Damn. How can I make it up to you?
Oh man, you guys, I heard a clip on the radio and I swear one line is, "You don't judge my gold chains, I'ma forget those iron chains." SERIOUSLY???
They're just trying to start a conversation, Thorn. Don't hate!
4: That is the line for serious! I died.
Paisley wants to display the Stars and Bars because of pride in his Southern heritage. I think it is part of the Lost Cause scenario. The War of Northern Aggression was not about slavery, etc. I don't think he would have the same feeling about a swastika. Some symbols are too tainted to be redeemed, I guess.
It really is eerily similar to "It ain't easy being white. It ain't easy being brown" from Arrested Development.
The whole thing actually makes me feel kind of bad for Brad Paisely's ridiculously misguided earnestness, rather than angry, as well as completely baffled by LL. What were you thinking?
5: I'm not a hater, I just crush a lot, wafe. And I only said that it was hard to take them seriously. But what 8.1 says, too.
9: oh, I was just kidding. The whole thing is so absurd that I genuinely have no clue what to make of it.
8. Maybe it's more like "Ebony and Ivory".
This isn't going to be as funny, I hope, when Brad Paisley runs for Senate in one of the guns-meth-and-saturated-fats states.
10: Oh, I was just kidding about not being a hater.
And I liked that book, by the way, and may actually get to write about it tomorrow.
Most people don't know that Jubal Early's full name was actually "Ladies Love Jubal Early."
I've been seeing references to that song all day on FB, and just listened to it now. Wow, it is worse than I had expected to an impressive degree.
Also, "No see, I just really wanted to show everyone how much I like Lynrd Skynrd" is the lamest thing I have ever heard.
I'm going to choose to be proud that I didn't know how to spell Lynyrd Skynyrd.
"Patton Oswalt @pattonoswalt 22h
I can't wait for Brad Paisley & LL Cool J's next single: "Whoopsy Daisy, Holocaust, My Bad""
Never mind the politics. On a musical level, I thought it was terrible. Do all Brad Paisley's songs feature such a droning melody?
I think the music tool douche waste of space critic at Slate is a Brad Paisley fan: if true, res ipsa something something.
Brad Paisley is always terrible. He specializes in country music with terrible puns or a gimmick in the lyrics.
21: I just learned that A.O. Scott is the progeny of Joan Scott. History trivia! As for J/ody R/osen, we went to college together. He wore a Brooklyn Dodgers hat four years straight. It was kind of a thing.
He also graduate from Brookline High, which fact I somehow think will elevate him in your eyes. Or maybe your antisemitism is so implacable that even a New England connection can overcome it.
Do all Brad Paisley's songs feature such a droning melody?
I think that's called "country music".
I hadn't heard a thing about this until now, and while the song is terrible as a song, I'm not scandalized by the sentiments they're voicing. I'm inclined to be with 8.2 upthread, though I can't ask "LL, what were you thinking?" because I don't know much about him in the first place.
Kids these days.
I think that's called "country music".
Ha ha ha, but no.
Contemporary country music, possibly?
It sounds to me like a parody. Any chance of that?
Brad Paisley is always terrible. He specializes in country music with terrible puns or a gimmick in the lyrics.
To be fair, this also describes a fair chunk of Johnny Cash's output.
The song is terrible, of course, but it is kind of interesting that Paisley did it. It reads to me as a sincere (but clumsy and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to address some serious issues that people like Paisley usually either ignore completely or try to gloss over.
"I only wore that swastika t-shirt to tell the world how much I love Screwdriver."
25: LLCoolJ might be older than you.
(That's not entirely fair to Skynyrd. I better analogy would be a band like Joy Division, which had Nazi followers but was itself fairly ambiguous. That wouldn't have been as funny, though.)
29: I know. I gave up trying to describe why his puns are clunky and grating, and yet often in country music I find the gimmicky songs innocuous or charming.
the awful country songs of the past twenty years were mostly written by committee, according to formulas, and it shows. That's what it means to be cloying. Cash's puns and gimmicks come from the way he sees the world. And that shows as well.
I basically agree with 36, except that people have been complaining about new country for the past 40+ years, and there's still been a lot of good stuff along with the terrible stuff.
32: It's Skrewdriver, you race traitor.
Oh, there's plenty of excellent country music being made. It just that, as with most genres, the great mass of consumers prefer anodyne crap.
I would appreciate a new Apomania, Countryfried version.
|| 29-48 at the half. They really have to figure out how to shut down Breanna Stewart. |>
The thing is, I like country music. Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Patsy Kline, Kenny Rodgers, Johhny Cash. I eat that shit up.
Its true, there is not much recent country that I care for.
My sole guilty pleasure is The The's album of Hank Williams covers, Hanky Panky.
My favorite country is things like Credence or Wilco or Rednex or Tom Waits.
31: It reads to me as a sincere (but clumsy and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to address some serious issues that people like Paisley usually either ignore completely or try to gloss over.
That's how it reads to me, but I don't know who Paisley is, so for all I know, he's being disingenuous. Taking it straight, though, it's likely that there are ignorant Lynyrd Skynyrd fans, and Confederate flag fans, out there who've been unaware of what's been going on in the rest of the country. Eh, if this is supposed to be signal that they're noticing, and that a dialogue must be had, {shrug}, well okay.
I mean, Paisley's portion of the dialogue sounds like an admission of congenital denial, right?
And I know that there's some good country music out there (by some measures); I couldn't resist the opening.
fwiw I agree that good country songs are still being written and think they would find just as large an audience as the shitty country songs if provided the same marketing efforts.
it's likely that there are [...] Confederate flag fans, out there who've been unaware of what's been going on in the rest of the country
"What?!? President of the UNITED STATES? Ho-lee shit."
I wanted to hear the Garth Brooks and George Strait duet on Sunday, since I love them both, but I couldn't actually take the reality of the CMAs.
I don't fault Paisley for trying. Its not his fault he sucks.
29: Shut your filthy whore mouth. Johnny Cash was and remains an American treasure. Brad Paisley is just some wanker in a hat.
38: Uh, is there something you've not been telling us, apo?
Duet is okay. They stuck to songs that I like, but it's a tribute to Dick Clark, which is kind of weird.
Anyway, the Paisley/LL thing seems to be partaking of a newish development in this country's history with what used to be called identity politics beginning in the '70s. Then identity politics was deprecated and it became multiculturalism; lately state legislatures have been attempting to outlaw things like Hispanic Studies, and sometimes succeeding (as in, is it Arizona?) Conservatives have begun to talk about White Studies.
This is a minefield, but I actually don't mind, at least in the abstract. Heavy emphasis on that final clause.
Conservatives have begun to talk about White Studies.
That cannot possibly go hilariously wrong.
Whiteness Studies is already a real (non-reactionary) thing.
60: Flip is, like, the poster boy for whiteness studies.
Indeed, for Critical Whiteness Studies! Let us all study Flip and his critical whiteness.
Let us all study Flip and his critical whiteness.
There's even a website to serve as a publication forum for studies of this sort!
Granted, it focuses on a fairly narrow subdiscipline. But it's very critical.
Sigh. I guess I'll go eat Wheat Thins and curate my collection of khaki trousers.
40, 41: This is a really good compilation of stuff coming from the other side of the tracks in East Nashville. (and here)
Also, Country Funk 1969-1975 is crazy wonderful, though obviously not recent.
60: I hope they don't actually call it Whiteness Studies.
My favorite country is things like Credence or Wilco or Rednex or Tom Waits. I don't like country music.
What? I love country music. Sheryl Crow, ZZ Top, The Band, Paul Williams.
Comander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen
The Band
Hang on now, The Band is country? I love The Band!
I think of them as folk. With a country twang, I guess, but that's just how they are.
Lots of fiddle music. And the last CD I bought is Melissa Lambert - I'd only heard _Not My Mother's Broken Heart_ on the radio & then was delighted by _All Kinds of Kinds_.
The big local C&W station seems pretty bad ( droning tunes, whiny zeitgeist ). Probably there's a better small one. VW? Local's recommendation?
77: sorry, music interferes with the drone of melancholy that otherwise fills my days.
Hang on now, The Band is country?
No, they aren't, that was Tweety's joke. These days they would be classified as Americana, which is close to country music, but a different genre.
But, seriously, listen to a little bit of that mix that I linked to -- I don't know that you'll like it, but it emphasizes the singer/songwriter side of country and there are lots of people there who are really good and careful interpreters of songs.
I was just listening to the Kathy Mattea track and thinking that she does a good job of reflecting both the heartache and the sense of freedom in the song (about a woman in a car listening to the radio, driving away from a failed relationship). She sings it really well.
Are you here now, clew? Dealing with this shitful windstorm? If so, please allow me to apologize for this unrelenting horror. We get a couple of these every spring and fall, and they make me utterly miserable.
78: I think that's the 60hz buzz from the high tension wires.
||
Of the various Thatcher remembrances I've seen, I'd have to count Russell Brand's as being one of the more surprising, albeit somewhat rambling. Amidst the casual misogyny there are some notable observations and memories.
[I]f you opposed Thatcher's ideas it is likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.
When shit is in the air, Von Wafer apologizes, correctly.
||> Back to country music.
Did you all know that John Fogarty took a lyric straight from Chuck Berry? A line from "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" shows up in "Centerfield." I'm probably behind the times.
If love is something you cherish it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.
I didn't know Erich Segal was still alive.
That is so weird that Russell Brand dropped that thing about VW into his statement.
79: These days they would be classified as Americana
I did not know that there was a musical genre or classification called Americana. That's sort of bizarre.
I'll give your linked mix a listen, okay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKI9K0rcZbY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9_mVqCimfQ
(I was hoping to find that Druha Trava / Peter Rowan version of the latter song, but it seems not to be on the internet).
Mark O'Connor, after all.
Beaufort 4 & 5 are inconvenient for some of my fieldwork but otherwise I love it. Perfect for a walk to Mishka's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D-456BT0A8
One more country song.
I also had not heard of the genre Americana. The wikipedia list of "significant artists in the genre" is the whitest fucking thing I have ever seen.
Blume is getting into some Whiteness Studies.
Among country hits of the past summer, I liked the song "Pontoon" OK.
Jamey Johnson's is probably my favorite recent album, and he's not quite mainstream but isn't a full on East Nashville alt guy either. "High Cost of Living" is a nice play on words country song.
Taylor swift's "fifteen" is a pretty good contemporary country song. Contemporary country music is pretty bad in general though.
Should I know who Brad Paisley is? The only current country musician I'm aware of is that guy who's on TV all the time on The Voice who says "like" as if it were "lack" in a way that sounds kind of affected.
OT: my son, who is in fifth grade, wants to do an independent study for women's history month. He wants to write about a female chemist. Any ideas (other than Marie Curie, of course)?
91 surprises me. "Americana" is really just a way of saying non-super-commercial country that's directed to hippies more than straight up rednecks.
96: probably not Margaret Thatcher.
So—despite the presence of Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo—"Americana" basically means "alt.country, but toothless"?
96: Chemistry is boring. He should write about a female physicist instead.
He could write about Yvonne Brill, and fail to mention her cooking. That'd be striking a blow!
"Americana" is really just a way of saying non-super-commercial country that's directed to hippies more than straight up rednecks.
And you're surprised that this music is made overwhelmingly by white people?
100: I'm happy to pitch him. But which physicist? And are you willing to write the paper?
And are you willing to write the paper?
How much are you willing to pay for it?
While we are posting some favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwWUwowN7Qg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtQu2qATIlo&list=PL6AE1FEF68DB93A60
I bet there are female chemists and physicists working at your very own university! (I might even know one of them.) I guess they aren't old enough to be "history", though.
No, that Blume hadn't heard the term. Of course it's super white music.
That term sounds like some fucking bullshit made-up music industry radio station programming made-up bullshit, like "adult contemporary" or "today's smooth sounds today".
Whiteness Studies is already a real (non-reactionary) thing.
I keep meaning to read Nell Irvin Painter's book. Has anyone read it?
112: Isn't that where every genre designation originates, though?
115: shit no. Some originate out of an attempt to categorize things at record stores, some originate out of a half-assed attempt to rebrand a genre that's gone stale (looking at you, EDM), some originate out of a complex desire to set yourself apart from other music while still acknowledging influence, some originate inthe drug-addled heads of musicians trying to explain to the press what exactly it is they play "well it's like country but also rock you know like country rock" or "no man it's not house music that's from Chicago. This is, uh, techno! Yeah! From the future!". The latter are, of course, maximally authentic.
115: Isn't that kind of overstating it? Granted, going back to "race music" I can see that it's a major influence, but there were terms for genres of music before there was such a thing as radio, or anything we would recognize as "the music industry."
Actually I feel like the best genre names originate as dismissive references to the locations that the music is played. "Oh, that's just music from the ______. _____ music."
There is something fundamentally ahistorical about contemporary country music latching onto Confederate nostalgia and rebel flag symbolism, inasmuch as country as a genre is descended from musical styles that originated in the most steadfastly Unionist region of the South.
I can see that it's a major influence, but there were terms for genres of music before there was such a thing as radio, or anything we would recognize as "the music industry."
Were there? I can't think of any.
"That's just music from the place where they kill people in giant meat grinders. Deathgrind music."
122: exactly right. It's the music from the place where people step on dubs.
Anyway, sure, 115 is overstated. But none of the other origins mentioned in 116 seem that different from 112.
"Jazz" is attested in 1912 and in a musical sense in 1915.
125: well it's the narcissim of small differences, sure. But compare "adult contemporary" to, say, "country rock" and tell me one doesn't feel a little less like some A&R guy putting a boot on your neck.
(In that they're all basically "someone made up a random name for a superficial purpose.")
(In that they're all basically "someone made up a random name for a superficial purpose.")
Tell it to William Gass!
But compare "adult contemporary" to, say, "country rock" and tell me one doesn't feel a little less like some A&R guy putting a boot on your neck.
Nah, they really don't seem that different to me. But then, my opinions on music are famously worthless.
126: Ah, yes, that would be another one.
"Adult contemporary" is really a format rather than a genre, though, isn't it?
"Zeuhl" is definitely a random name that someone made up.
133: so, I would argue, is "Americana".
You know what's some good Americana? Friends of Dean Martinez.
135: Words cannot express how little of a dog I have in that fight, so sure, whatever.
Surely there are some anatomical limits on the size of the dog.
Outside of a dog there is a bounding surface that encloses some finite volume.
If a bacterium harbors a deep urge to sniff balls, does it count?
138: Sure, but I don't know the words for them.
Country music I like:
Corb Lund:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD-xTYC5ptA
Ganstagrass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezRhtnWWUUc
I can't believe I missed this thread. I was totally hoping you would post this horror, but I must to bed.
My kid has a book with a section on Dorothy Hodgkin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hodgkin
She determined the structure of insulin 5 years after getting the nobel prize. That is good hustle.
"I can't believe I missed this thread" is totally iambic tetrameter!
If you had 1000 monkeys with guitars, would they write a ballad before a different 1000 monkeys could write a novel.
I will write a ballad! Tomorrow! I actually just wrote a thing in one of the nine other places I blog (not really) about how I am absolutely unable to go to bed at an hour that allows for enough sleep.
Meanwhile
43: I like the idea of Patsy Klein, Melanie's sister who sings at the Opry. Her songs are about the dark inner world of object relations.
(I have an imaginary band called Bad Breast, if I haven't mentioned it.)
If you had 1000 monkeys with guitars, would they write a ballad before a different 1000 monkeys could write a novel.
And if they did, what genre would it be?
129 to the tune of "How Long has This Been Going On?"?
I listened to a ton of new country driving around Dallas in February and it remains baddish and perplexing. There's this whole self-congratulatory "people like us sure are people like us" ethos.
The thing about the Brad Paisley song is that it's horribly embarrassing and risible but there's a seed of a good impulse there. I think maybe I'm trying to say something teo already said.
Inside of the dog teo has in this fight, it is too tiny to read. Because the book is tiny. So the letters are tiny. And you can't read them. I'm going to try to sleep.
143: Josh!!!
... Sorry, but I'm completely tapped out of wit at this point (was trying to talk to someone on okcupid on the other tab). Just wishing I knew anything about country at this point to contribute something meaningful.
I think maybe I'm trying to say something teo already said.
Which was in turn actually something parsimon had already said, so yeah. I'm glad to see some other people had the same reaction I did.
was trying to talk to someone on okcupid on the other tab
Definitely a better use of your time than discussing country music here.
155: She stopped replying, but there's still a decent pour of whisky left so I'll be around for a bit longer. Time to find out who Brad Paisley is. I just hope he's of the embroidering Paisleys.
I fear you will be sadly disappointed in Paisley.
So it seems. Can't help but notice that LL Cool J doesn't get to insert his opinion until 3:46 through a 6 minute song, after which point it's roughly 1/2 and 1/2 at best. Not exactly a fair hand extended, is it?
General agreement with those who like county music that isn't really country music, or is just 50 years old at least. Clearly Gucci Mane is the new Woody Guthrie if we want to find the true continuation of old folk/country.
98. Kid should by all means write about Margaret Thatcher. She was on the team that invented soft scoop ice ream. What fifth grader could resist it?
|| Tony Blair says the street parties are in bad taste. I want to tell him not to worry, we'll have another one for him. |>
Tony Blair says the street parties are in bad taste.
I feel like writing to him to reassure him that my celebration of Thatcher's death was in excellent taste.
re: 159.last
I've been kind of hoping he'll die in jail, but that's never going to happen.
Were there? I can't think of any.
Baroque. Gothic. Romantic.
I used to think that a state funeral for Margaret Thatcher was a terrific idea. Her coffin on the gun carriage, dragged through the streets by naval ratings; her solemn eulogy in St Pauls; her eventual interment beneath the stones of the crypt, to lie forever alongside Nelson and Wellington and the other heroes of her country.
Then someone pointed out that there was no way we'd be allowed to do any of that to her while she was still alive and Prime Minister.
was trying to talk to someone on okcupid on the other tab
That is an exceptionally high-risk strategy, given how often people comment in the wrong thread.
162. Indeed "classical", which now means white people's music that nobody listens to, used to mean the specific style fashionable in the second half of the 18th century, bookended by the younger Bachs and early Beethoven.
James Taylor is now classical music?
||
Just received a phone call from a computer which told me it had an urgent message about my refund, and that failure to act today would place me at risk of not getting it. Nowhere in the message was it stated what the "refund" was a refund of, or what organisation was offering me this exciting information.
Do they think people are completely stupid?
|>
Is that a new thing for you? Those are about 90% of my phone calls.
I'm also getting about 14 calls a week from somebody who wants to become my new electricity provider.
Do they think people are completely stupid?
I worked a number of years in fraud departments at ebay and a telecom firm. The answer is yes and they are right.
The Louvin Brothers were my great musical discovery of the last year. I'm so up-to-date!
The Nick S country mix is also awesome.
I'll second Halford's recommendation of Jamey Johnson as country music that's totally worth your time. A lot of the battle over defining country music comes down to a predetermination by people that they don't like country music, therefore country music that they like is actually something else. Not unlike atheists who insist that only flat-earth fundamentalists are *really* Christian.
Tony Blair says the street parties are in bad taste.
Well, as Michael Gove once said, "street parties, although excellent, are transient."
It might be worthwhile to follow his entire regimen of advice, e.g. "In spite, and perhaps because of the austere times, the celebration should go beyond those of previous jubilees and mark the greater achievement that [this occasion] represents." "I feel strongly more should be done to achieve a longer lasting legacy... It would be appropriate to do something that will mark the significance of this occasion with fitting ceremony."
It might be worthwhile to follow his entire regimen of advice, e.g.....
I thought you were going to suggest sticking her body on a boat and pushing her out to sea.
Country gets such a bum rap. It's gone downhill over the years but at it's best it's one of the great American musical traditions. Puns have a great history in country -- I especially love extended puns, which have generated some brilliant country songs. E.g. Dwight Yoakam's gorgeous "Heart That You Own" , a genuinely moving love song where every single line is a pun on real estate. Lots of great classic country where puns are fully integrated into the song -- too many to list really but Johnny Paycheck's "I'm the Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised" comes to mind. (Johnny Paycheck is an underrated genius).
A lot of the battle over defining country music comes down to a predetermination by people that they don't like country music, therefore country music that they like is actually something else.
I have to say I'm one of those people, since the country music industry, including every country radio station, the music video stations, and almost everything that gets to the top 20 of the country album and single charts, is part of a reactionary and divisive political movement. The first step in enjoying the work of James McMurtry is convincing myself that it is not "country music".
part of a reactionary and divisive political movement
True, and I feel the same way you do about all of that. Plus, most of the high-charting country music that isn't a bunch of semi-fascist cheerleading is treacly crap, just like the rock and pop charts. But McMurtry (and Ray Wylie Hubbard and Steve Earle and Willie Nelson et al.) are also playing country music, along with a bunch of other artists who don't get the senior citizen discount at Cracker Barrel.
There are no senior discounts at the Cracker Barrel.
If anybody knows why I felt like googling and then typing that in, please let me know. I'm not very good at self-awareness kinds of things.
My favorite new album of 2012 was Sing the Delta by Iris Dement. I don't know if she was ever played by country music radio stations.
I know what CN means, but even for commercial country "part of a reactionary and divisive political movement" is I think significantly overstated. Most of it is just not very good but staunchly apolitical pop about romance, and there's still a good chunk of the spirit of exposing hypocrisy/providing "realistic" descriptions of down and out losers and drunks (not to mention "tough chick" semi-feminism) that doesn't really fit with the narrative of country as a vehicle for pure reaction. I mean even the song in the OP, as horrible and ham-fisted as it is, doesn't really fit in with that narrative.
mainstream country became a whore in the 1980s, but it can't really be blamed -- it's fanbase had all become whores as well. They can't be blamed either, and it's only striking because they weren't whores for so long, unlike the rest of the country.
179: You have a great thirst for knowledge, and a selfless desire to share that knowledge.
182: If everyone's a whore, then who's buying?
183: I don't lack that much self awareness.
185: Self-deprecating, too!
Alternate theory -- is there some actual work that you are avoiding?
184: exactly, this is why we need to cut medicare.
175: Dwight Yoakam's gorgeous "Heart That You Own" , a genuinely moving love song where every single line is a pun on real estate.
Unfortunately, I don't find that gorgeous or moving in any way. Sorry! My dislike of what I think of as country (and that song is most definitely it) has to do with simply not liking the pace and rhythm and twang. I had to turn it off.
Sorry! I think it may be just a difference in aesthetic/listening taste.
That song is so far from Yoakam's best, it's not even funny.
I just imagined Johnny Paycheck's family getting off the boat at Ellis Island in 1913, having trekked from Silesia, where they were the Pejčik family, and some guy from the Bronx who isn't paid very much is like "I think he said Paycheck. Just write down Paycheck." There are a number of unlikely elements in this story.
Note that the current No.1 country artist in America this week is a black guy, although admittedly it's the black guy who was in Hootie and the Blowfish.
Probably his song with the most widespread appeal is A Thousand Miles From Nowhere.
A big problem with country music is that if you google the song above, you'll get the video, and it will undoubtedly be so cheesy and awful that it will color your impression of the song.
Yoakam was raised in Columbus, Ohio. I don't know why I remember that.
I don't even get puns out of _Heart That You Own_, just an extended metaphor. And it is lugubrious. I like elegiac, don't like lugubrious, bad leads get too handsy.
175: PGD has some further edifying things to say about country music in this thread, as does (ahem) yours truly.
195: Columbus, Ohio, won't let you forget that.
As suggested in 182, though the content of 182 is characteristically baffling, country radio calcified in the years between Apo's childhood and my childhood.
As I grew up, my school contained people who were big country music fans, and people who weren't. It was understood that as a country music fan one would aspire to the lifestyle glorfied in all the country songs, both the fascist ones and the mawkish emotional ones, and also the fun-loving ones.
Attributes of male country song protagonist:
- Grow up in a small town (this was true for all of us)
- Enjoy outdoor activities
- Wear giant hat for no reason
- Wear comfortable clothes
- Team sports
- Engage in some sort of hell-raising as a youth. Do not get punished for it.
- Marry high school sweetheart despite initial suspicions of her parents
- Have children, thus removing all impulse to hell-raise
- Drink lots of booze
- Large dog
- Truck
- Christian
- Support the troops in everything they do
- Be very, very nostalgic
Yoakam was raised in Columbus, Ohio.
And Brad Paisley was raised in the part of West Virginia (Northern Panhandle) that might as well be Ohio, which makes the appeal to Confederate nostalgia and Our Shared Southern Heritage a little suspect to my ears.
Hermann Göring was raised in Wheeling.
201: And despite his deplorable views, we all surely agree that he was one hell of a country music singer.
I guess the aspirational figure in 199 is healthier than the aspirational figure in most pop-dance songs*, but it's also a very political construct.
*
- Have lots of money
- Bone lots of women
- Drink lots of booze
- Be very emotional
- Work out
I never even watched 90210. I was making a LMFOA reference.
I'm taken aback by the gender divide on mainstream country radio; pairings of a woman singing about getting out of town and making a new life (One Way Ticket), and men singing about how they're stuck and the town's dying so they'll just drink more (Tip it on Back), are way way more common than the other way around. (What happened to the cowboy drifters? Not the marryin' kind, ma'am.) Happy male songs are almost always in late adolescence (She Cranks My Tractor).
There are a few male salesmen phoning home, and stuck miserable women, but the overall narrative is of rural women getting an associates' and getting out and the men getting drunk and dying broke. I hope this is accidental, or my attentional bias.
Engage in some sort of hell-raising as a youth.
If The Law Don't Want You (Neither Do I)
(Written by Mary Karr, and at least partially autobiographical)
Come to think of it, I skip most of the songs about I'm Being Cheated on But I Love Him So, mostly because they're lugubrious, and those would probably balance it out.
I'm taken aback by the gender divide on mainstream country radio; pairings of a woman singing about getting out of town and making a new life (One Way Ticket), and men singing about how they're stuck and the town's dying so they'll just drink more (Tip it on Back), are way way more common than the other way around.
I remember reading somewhere that mainstream country music is written almost strictly for women.
The canonical gateway song for admitting that some New Country is palatable is "Maria", by Brooks and Dunn. Again, if you watch the video, your opinion becomes invalidated.
"Invalidated"?
210 is true of most pop music, not country in particular.
"Invalidated"?
210 is true of most pop music, not country in particular.
210: I think I remember hearing an interview with Jim Lauderdale in which he was complaining about that.
If you make a purchase at Spotify, you can have 2 hours of your musical opinion validated.
My mom has her Sirius radio set to the "Outlaw Country" channel and when I drive her car I don't feel inclined to change it. So whatever kind of country that is it seems I like it well enough. I mean, they played Ralph Stanley covering "White Light/White Heat," which was pretty bitchin'. (Also, it's often pretty funny.)
I debated "invalid" vs "invalidated" at length, and "invalid" didn't seem to imply transformation the way I was trying to say. Don't they talk about contest entries being invalidated if you're related to someone who works for a company?
I always liked the phrase "void where invalid".
216: Elizabeth Cook has a show on Outlaw Country, and she covered a Velvet Underground song too. I guess that means the Velvet Underground is country.
Yes but how would your looking at a video of Brooks and Dunn's Maria make your previous opinion as to the musical merits of that song "invalid"? Didn't you mean that if you watch the video, you'll probably not even consider the merits of the song, due to the overpowering cheesiness of the video?
Outlaw Country the radio station is great. Basically none of that stuff charts, though.
I sort of want to insist that country music (as I think of it) is not really about particular subject matter. As a musical style, it's more about the way the music sounds, the types of instruments employed, the rhythm, the structure of the song.
Greg Brown is among my absolute favorites; the theme in that song is that, well, all the money's gone, but there's no way it's a country song, right? Why not?
You should think of my words as a form of poetry. Sure, you can tear them apart with your fancy lawyer tricks, but at what cost?
218: The first time I heard it, I thought I was being told how to get to the restroom by an asshole.
Invalids aren't assholes, Moby. Try to be less able-bodied-centric.
Despite all the obvious counter-evidence, I maintain I'm too busy to look up the proper character to do the funny thing on the 'e'.
If you're on a Mac, type option+e before typing the letter. If you're not on a Mac, first get a Mac.
I sort of want to insist that country music (as I think of it) is not really about particular subject matter
I think that's true of most genre distinctions -- subject matter doesn't define the genre, but some subjects are more common in some genres than other.
Greg Brown is among my absolute favorites
Incidentally he's married to Iris DeMent who peep mentioned in 180.
229. last: Oddly enough, neither did I.
It's especially surprising since Iris DeMent is also married to peep.
232: Yeah, I guess I should have known something was up, when she was spending so much time away.
Oddly enough, neither did I.
I didn't know that either until I looked up Sing The Delta
Incidentally, looking that up I was stuck by the fact that there's a song by DeMent from 1993 titled, "Easy's Gettin' Harder Every Day" since there's a 2003 Rosanne Cash song, that I've been listening to recently, with a line, "And I know better's gettin' harder all the time"
And despite his deplorable views, we all surely agree that he was one hell of a country music singer.
I started penning some sample lyrics to "Ungewollter Judenfeind" (duet with Elie Wiesel), but it became really offensive really quickly.
235: Don't let that stop you! It didn't stop Brad and LL!
I have to think that Brad and LL's song is not comparable to Hermann Göring.
237: Well, obviously, Herman Gorring was both a much worse person and a much better country singer.
There was a new Iris Dement album this year for the first time in a very long time.
239: Yes, apparently her two-timing lifestyle kept her too busy to write and record new songs.
||
For Halford -- Can You Patent a Steak?
|>
Don't let that stop you! It didn't stop Brad and LL!
OK, if you insist.
[Göring] Bloss weil wir Hackenkreuze tragen
Dürftet Ihr uns nicht verklagen.
Es handelt sich um um deutsche Treue
nicht das, was ich zutiefst bereue
[Wiesel] Lass mich in Ruhe Hebräisch sprechen,
dann verzeihe ich Deine Kriegsverbrechen
Gönne uns uns're Kashrut Gesetze
[Göring] Vergesse uns're Wut und Hetze!
[Wiesel] Wir lesen beide vom Tanakh
[Göring] Siehe bitte ab von Kristallnacht!
[Together] Wir sind doch Brüder schon im Kern
ob Hackenkreuz oder Davidstern!
If I were to buy some of Iris Dement's music, what should I buy?
If I were to buy some of Iris Dement's music, what should I buy?
Single songs or albums? The first song of hers that I heard was, "Let The Mystery Be" and I'd recommend it (though it isn't notably country).
243 Her first album, Infamous Angel. I would say it's distinctly bluegrass rather than country but maybe it will satisfy your curiosity. The best known song is "Our Town" which I find very lovely but can imagine also how it might be received as a bit quaintsy-waintsy.
246: that's not country? I guess I'm more alienated from the genre than I thought. Anyway, if there are particular albums that you recommend, let me know.
247: I had just downloaded that song, which I think is, as you say, quite lovely.
|| Is anyone reading these words playing Ingress? |>
246: that's not country?
I haven't listened to it in a while. At the time I thought of it as particularly twangy folk music, but I didn't have a good sense of country music to compare it to. I should listen to it again.
Anyway, you should listen to Smearcases's recommendations over mine; I'm aware of Iris DeMent, but not overly familiar with her music and, for what it's worth, "Let The Mystery Be" is off Infamous Angel so another reason to start there.
that's not country?
I've seen the Grand Ol' Opry, and I've met Johnny Cash. If that ain't country, I'll kiss your ass.
96
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.
Rosalind Franklin is popular now.
If we're naming other awesome female scientists, how about Lynn Margulis?
Clara Immerwahr (wife of Fritz Haber, inventor of the process now used to make most of the world's fertilizer. She committed suicide shortly after her husband successfully deployed the world's first chemical weapon).
Angela Merkel
Maria the Jewess
I swear those are not jokes.
And guess who was one of Dorothy Hodgkin's students: good ol' Margaret Roberts Thatcher.
I might have to give Iris DeMent another try. I had one of her albums about ten years ago, and despite liking a lot of similar music, I couldn't stand her (or her duets with John Prine, now that I think of it).
Nobody ever says if they mean green Iris DeMent or white Iris DeMent.
With Knecht's permission I would like to spread it more widely.
OT: While driving Nia home from school, I finally saw Rowan walking a block of two from our house and picked him up and brought him back here to meet the girls. We had a caseworker coming over, so she finally got to meet him too. He was super sweet and has grown up so well. I am so happy right now! (Colton is also doing well, and I should have an update for sir kraab and the Orange Post Fund soon.)
261: I'm just going by the Google Translate version, but I'm inclined to agree.
I'm listening to Infamous Angel again and actually not so sure about genre. Bluegrassy folk? Folky country? It's certainly nothing that would ever get played on country radio.
And honestly, my first answer to what you get when you cross LL Cook J & Brad Paisley was "Rowan!" He strongly identified with urban black culture after growing up in the public housing complex Mara and Nia are also from and then he spent most of his high school years in extremely rural parts of our state. I clearly remember how his mind was blown when he realized he might be the only teen in his then-home county without a cowboy hat! But he came around to that life and now the city seems a little weird to him. He'll find his place, though.
This is, I think, a nice song, from DeMent's most recent album. She's not really my favorite though.
I'm finding that I don't care for Iris DeMent's voice. No slur on her personally -- just not my taste. It's nasally, it seems to me.
269 before seeing 268: having just listened to a portion of that one, yes, it does seem like she's singing from her nasal passages. If I try to duplicate that sound, I have to do something very specific, not singing from the throat or diaphragm, but from the nasal passages.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
funny, I wonder how many nasally-voiced people have no idea of it.
Perhaps many?
I'm not making this impression up, am I? I wish I had a better vocabulary for explaining what I mean about the nasally thing, but I know little about the particulars of vocal training. It seems obvious to me if I try to sing in various ways. DeMent's "Sing the Delta", and "Let the Mystery Be", seem especially egregious to me, in any case.
Wow...tough crowd! I will admit to liking music some would call sentimental, it started with my parents being opera fans. Lucky I didn't post one of my favorite operatic country ballads built around a hideous pun, Gene Watson's "Nothing Sure Looked Good on You".
I think of Iris Dement as being a sort of sui generis folkie with an extremely distinctive (love or hate) voice, kind of in the same vein as Lucinda Williams but not nearly as good. I think the place to start with country is with the classics...in no particular order, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton. All are great vocalists, some are also great songwriters. Then there are a number of singers who rank just below the greats (like Johnny Paycheck). I might actually class Dwight Yoakam up there as well, along with a few others.
The problem with all of the classic country folks is that they were commercial Nashville producers along with being superb artists. So they churned out a simply enormous number of songs that include a fair number of turkeys as well as the great ones. So you have to skip over some not-so-good stuff to find the gems.
I don't have any Youtube access right now so I can't post any examples, but there are too many anyway. Maybe sometime I will send Heebie a country music guest post with lots of links.
Yikes, I don't care for DeMent's voice at all either. I love me some country twang, but that's a different thing.
Regarding country, I have a soft spot for Garth Brooks, especially "The Thunder Rolls". The Chris Gaines thing, however, is just odd.
I can't decide if 242 makes me regret I can't read German or grateful I can't read German.
Thanks, Stanley! Given that I'm almost completely ignorant of all country (and western) music, including the sub-genres (like bluegrass -- or is that something entirely different?), it would be awesome if people wanted to say which songs they especially like. Yes, it's all about me, me, me.
Garth Brooks is awesome, but I explicitly posted the canonical gateway song to New Country, above.
279: which comment? I skimmed. Poorly.
275: I'm glad I'm not alone in that impression.
282: I'll tell you in about ten minutes. I'm currently somewhere that would not greet country-fried crooning favorably.
283: I offer you this in return. I laughed and then nodded my head in agreement.
But you have to take the no-video-watching warning seriously.
VW -- did you listen to any of the mix I posted?
288: again, which comment? I'm almost never consistent about reading threads, so I miss a lot (as if that wasn't obvious already).
278: I can mention some quasi-country stuff from newer artists. Joe Pug, for instance, is great. Dawes, too, though wiki tells me they're part of the Laurel Canyon sound. I'm not sure where Laurel Canyon falls on the country spectrum.
I posted a country mix too! A long time ago. I could dig it up in the archives, because it's fucking awesome.
Note the subtle movement in 242 from Göring's first, defensive lines, addressed to all ("Dürftet Ihr") to a dialogue between two, evidenced by the transition to second-person singular verbs when Wiesel comes on the scene and addresses Göring as an individual. It's rich in Darw-llian implications.
You should also listen to the tunes in 102 and 111, VW. They are good!
Here you go. I got in trouble in the comments because I hadn't realized that I didn't label the tracks, and I'm honestly not sure whether or not I fixed that. So maybe more apologies, but the songs are uniformly great.
The canonical gateway song for admitting that some New Country is palatable is "Maria", by Brooks and Dunn.
Isn't this song a little late for that? Or maybe I'm not understanding what New Country is. But I thought its rise pretty much aligned with my high school years. I stopped being as aware of mainstream country music in college, so maybe I just missed how big/important that song is/was.
Does a gateway song have to have been released at the beginning of the era? I meant "gateway" as in pot-is-a-gateway-drug and D'yer Maker is the gateway Led Zeppelin song.
And what about THIS high-quality shee?
299: The whole album is great! It's called "When the Roses Bloom Again."
Yeah, Iris DeMent doesn't have the depth as a songwriter Lucinda Williams has. It's true. Still there's something really compelling to me about her. I am frightfully inarticulate tonight and I'm not even gonna try. I was trying to explain why drag isn't very interesting to me in another window and couldn't put two sentences together that made any sense.
Does anyone else have an overwhelming urge, when confronted with a busker using an exaggerated drawl, to engage that person in casual conversation in order to confirm that, indeed, the drawl is entirely put-on?
The strength of this urge may be related to the busking occurring at a farmer's market in San Francisco. That drawl is just soooooo not believable, dude.
Could be a homegrown Humboldt drawl. Could be Boontling!
||A woman I went all through school with was on Good Morning America today meeting Brad Paisley.|>
Racism isn't contagious by mere contact.
Sure, some mainstream country is good. Some of the songs about partying, and some of the songs about women finally leaving their husbands.
I don't know if that Brooks & Dunn song counts, as it's a cover of a hit song from 1973.
Ferry Building, and worse - - - Saturday morning! Let the opprobrium rain down.
Nonetheless, I always shudder at the thought of having to work for hours near a horrible busker. Damn that would suck.
I think buskers are improving, in the wake of the Mumford and Sons phenomenon. I actually saw a mandolin a couple months ago.
Bruce Hornsby's band members didn't always save enough.
311 is a fair point. Perhaps that's why it's got more widespread appeal.
Ferry Building, and worse - - - Saturday morning! Let the opprobrium rain down.
Which busker? I don't think I've ever noticed a drawling busker.
Obviously I'm really just stalking dq.
He'd washed up across from Nigel/Eatwell, i.e. back side of the building, south side. Wailin' and pickin' his little ole heart out, sounding utterly and completely fakeola.
Cue nosflow saying, "hey that was ME!"
They don't call him Country Notsniw for nothing.
I'm curious if Von Wafer has any reaction to the various country music that's been recommended.
One other thing I thought of in the country/americana/bluegrass category -- Loudon Wainwright's Charlie Poole project.
Speaking of covers, here's a bunch of version of "Early Morning Rain" which are, I think, an interesting example of how porous genre boundaries can be.
Gordon Lightfoot (original)
Tony Rice (the first version I heard, so I think of it as a bluegrass song)
Paul Weller (huh? but a good cover)
OT: I have no idea how, but something I've done convinced Amazon to recommend that I buy a Palm m100.