by Trailer - Originally posted on Country California, March 22, 2011
FNN has learned that Brad Paisley's upcoming album release, This Is Country Music, features 12 new songs, all of them about songs.
His first single, "This Is Country Music," deftly describes the reasons country music is in the state it is today resonates so deeply with its audience, while "Old Alabama" reminisces about good times had while listening to Alabama songs.
The third single is tentatively scheduled to be "Jesus Take The Wheel," which is about Carrie Underwood's song of the same title. In it, Paisley relates how much that song meant to him personally and how his wife heard the song when she was nearly in a car accident on the way to an audition for a new Martin Lawrence sitcom.
Other tracks on the release include "Play Me Hank Jr., Junior," "Tucker'd Out" and "Kid Rock's 'All Summer Long.'" The latter features Kid Rock on a verse, giving his appreciation to Brad for the shout-out and for solidifying "All Summer Long" as a yearly recurrent from May through August.
The centerpiece of This Is Country Music is undoubtedly "The Song You're Listening To." It recounts, moment by moment, how you--the listener--are feeling as you hear the verses and chorus of that very song itself. In an era of immediate feedback, this is as meta as it gets.
It's clear that Brad Paisley has his dexterous finger on the pulse of country and popular culture, and This Is Country Music will set the bar for observational skill and synopsis.
At press time, Brad was hard at work looking back nostalgically on the days when he had new ideas for songs.
by Trailer - Originally posted on Country California August 03, 2010
Your mama has announced the release of her first country single. The maternal head of your family has signed with Stroudavarious Records and lead single "Gaining Ground" will precede an album of the same title due in December. A radio station tour to promote the song will begin next Thursday after her dentist appointment. That tooth where she got the filling in May is really aching lately.
James Stroud, CEO and founder of Stroudavarious, had this to say of your mother: "She brings a lot to the table, literally and figuratively, ha ha ha. When we found out she had such a large circle of Bunco and book club friends and that she used to sing backup for a bar rock band in college, it was a no-brainer!"
When questioned if your female parent's advanced age would be an issue in marketing, Stroud offered: "Not at all, she's a lovely woman and aren't 'cougars' in style nowadays? Ha ha." Your dad had no comment regarding that concern.
With the magnetic kitty calendar on the fridge filling up quickly, your matriarch has been cutting carbs and doing P90X in preparation for August's cover shoot. She's also had to cancel plans for a yard sale the third weekend because she may be filling in for The Grascals on one night of Hank Jr.'s Rowdy Friends Tour.
You'd know all this if you'd call home more often. And how's that new girlfriend working out?
by Trailer - Originally posted on Country California, Tuesday, January 19, 2010
ESPN and NFL officials are beginning to regret asking Hank Williams III to pen and perform a new theme song for the stalwart Monday Night Football franchise. After deeming his first attempt "vulgar," "loud," "inappropriate" and "out of tune," MNF producers have asked Williams for a rewrite.
"For the 2010-11 season, we wanted to reach a younger audience with a more rocking and contemporary theme song. Who better than the son of Bocephus, whose song 'Are You Ready for Some Football?' we've used for years?" asked MNF's Jay Rothman. "The song Shelton turned in certainly brought the rock and, for the most part, a more current sound, but was not at all right for our product."
The first demo of Hank's "Monday Night M***********g Football" includes 21 profanities, 3 drug references, one line taken verbatim from the Satanic bible, and some disturbingly violent imagery. It starts out as a straight country song, reminiscent of something Williams' legendary grandfather might have done, before plowing headlong into a rambling punk/thrash metal amalgam complete with Cookie Monster vocals.
"We did some editing on the track to see if there was anything usable," said Rothman, "and we did glean 20 seconds without cursing, but it was a verse about drinking whiskey and shooting the television with an ol' shotgun if your team loses. We just can't put that message out there."
Hank has promised to tame it down, but is unrepentant about the first cut. "I just wanted to kick their ass man," said III. "Sh*t, the people want their teeth knocked down their throats with some hellbilly music before they watch their team beat the g*****n m***********g sh*t out of those other b*tches!"
If Williams is unable to rewrite the song to the producers' satisfaction, the backup plan is to move forward with a Timbaland remix of Hank II's well-known theme, featuring T-Pain.
It takes a lot of time, patience, and mistakes to realize who you are as a man. From the way we get knocked down, to what we do next when the dust settles, all of those moments matter, they say something about us, what stock we’re built from.
Throughout Shooter Jennings career, he’s made it a point always to turn left when his peers go right, to duck and dodge, when everyone else is out there trying to sing a little ditty to sell a few Dodges. He’s a man you cannot put a label on, because the minute you try, he’ll outwit you and drop a surprise you never saw coming.
On his latest record, Shooter, Jennings has done it again. He’s made the album no one expected, except this time, some ghosts are lingering of a different variety. Shooter isn’t a record Jennings could have made when I first met him almost ten years ago, instead, that Shooter Jennings was channeling his inner Trent Reznor, he was finding new and beautiful ways to fuck with anyone who thought they knew him.
On Black Ribbons, Shooter Jennings wrote a concept record that has flashes of brilliance that hit harder today than we could have foreseen at the time. The fact that that album lies dormant in a lot of rock and roll minds is a crime, but hopefully, history will be on Jennings side, and he’ll get the credit he deserves.
Following that record, Jennings stayed close to country, writing records like Family Man or The Other Life, which are strong genre records, but they still had a flavor of angst, a shadowy, “can I crank up the gain a little here”, or “can I try this concept on them” there. Straight ahead country records, they were not. While solid, that era of Jennings career wasn’t his most pure; it was a time of growth and personal observation, which in the greater catalog, we can see the direct impact of.
On Shooter though, everything feels different. There’s no way, the guy who wrote Black Ribbons could have sat down and written “Born to Git Down” – Shooter is a portrait into a man who’s come to terms with his abilities, goals, and what he’s after. You can’t write a bunch of feel-good tunes that go hard with the beers, without a sense of purpose, and humility, otherwise, it comes off contrived and douchey, AKA most of the garbage pop country radio pedals.
Collectively, Shooter is Jennings best record. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it’s carefree. There’s elements of boogie-woogie, Motown, pure rock and roll, and a lot of heart. “Do You Love Texas” should be a new Lone Star anthem given it’s unabashed, bold, and in your face, which are all things Texans love. My new hobby is to pull the song up on a TouchTunes jukebox, and then watch people walk up to see the track, and immediately put it on their phones.
“Denim & Diamonds” calls back to Hank Jr’s “Outlaw Woman” a solid beer tune, good for the dark bar, and those drinks you have alone when the day’s been just a little too long for small talk.
I appreciate and applaud Shooter Jennings for reaching inside of himself and owning his legacy and his past. I hope the world around him, and the country radio program managers take a risk and add a few of the tunes off Shooter, if anything, as an effort to save their souls, because Shooter is fun, it’s reckless, and it’s pure country music that is without false pretense. If you can’t kick up your heels to “D.R.U.N.K,” you need to take those boots right off the dance floor, mate.
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Shooter is available everywhere you ingest fine music.
