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Besides writing or co-writing five of the sixteen tracks, the bard of Margaritaville has selected tunes by smart, deserving writers such as Will Kimbrough, Guy Clark, John Hiatt, Al Anderson (formerly of NRBQ), Bill Withers and Bruce Cockburn. Buffett even tackles the Grateful Dead with a festive version of "Scarlet Begonias." He also hasn't jumped on board modern country's family-values bandwagon, cursing and admitting that he "smoked some pot" on "Coastal Confessions."

By opening with an unconventional, syncopated arrangement of Hank Williams' "Hey Good Lookin'," Buffett simultaneously announces his embrace of old-school country and his break with formula. He also merits points for showcasing a well-kept secret such as Kimbrough, whose witty, defiant "Piece of Work" gets a snappy, string-band arrangement. And on covers of two heartfelt ballads by Canadian folk-rocker Cockburn, Buffett hints that country could find fertile songwriting talent by pointing its compass in other directions. The title track is a standard party anthem, but it boasts a catchy chorus and some nifty alliteration: "Let the rat race run/Roll around in the sun/Until trouble turns funny/And songs get sung." Only "Simply Complicated," an annoying novelty, fails to connect.

Unlike much of his earlier work, License to Chill is aimed at seasoned party animals who can appreciate Buffett's wizened perspective on songs such as "Coast of Carolina," where he sings, "These days I get up about the time I used to go to bed/Livin' large was once the deal, now I watch the stars instead." License to Chill is really more about early autumn than it is about endless summer. The reassuring message is that getting older isn't all bad once you learn how to roll with the swell and, most important of all, chill out.

PARKE PUTERBAUGH

“Where have the hip-hop summer jams gone?” a friend recently lamented. “There hasn’t been one this year yet.” I understood her plight. The new issue of XXL, for instance, lists a summer rap hits top-10 for every year between 1988 and 2003. But 2004—despite cuts like Federation and E-40’s “Hyphy,” Usher ft. Lil Jon’s “Yeah!,” and Petey Pablo’s “Freek-a-Leek”—just doesn’t seem as active somehow. Then I realized that there are, in fact, great summer radio singles; it’s just that this year, hip-hop’s usual roost-ruling role has been usurped by, of all things, country. And the main perpetrator is a duo every bit as eclectic, shameless, and smart as hip-hop’s recent rulers Timbaland, the Neptunes, and OutKast: Big & Rich, the duo behind “Wild West Show,” “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy),” and the debut album both come from, Horse of a Different Color (Warner Bros. Nashville)—not to mention Gretchen Wilson’s great “Redneck Woman” (Epic), co-written by the duo’s John Rich.

Rich used to play bass and sing for country hitmakers Lone­star; he and partner “Big” Kenny Alphin, a former psychedelic rocker, make music every bit as try-anything idea happy as their hip-hop brethren, and just as hooky. The duo formed after several years of woodshedding along with a cast of dozens at a Tuesday night social club in Nashville called the Muzik Mafia. “We became songwriting partners,” Rich says of Big Kenny. “We started writing all these songs that were great, but didn’t fit [into] Nashville; that led to us starting the Muzik Mafia, which was . . . pop singers hanging out with punk rockers, rappers hanging out with country singers.”

Horse of a Different Color has a pronounced hip-hop element, thanks in good part to Cowboy Troy, a large, trilingual rapper (who also has a master’s degree in economics), as well as to the Dirty South–style “what-whats” on “Save a Horse,” which also has the most blinged-out video on TV right now, with a marching band, scantily clad dancers, cowboys, and whatever else you can imagine crossing a bridge together. (“That video shoot was insane,” says Rich. “We had dwarfs, we had giants—it was like The Wizard of Oz going across that bridge.”) Horse also works in funk and R&B rhythms and rock guitars without watering any of them down, while remaining distinctively country at core. (That’s mainstream country, by the way, not alt-country, thank God.) Undoubtedly, hip-hop isn’t going anywhere. But even if Big & Rich are a one-time anomaly, Horse is a bold step for the genre, and it’s helping make this a pretty damn pleasurable summer.

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