Rolling 2005 Country Thread

BILLY DON BURNS
DEANNA CARTER
SHELLY FAIRCHILD
SHOOTER JENNINGS
MIRANDA LAMBERT
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO.
TIM MCGRAW “Drugs Or Jesus” single
ELIZABETH MCQUEEN AND THE FIREBRANDS
MARY PRANKSTER
LEANN RIMES (not nearly as good as her previous disco one, though)
SAWYER BROWN WITH ROBERT RANDOLPH “Mission Temple Fireworks Stand” single
DALLAS WAYNE
WIDE RIGHT - cover of "The Pill" by Loretta Lynn on their imminent but not otherwise country second album
LEANN WOMACK
*The Little Darlin Sound of Should Have Been Hits* reissue comp

but the new Kathleen Edwards album is a complete bore (and i'd liked her first one a couple years ago okay)

VH1 Country has been playing a lot of some dude's version of Hank Jr.'s "It Takes a Whole Lot of Liquor to Like Her," anyone have any ideas who this big Bubba Sparxxx lookalike is, and is it from this year or not?

I still didn't hear the new Kenny Chesney album. I'm sure I'll probably like it when I do, though everybody saying how "quiet" and "intropective" it is isn't as encouraging as Kenny saying on CMT that he's been listening mainly to Bob Marley and Jackson Browne records on his boat lately. I was kinda hoping that "Island Boy" was gonna be a come-out-of-the-closet song, maybe even an answer to the old Elton John hit, but somebody would've said something by now if it actually was, right? (Other bad news for gay marriage in Nashville fans: Big Kenny apparently got married to a woman last weekend. Though Kandia Crazy Horse swears that "Little Kenny" is the guy who inspires more rumors down there. Jon Caramanica has said that the male bonding in the backstage tiki bar on Kenny's last tour was quite impressive as well.)

This weekend, the HACIENDA BROTHES album kicked in for me -- somebody at Koch is apparently making a concerted effort to get me to finally like alt-country, and they're doing a real good job. (Who knows, maybe they have Dwight Yoakam doing A&R. I can totally see him loving those new CDs by the Hacienda Bros and Dallas Wayne -- who is from Springfield MO not Dallas by the way, and whose last album on Hightone was really good too, and whose new album's title track concerns a stalker fan who winds up murdering said fan's idol at the surprise ending -- not to mention he'd love all that Little Darlin stuff Koch has been reissuing lately. I really liked the Groovy Joe Poovey collection they put together last fall. Other people would maybe like their new Johnny Paycheck and Jeanie C Riley reissues more than I do. The *Should Have Been Hits* comp I mention above has five or six pretty great tracks, and 14 or 15 other ones frequently endearing in their catchy ineptness.)

One last thing: If I hadn't let *Black Shelton's Barn and Grill* sit around til early January without listening to it, it easily would have made my 2004 country top ten. My favorite track, even more than "Some Beach," is probably "What's On My Mind." And okay, this is *really* stupid -- only in the past week did it occur to me that Blake Shelton (who kinda drawls like John Anderson, to my ears) and Ricky Van Shelton are not the same person! For weeks I kept thinking "Didn't he used to be totally boring and puritan? When did he suddenly get good??", and now it's clear that they are two different people. So. Does anybody know whether Blake's previous albums are worth looking around for?

the new Trace Adkins single "Songs About Me" is almost good, I like the concept, but the melody and especially the chorus never seem to get going.

Everybody just wants to get high
Sit and watch a perfect world go by
We're all looking for love and meaning in our lives
We follow the roads that lead us
To drugs or Jesus

Out of context, it might as well be Depeche Mode.

akron/family (lifeless alt/art-country on m. gira's label): thumbs downer

*You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music* (Columbia/Legacy three disc set).

I am playing the advance now, and (so far) it is amazing.

well for one thing there are TWO different versions (by charlie and by arthur collins) of "moving day", which holy modal rounders covered on their great first-i-think album, and two (by charlie and by gid tanner & faith norris) of "goodbye booze," which peter stampfel covered sometime later (on *going nowhere fast* with weber, a/k/a/ the best folk album of the '80s, maybe?). also cameo tracks by the north carolina ramblers, floyd county ramblers, highlanders, blue ridge highballers, peerless quartet, virginia string band, the immortal uncle dave macon of course, big chief henry's indian string band, and many more, most of them seemingly doing versions of songs that charlie also did. also two versions of a somewhat offensive ditty called "coon from tennessee," including one by the georgia crackers (is that emmett miller's band? i think it might be, though i dunno if this is him here). and of course charlie's "seet sixteen," which invented bubblegum music since it's about a 16-year-old girl literally fond of chewing gum. is that enough for now? (so who would wind a battle of bands, charlie poole or dock boggs? i have no idea.)

and he is GOOD rapper, by the way.

ITEM: One of the best country singles of the year so far is Intocable's "Aire," currently #1 on the Latin charts, what a great band.

why are you doing this?

(Is Chuck the only other person in these parts to have heard Kultur Shock? If Bordello are gypsy punk, these guys are Balkan thrash, among other things.)

i like acholol well enough, kind of clever, well constructed, but i dont understand it on all the best lists, can we talk about that

eleven CDs
all from Indies Records in
the Czech Republic

at least two of them
might have made my list if I'd
gotten them in time

at least half of them
are country-eligible,
hott punkk violins(e)

Sorry to bust in everyone, but don, can you e-mail me please. My mail to your yahoo account is bouncing.

Paisley is the more skilled guitar player i tihnk

All Jacked Up by Gretchen Wilson (with the line: "I grabbed a tire tool and I broke my window, hurt my elbow got me in though"

Tequila makes her Clothes Come Off by Joe Nichols (with the line: I told her to put another layer on/you know what happens when she drinks Petron)

Good As I Once Was by Toby Keith, (with the line:I still throw a few back, talk a little smack
When I'm feelin' bullet proof)

Hicktown by Jason Aldean (with the lines:
We hear folks in the city party in Martini Bars
And they like to show off in their fancy foreign cars
Out here in the boondocks we buy beer at Amoco
And crank our Kraco speakers with that country radio)

Compared to these, Pasiley is a workman

It occurs to me that rock critics often frequent venues where (drunk) white people dance, as well. (An occupational hazard, perhaps, but it helps the song ring true.)

Note though that Toby beat Brad on my own Nashville scene list:
8. Toby Keith - "As Good As I Once Was"
9. Brad Paisley - "Alcohol"

and just so you know
the second-best reissue
can be found right here

i can do the charting, if you want--but i think that those did as well, im not saying its a bad song, and im not saying it didnt do well, i just find its critical ubquity strange.

thanks
ase

Not my business, Anthony, but ahem.

No Depression Top 40 of 2005

Right now he's probably slow dancing with a bleached-blond tramp,
and she's probably getting frisky... right now,
he's probably buying her some fruity little drink cause she can't shoot whiskey...
Right now, he's probably up behind her with a pool-stick,
showing her how to shoot a combo...
And he don't know...
That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seat...
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...
And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.
Right now, she's probably up singing some
white-trash version of Shania karoke..
Right now, she's probably saying "I'm drunk"
and he's a thinking that he's gonna lucky,
Right now, he's probably dabbing 3 dollars worth of that bathroom Polo...
And he don't know...
That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little suped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seat,
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...
And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.
I might saved a little trouble for the next girl,
Cause the next time that he cheats...
Oh, you know it won't be on me!

oh my.

i've never heard that song, but that is an awesome lyric.

but oh my.

No prob, and sorry, Anthony, I didn't mean to be Snow Meiser back at you. (p.s. I didn't get the "canon" thing--did you mean I was being canonical?)

I also think "Alcohol" made more lists than I would have predicted, and I was just trying to toss off ideas as to why--though really I don't have a clue. It sounds swell on my shitty radio in my car, I never turn the dial when it comes on, and if I were making a top 20 country singles list, it would be there, but I can't generate much more enthusiasm this early in the day. Oh wait, it's "Sympathy For the Devil" rewritten as a drinking song. Maybe that explains it. :)

>"Alcohol" is Rolling Stone's numero uno single of the year. I think that says something. Its appeal is vast: I don't know if it was Paisley's biggest radio hit, but it was on the country stations here like crazy, plus the video was pretty good, actually great, by country video standards. It's an uber-singalong ala "Friends in Low Places" and maybe the funnest single about drinking since that tune. It's country that both country and non-country folks can dig. The point of view really is smart; without it the catalog would be indistinguishable. It's got some killer guitar and pedal steel and piano too. It's the first country song to name drop Hemingway. It fits great on a mix tape with Robert Jay's "Alcohol Pt. 1" from that groovy Searching For Soul compilation on Luv and Haight this year. But I still didn't vote for it.<

Anyways, I'm having fun listening to the new Jessi Colter album and drinking a Christmas present (a bottle of VO; more people should give booze for xmas). Among the many pleasures: electric piano MIXED LOUD. Maybe too much harmonica though.

The music is kind of... [shrugs].

Brad Paisley songs that mean a lot more to me than "Alcohol" does:

--"Whiskey Lullaby" (I like my alcohol songs better when someone dies)

--That one from several years back where he asks the girl if she wants to dance and she says "No," and he says, "That's good, I don't want to either," or something like that.

Yeah, you're right. I always forget about Chesney. I think it's a willful thing.

As far as the Carrie Underwood song about scratching up the guy's car with her keys, I thought it was OK, didn't like the one she cowrote about Checotah. Liked the Diane Warren songs, one or two others, felt the whole record was overkill, just too damned much going on with the admittedly superb playing and Paul Buckmaster string arrangements dovetailing with the perfect guitar licks and all that, and sometimes her singing just really got underneath my skin. boy, someone really worked *hard* on that record, and I don't even think she's a bad singer at all--a good singer, but for me that is never quite enough.

guess I'll go over to the ND thread and look at that list again--it just dispirited me so much I didn't even want to post my comments about it.

Any Canadians know about Bocephus King? Joe McCombs burned me his 2005 CD, and it's fucking great, though it's as much blues and gospel and prog and Eurodisco as country (I guess the actual genre would be "singer-songwriter," except most ss's forget about having any music. Bocephus doesn't; he's got tracks that last 10 minutes, even instrumentals.)

Reissued debut Duhks album from, uh, 2002 or so is also quite entertaining by the way.

New Anthony Hamilton, though, despite his occasional country rep, is significantly less country than Lionel Richie not to mention a crashing bore, total "'70s soul" in quotes shtick, except Anthony has neither the voice nor the melodies to pull '70s soul off, Maybe not the lyrics either, though it's possible his delivery caused me to miss some. Not sure if his early stuff is better than this or not; Haikunym to thread, you've got explaining to do.

Rolling Country 2006 Thread