of the year by far by the way (not to mention second best Rancid album of the year, after Lars Frederikson's album) is by a group from the northwest called I Can Lick Every Sonofabitch in the house. *Southern Rock Opera* fans should check it out.

I didn't expect that you would like the Chesnutt album chuck but I think it's really good. I like country even when there's no rapping. there are three awesome drinking songs, including one where he personifies the jukebox & the whiskey bottle, telling them "we ain't done yet tonight"

I'd vote for Yolanda Perez in any poll I could, I have the single "Cuando" but I haven't gotten the album yet, is that single a follow-up to their last single together? and yeah, hell yeah, norteno is country music! I'm aiming to get thrown off the country music poll for voting for "Jose Perez Leon" and probably "Charlene" by Anthony Hamilton, although it'd be better if "Lucille" was released as a single before the end of the year

hey, wait a minute!...(actually, this did made me laugh.)

hey, wait a minute!...(actually, this did made me laugh.)

xpost

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2004:

1. Big & Rich - Horse of a Different Color (Warner Bros.)
2. Kenny Chesney - When the Sun Goes Down (BNA)
3. Gretchen Wilson - Here For the Party (Epic)
4. Montgomery Gentry - You Do Your Thing (Columbia)
5. T. Graham Brown - The Next Right Thing (Intersound)
6. Gene Watson - ...Sings (Intersound)
7. Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose (Interscope)
8. Pat Green - Lucky Ones (Republic/Universal)
9. Th' Legendary Shack Shakers - Believe (Yep Roc)
10. Amanda Shaw - I'm Not a Bubblegum Pop Princess (Little Fiddle)

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2004*:

1. Big & Rich - Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy) (Warner Bros.)
2. Toby Keith - Whiskey Girl (Dreamworks)
3. Terri Clark - Girls Lie Too (Mercury)
4. Gretchen Wilson - Redneck Woman (Epic)
5. Big & Rich - Wild West Show (Warner Bros.)
6. Loretta Lynn - Portland, Oregon (Interscope)
7. Rebecca Lynn Howard - I Need a Vacation (MCA)
8. Chely Wright - Back of the Bottom Drawer (Vivaton)
9. Julie Roberts - Break Down Here (Mercury)
10. Todd Snider - Conservative Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males
(Oh Boy)

(*note: I voted for Martina McBride's "This One's For the Girls" last year. If that vote does not carry over to this year's tally, and if she is in the running for finishing on the singles list, please give that song a vote instead of the Todd Snider one above.)

TOP FIVE COUNTRY REISSUES OF 2004:

1. David Allen Coe - The Essential David Allen Coe (Columbia/Legacy)
2. John Conlee - Classics (RCR)
3. Kim Richey - The Collection (Lost Highway)
4. Ocie Stockard the Wanderers - Western Swing Chronicles Volume 3 (Origin Jazz Library)
5. Red Simpson - Truck Drivin' Fool (Sundazed)

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST MALE VOCALISTS OF 2004:

1. Big Kenny
2. John Rich
3. Kenny Chesney

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST FEMALE VOCALISTS OF 2004:

1. Gretchen Wilson
2. Loretta Lynn
3. Terri Clark

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST LIVE ACTS OF 2004:

1. Big & Rich
2. The Muzik Mafia
3. Shelly Fairchild

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST SONGWRITERS OF 2004:

1. John Rich
2. Big Kenny
3. Loretta Lynn

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2004:

1. Big & Rich
2. Montgomery Gentry
3. Th' Legendary Shack Shakers

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST INSTRUMENTALISTS OF 2004:

1. Cowboy Troy
2. Big & Rich's drummer (or their other drummer, I can't decide which)
3. Jack White

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST NEW ACTS OF 2004:

1. Big & Rich
2. Gretchen Wilson
3. Shelly Fairchild

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST OVERALL ACTS OF 2004:

1. Big & Rich
2. Kenny Chesney
3. Gretchen Wilson

(write-in categories):

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST VIDEOS OF 2004:
1. Big & Rich - Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)
2. Montgomery Gentry - You Do Your Thing
3. Shedaisy - Passenger Seat

COUNTRY MUSIC's THREE MOST FASCIST ASSHOLES OF 2004:
1. Joe Nichols (for "If Nobody Believed in You")
2. Montgomery Gentry
3. Chely Wright (for "The Bumper of My S.U.V.")

Allison Moorer The Duel (don't start with me Chuck)
Los Tigres del Norte Pacto de Sangre
Charlie Robison Good Times
Big & Rich Horse of a Different Color
Mark Chesnutt Savin' the Honky Tonk
Darrell Scott, Danny Thompson, & Kenny Malone Live in NC
Gretchen Wilson Here for the Party
The Damnwells, Bastards of the Beat
Loretta Lynn Van Lear Rose
Trent Willmon Trent Willmon

singles are tougher, but Anthony Hamilton's "Charlene" is #1. Also on list: "Redneck Woman," "Here for the Party," "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)," "Jose Perez Leon," "Beer Man," some others

And oh yeah, while I'm here, who does the ballad on country stations right now that sort of sounds like Nickelback or some lite grunge band like that? I don't know if I necessarily *like* it (though it does strike me as prettier than any Nickelback songs I remember); I just think it's existence is kind of notable. I forget how it goes, but I have heard it at least two times. I was thinking it might be by Rascal Flatts (who I know nothing about), but I'm probably wrong. (And in a way, maybe it's not that weird, since Nickelback have been known to do videos featuring cowboy hats and pickup trucks, as I recall, and since lite grunge is pretty much Christian red state phenomenon these days, and has been ever since Collective Soul days.) (Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want to Be," which blatantly steals its riff from Stone Temple Pilots, is still much better in my book, however.)

what about that song
where they don't quite condemn the
christian serial killer!

i agree: pérez
is not "country" like that now
but los tigres? sí!

I considered Charlie Robison for my #10 album, by the way, but I thought Amanda Shaw (who nobody else ever heard of, even though she covers both the Clash and Ramones in cajun) was a funner choice.

i like the single
but i gave up on him for
scoffing at darwin

To: Geoff Himes
Subject: CORRECTIONS to two of my Country Poll lists

Hey Geoff -- I completely forgot about the Warren Brothers; please change these two lists as follows; the other lists I sent you two days ago should all be fine. thanks, and I apologize!
chuck eddy

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2004:

1. Big & Rich - Horse of a Different Color (Warner Bros.)
2. Kenny Chesney - When the Sun Goes Down (BNA)
3. Gretchen Wilson - Here For the Party (Epic)
4. Montgomery Gentry - You Do Your Thing (Columbia)
5. T. Graham Brown - The Next Right Thing (Intersound)
6. Gene Watson - ...Sings (Intersound)
7. Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose (Interscope)
8. The Warren Brothers - Well-Deserved Obscurity (429)
9. Pat Green - Lucky Ones (Republic/Universal)
10. Amanda Shaw - I'm Not a Bubblegum Pop Princess (Little Fiddle)

COUNTRY MUSIC'S THREE BEST DUOS, TRIOS OR GROUPS OF 2004:

1. Big & Rich
2. Montgomery Gentry
3. Warren Brothers

1. Big & Rich "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)"
2. Sara Evans "Suds In the Bucket"
3. Terri Clark "Girls Lie Too"
4. Josh Gracin "I Wanna Live"
5. Montgomery Gentry "If You Ever Stop Lovin' Me"
6. Brad Paisley featuring Alison Krauss "Whiskey Lullaby"
7. Cledus T. Judd "I Love NASCAR"
8. Loretta Lynn featuring Jack White "Portland, Oregon"
9. LeAnn Rimes "Nothin' Bout Love Makes Sense"
10. Reba McEntire "He Gets That From Me"