Too True

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My reviews for Madeloud are largely buried and unsearchable, it looks like, so I thought I’d start reprinting some of them here, starting with this one.
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I like contemporary pop. I like classic country. I should be able to reconcile myself to contemporary country pop. Right? I am trying. I’ve recently renewed my affection for George Strait, and belatedly discovered the charms of Leann Womack and Sara Evans. All those folks, though, have at least a cowboy boot and a half in the tradition; they’re neo, not new. Even their slickness ends up being charmingly corny and old-fashioned. Leann Womack looks about as dowdy as a major star can look on the cover of her first album; seated and leaning forward awkwardly on a big Sears-worthy comfy chair, big dangly cross earrings vying for attention with the big buttons on her aggressively modest black jacket.

Miranda Lambert doesn’t wear big buttons. Nor does she mess around with neo cred. She may be on the country dial, but she’s pop from her perfect toes to her exquisite collarbone — the latter of which is featured prominently on the cover of Revolution. I’ve got no objection to that — pop stars are supposed to be pretty, after all. It’s part of their appeal. And it’s not like Lambert doesn’t have anything else going for her. On the contrary, like Christina Aguilera and Beyonce, when Lambert won the genetic lottery, she didn’t do it by halves — her voice is almost as much of a marvel as her physique. Her twang is lodged in her every phrase like a burr, adding swagger to the uptempo stompers and sultry insinuation to the ballads. I’d be happy to sit back and listen to her sing the phone book, as the saying goes.

Unfortunately, she isn’t singing the phone book here. Instead, she’s singing the sort of songs you’d expect to hear on country radio — and try as I might, I just can’t hack it. “Dead Flowers,” for example, could be an affecting, vividly imagined ode to lost love — if somebody would just for God’s sake shoot the drummer, who thumps along like he’s wearing hip boots on his arms. “Heart Like Mine,” has a couple good one liners (“I heard Jesus he drank wine/ and I bet we’d get along just fine,”) more or less obscured by the music’s all-too-earnest efforts to be sweeping and inspirational in a “get your lighter out” mode. It’s almost like listening to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” if you tried to substitute denuded country filigree for any musical ideas or actual personality.

Such is the whole album. It’s not reverent and backward-looking, like the neo-traditionalists, but it’s not gimmicky and bizarre like the best pop from Abba to Ciara. Instead, the Revolution exists in this weird aphasiac past, where retailing indifferently performed rock clichés from the seventies, eighties, and nineties is somehow supposed to be arresting or entertaining. Not everything’s a disaster — the opening song, “White Liar,” for example, is a perfectly pleasant Waylon Jennings knock-off by way of Steve Earle. “Virginia Bluebell” is a decent trudgy ballad. But country radio needs to sell out a lot more thoroughly than this if it’s ever going to win me over.

17 thoughts on “Too True”

  2. Emmylou is pop country! Or was; she had giant radio hits and slick production for her time.

    She used better songwriters and better musicians than Lambert does though.

  4. Roses in the Snow is probably the best one. Her Live at the Ryman album is fantastic. Other 70s highlights are Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, Blue Kentucky Girl, Elite Hotel, and Luxury Liner. Brand New Dance (from 1990) is great too; the 80s albums (Evangeline, Cimarron, and others) are okay, but not as good as the 70s ones. The 90s stuff should be avoided overall (with the exceptions above), and the Daniel Lanois collaborations and stuff from the 2000s is overproduced new agey dreck.

    Trio with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt is good too.

  5. Noah, you are wrong because Spyboy is awesome! That album got me through my Greek thesis–I lived in PA at the time and got to hear her talk to with David Dye. That’s where I learned about her. There’s a few good ones on Red Dirt Girl (like Bang a Drum Slowly, come on that’s awesome), but I haven’t heard the very latest stuff as it seems too smooth.

    But I agree that Live at the Ryman is absolutely amazing. I’m pretty fond of her work on Trio, although I felt that while Trio II (or 2? whatever) was also good, Trio 1 is better. I also like The Western Wall, which is just her and Linda.

  7. Around here, I’m afraid Lucinda is just considered crap.

    I really don’t like Lucinda Williams, but she’s not pop country. She’s alt country. Her audience has always been NPR, not country radio.

    I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like Spyboy or Red Dirt Girl; none of the post 2000s (or really post-mid-90s) Emmylou is any good; the echoey production — eck.

  14. I love the “Greyhound Bound For Nowhere” Miranda Lambert song– it reminds me of the Sundays.

    Noah did a radio show once where he pitted Emmylou Harris against Slayer, and went song by song comparing quality. It was really entertaining.

  15. I have affection for that song…but the last line, “We’re all on a greyhound bound for nowhere,” kind of ruins it for me.

    That’s sort of my MIranda Lambert experience; often there’s a bunch of things I like about a given song, but then there’s something that makes me unable to fully embrace it. Horrible drumming, stupid lyrics, dicey phrasing — it’s a struggle.

    I kind of like her Pistol Annies supergroup effort… She’s not horrible or anything. But she’s not Loretta Lynn or Ke$ha either.

  16. Spyboy is, indeed, really good—not that you trust my taste in music. Your mistake is listening to the lyrics…

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