Showing posts with label Trace Adkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trace Adkins. Show all posts
May 30, 2012
May 10, 2012
I'm Sorry, This Exists 5
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| Taylor Swift Guitar Hero Cover |
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| Chris Brown wife beater. No really. |
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| Blake Shelton Hand Sketch T-shirt |
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| Luke Bryan "Boom Boom" T-shirt |
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| Brantley Gilbert Confederate Flag (only $200!!) |
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| This... |
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| Kid Rock Pillow |
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| Uncle Kracker Peyote Bracelet |
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| Luke Bryan Is Life Tumbr Fansite |
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| Tim McGraw "Southern Voice" Denim Jacket |
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| A little class for that ass |
May 9, 2012
Jan 12, 2012
Snap Judgements - Promo Only Country Radio January '12
Like I've said before, Trace's songs are usually gold nuggets or turds. This one actually falls somewhere in the middle, for the first time in a while. The lyric resembles something I'd have written back in my aspiring lyricist days. Which is to say, a decent idea with a few good lines thrown in, but doesn't have much new to say. The tune is kinda unmemorable.. okay, very. Trace's general charm will probably lift this into the top 20, but it doesn't sound like a smash.
C+
Why he (actually, our old friends the LoCash Cowboys wrote it) chose to give it a grammatically incorrect title is beyond me. That's the only thing really different about this song from his last 20 singles. You not gonna be surprised by the formula: anthemic guitars, plucking banjo, uplifting lyrics, female friendly subject matter, foot-tapping beat, solid guitar solo. That's Keith's career in a nutshell. Nothing offensive here - completely catchy and totally interchangeable with most of his other songs.
C+
David Bradley - If You Can't Make Money
"If you can't make money/make out with somebody/if you can't make money/make love"… that's the gist and it goes no deeper. Nice sentiment, but I'd like to see it developed a little further. It's a tolerable song, but David's vocals aren't particularly distinctive. The cheesy crowd cheering at the end knocks this down half a grade.
C
Wow, she doesn't sound like Carrie Underwood for a change. And the instruments are all country.. the instrumentation, however is rocked up. Oh no, the chorus is half "oh -whoa-ohs." Not cool with me, almost ever. "We got homegrown in our genes" opens itself up for way too many jokes. Okay song, but the chorus destroys it for me. Oh yeah, and she name drops Jason freakin' Aldean. WTF?
C-
Is this a Montgomery Gentry cover? Nope. Kracker's saying "America's my hometown" here, pandering to everybody, not just small town lovers. Tuscaloosa, New York, San Diego, everybody gets mentioned so hopefully every radio station will play it. This sounds like something of a hit, but it's pretty dull - one chord and the truth. On a positive note, Kracker's vocals are getting better. Nothing to see here.
C
Love and Theft - Angel Eyes
Is this a Jeff Healey Band cover? Nope. There's only two guys in the group now - so which one's love and which one's theft? Eh, really dull song. A Jeff Healey cover would have been better. "There's a little bit of devil in her angel eyes" ….who cares? Female friendly, for females who don't really care what they're listening to, anyway. Yawnz.
D+
Rodney Atkins - He's Mine
Rock! Oh wait, country. But it's got a rocking swamp groove. Is this a declaration that he wants custody in the divorce? This is a tried-and-true Rodney Atkins formula tune… several story snippets framed by an interlocking chorus that fits each scenario. Not as godawful as some of his recent singles, but meh.
C
George Strait - Love's Gonna Make it Alright
This was my least favorite song on George's new album at first, but it's grown on me. You would think George + repetitive chorus would = boring, but it doesn't here. It's kinda cheesy, but he can do whatever he wants at this point and it'll sound just fine.
B
This started with some promise with a little well-defined regret in the lyric, but it's all downhill from there. Crap. This is ready-made for a Glee episode. Schmaltzy show-choir girly junk. I was embarrassed someone might hear me listening to this. They make Lady Antebellum sound like Megadeth.
F
Billy Currington - Like My Dog
I kinda liked this the first time I heard it, but it never struck me as single-material. Still doesn't, but my opinion of it has dropped. The edits drive a nail into this song. What? You can't say "hell" on the radio now? If this promo only collection is any sign, 2012 will be the most neutered (see what I did there?) year ever in country music. Also, the dogs barking as censorship of the word "bitch" sounds like it was edited in on an old Emerson cassette tape recorder. Awful.
D
Craig Campbell - When I Get It
Another edit-out of "hell." Really people? Hell hell hell hell hell hell hell. Get over it. This song is a deep consideration of the times we're living in. Not really, but it does hit on the economic problems we're living through, with a bit of humor. It's okay, that's about all I can say about it.
C
Andy Gibson - Wanna Make You Love Me
This guy's voice has about as much grit as greased plastic. Sissy crap. I guess Andy noticed that Chuck Wicks wasn't on the scene and decided to jump into his namby-pamby slot. Wait, that sounded homo-erotic. Sorry, this utterly sucks. Jimmy Wayne could pound this guy into submission.
F
Levi Hart - We All Make Mistakes
Sound like an Uncle Kracker song at the start. More middle-of-the-road radio ready country. I've heard this guy is good, but this song wouldn't bear that out. The chorus is very nearly catchy, but not quite. The guitar work sounds canned. Boring.
D
Sugarland with Matt Nathanson - Run
Do I have to? I like some of Matt's music. Not this. Can't Sugarland write an actual chorus anymore? If it wasn't for all the caffeine I'd consumed today, I'd be gone by now. If Zzzz was a grade, I'd give it to this song.
D+
This song isn't anything special, but at this point, anything with an actual melody sounds like a masterpiece. This one has one. The lyrics are unspectacular but the tune makes this listenable. Coulda been a hit in the late 90's. Not sure about now.
C+
Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup (Album Version)
This is the one with the naughty bits. Testicles and whatnot. I guess I have to actually nail down my feelings about this song now… I've been beating around the bush because I don't know. I like a lot of the stupid lyrics. The chorus irks me because it's decidedly ramshackle and tossed-off, but an earworm none-the-less. Uh, well…
C-
Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup (Vegetables - Explicit)
This is the one where "testicles" is replaced with "vegetables." That's dumb. In a song this flimsy, it's enough to knock off a grade.
D-
Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup (Bleeped - Explicit)
This is the one where "testicles" is replaced with "whoop!" Even dumber.
F
Dec 27, 2011
Worst Country Singles of 2011
Click the songs titles to listen, if you dare.
10. Tyler Farr - That's What They're Bitin' On
This is what happens when ball cap sporting posers like Jason Aldean and Brantley Gilbert rule the roost in Nashville. Copycats. Sure, Tyler may have been around just as long as those two, but he didn't get a push till now, so it's all about record execs seeing dollar signs. When the first line mentions a "turned around camouflage trucker ball cap," you know what to expect from there. Tricked out tractors, Stetson cologne, fishing metaphors, city-girls-gone-country… it's all there. Oh, loud guitars too, but that's a given… it is a country song after all.
9. Justin Moore - Bait a Hook
I thought Justin had turned a corner when he introduced his new album with the solid "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away," but the rest of the album proved to be an entire collection of laundry list "how damn country I am" songs. And this one… I can't believe it hasn't come under critical fire for it's unspoken implication that a girly-drink-swilling, sushi-eating, Prius-driving boyfriend is more likely a closeted homosexual than a man deserving of the gal's love. If every man who can't skin a buck was unworthy of a female's partnership, I'd be out of a marriage y'all. And who the hell doesn't know who Jack Daniels is? The sissy boy this song is aimed at, that's who.
8. Trace Adkins - Brown Chicken Brown Cow
This porn joke turned country song turned puppet porn video served to cement Trace Adkins as the most scattershot artist working the top 40 these days. Trace has put out several songs in the past decade I'd name as my favorite commercial country tunes of the era. He's also put out at least 6 that are so indescribably bad, it's hard to see how they didn't top the country charts. It's not the hay loft love-making that makes this so bad - it's the terrible pun hook and the perverted farm animals who fight each other to get the closest view of the corn shucking. Even Trace knew this song was terrible, he pulled it from release to be spared the shame of the song not even cracking (huh huh, I said cracking) the top 30.
7. Big & Rich - Fake I.D.
Admittedly, I didn't hate Big & Rich's first album. It's over-the-top dumb fun and attempts to be nothing more. Since then, B&R have obviously struggled to recapture that juvenile attitude and hormone-filled energy to no avail. "Fake ID" proves their most awkward attempt at reconnecting with their youth. Think Travis Tritt flaming out with that awful "Girls Gone Wild" song a few years ago, or Clint Black uncomfortably parading around on the beach in a sleeveless T-shirt and jorts on the "Summer's Comin'" video. Kenny Chesney is the only older artist who can get away with that crap. This song has no weight whatsoever, no good hook, no interesting story, no soul. It's just a foolhardy attempt to get back on the radio with a lowest common denominator-aimed song that's more contrived than it is fun. Who wants to hear a thirty-something and a forty-something singing about trying to score fake ID's? It just doesn't make sense.
6. Tim McGraw & Gwyneth Paltrow - Me and Tennessee
The most annoying track on this countdown - "together we're singing/forever we're singing" goes the cringe-inducing chorus. Gwyneth isn't terrible, but her voice would be more suited to Colbie Calliat style singer-songwriter pop, rather than country. Ack, there's that chorus again - followed by some "yeah yeah yeah's" like they didn't know what else to fill the awkward space with. Awful. Damn near unlistenable. Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
5. Sawyer Brown - Smokin' Hot Wife
Sawyer Brown has now channeled the cheesy energy they once used to select their wardrobes into their music. The Bellamy Brothers-meets-Jimmy Buffett breezy island tune only tries to mine the popularity of similar Kenny Chesney and Zac Brown songs from recent years, but it adds nothing to the dopey lyrics. I suppose it might be okay for a 20-40 something artist to have a song by this title, but when it's from the 53 year old Mark Miller, it's just kinda creepy.
4. Colt Ford - Country Thang
From my review earlier this year:
"Country Thang" is YET ANOTHER listing song about, well, country thangs. And among thangs that Ford would like you to know are fixtures for the rural set are misspelelingllings (see song title) and uncorrect grammar, because "that's how we does it" down here! We also does it barefoot and crazy while the tin roof sings. We live in the pines in a shotgun shack with a high-priced huntin' dog baying around back. I bet you'll never guess what our women-folk wear. Yep, cutoff jeans. Apparently, in some necks of the south, women's clothing stores sell ONLY cutoffs, tight jeans, bikinis and short skirts. I wish.
Hey Colt, you sure you weren't better at golf?
3. Robin Meade - Dirty Laundry
The hottie-news anchor releases her first country single (because the world needed another star gone country) and it knowingly references her day job. Unfortunately that's the only thing remotely interesting about this cover of Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry." The soulless Muzik Mafia-lite background music sounds like something she bought from a show choir karaoke website. Her vocals are tolerable, but nothing that should have made her think she could make it in a world of Carrie Underwoods and Miranda Lamberts. The chorus is grating as hell. I'm not surprised this didn't even make a ripple, even in the age of lowered-standards Nashville. Putrid.
2. Luke Bryan - Country Girl (Shake it For Me)
I was starting to come around to Luke Bryan. He's clearly got some vocal talent. Some of his songs are pretty darn country-sounding. His cheesy-charm even got me to tolerate the dopey "Rain is a Good Thing."
Whatever good will Luke had built up with me was completely spent (and he went into debt) with "Country Girl (Shake it for Me)." This despicably dunderheaded dance-country crapfest exhorted his girl to shake her posterior for the catfish, squirrels, rednecks, flowers, trees, CMT execs… whoever. It rehashes every Nashville cliché we hated the first fifteen times. CowboyLyrics.com claims this to be one of the song's lyrics: "with a gattle in her Bud to get a little wild." I'm pretty sure that's not right, but even a nonsense lyrics like that couldn't pull the IQ of this song any lower.
1. Kristen Chenoweth - I Want Somebody (Bitch About)
From my review earlier this year:
From the first word out of her mouth, you know the next three minutes won't better your life experience. By midway through the first verse (if you're still around), you're convinced you can write a better song with the local Montgomery Gentry cover band. By the chorus, you're feeling a growing sense that your organs are banding together to overthrow your mind for letting things go this far. By the end of the chorus, you're ready to jump into a Slayer mosh pit and leave the whole adrenaline and whiskey charged bunch lying in a pool of their own blood and broken limbs. If you make it to the end, you hate your ears. Or you're a blogger.
This one takes the cake as the worst country single of 2011. And it's not even close.
Notably left off the list: Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup; Brantley Gilbert - Country Must Be Country Wide; Jason Aldean - Dirt Road Anthem.
These songs, to varying degrees, at least had something worthy about them… don't get me wrong, I hate all three for different reasons, but "Dirt Road Anthem" is damn catchy, regardless of its lasting damage to the genre. "Country Must Be Country Wide" at least 'sounds' better than anything in my bottom 10. "Red Solo Cup" teeters on the edge between big-stupid-fun and just-plain-stupid for me, and some of the lyrics are lovably idiotic. I have a soft spot for intentionally moronic lyrics.
May 30, 2011
Snap Judgments: Promo Only Country Radio June 2011
Snap Judgments: Promo Only Country Radio June 2011
Extremely mixed bag this time out. Lots of good, lots of garbage, interspersed with the usual middle of the road. (Click song titles to listen)
Blake Shelton - Honey Bee
My first thought is "phoning it in." This is a catchy song, but it's such an easy release… no risk involved whatsoever. Sure Blake sounds good and the song is catchy, but there's not much "there" there. It's cheerful, radio-friendly and requires little attention. On top of that, it's mostly just a list of things that go together as a comparison to a relationship. Not bad, but at this point, I expect a lot more from Blake - at least as the first single from a new album anyway.
C
Trace Adkins - Just Fishin'
Following his usual pattern of "crap song-good song-crap song-good song," Trace delivers another strong release. It's well-intentioned and follows through on that message with a solid delivery. Trace just kills these "family is everything" songs. Good stuff.
A-
Luke Bryan - Country Girl (Shake it for Me)
Not good at all. Luke was poised to jump to the A-list… and probably still is, commercially, but this is just a bad, bad song. I like Luke and think he's got a ton of potential in the neo-traditional realm, but this is a flat-out laughable track. On the bright side, it's ripe for plenty of comedy material.
F
Stealing Angels - Paper Heart
Nice melody, fairly memorable song. Vocals are a little thin, but this isn't too bad overall.
C+
Brantley Gilbert - Country Must Be Country Wide
Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of this guy (or any of his compadres, but we'll get into that later). I think he's just Jason Aldean redux, and this song does nothing to refute that opinion. Lots of name-dropping, lots of rock riffs, lots of attitude. Nothing more. Some of his slower songs I've heard prove him to be more than a one-trick pony, but this isn't very good.
C-
Dierks Bentley - Am I the Only One
Another big talent kinda phoning it in, but at least this one's more fun. Just another light-hearted summer country partyin' song, but Dierks sounds into it enough to make me take notice. It's also populated with interesting details and characters, so it stands out to some degree.
B
Jason Aldean - Dirt Road Anthem
I told you he'd release this. I never had a doubt. 90% of my brain hates this so bad. It's a rap song, for those of you not in the know. He sings the chorus, but it's a rap song. And he drinks and drives in it. Not a very responsible message. Confession: 10% of my brain thinks this is very catchy and nearly a guilty pleasure. The 90% wins, however.
C-
Jaron and the Long Road to Love - It's a Good Thing
Jaron has been trying in vain to repeat the success of his '10 hit, uh, whatever it was called - that spiteful one about flower pots falling on his ex's head. This is like his 4th single since then, to no avail. It's not country, piano pop really. Jaron sounds good though. Way catchier than anything Jimmy Wayne's put out lately. Still, not a hit. Just not substantial enough for repeated play.
C
Reba - When Love Gets a Hold of You
Shouldn't that be "When Love Gets Aholta You" for the country market? This isn't bad, but feels a little thin. The melody just doesn't have enough highs and lows to keep my interest. Reba sounds great, as always, but this tune isn't up to her level. It sounds like a hit though.
C+
Jake Owen - Barefoot Blue Jean Night
Way better than I expected. It's a simple pop-rock summer anthem, but it's a helluva earworm. I should probably hate this but I don't… it just has a certain "it" factor I can't explain. Big hit.
B
Billy Currington - Love Done Gone
As happy of a sad song as you're gonna hear, "Love Done Gone" would be craptacular at the hands of a lesser vocalist, but Billy is not a lesser vocalist. The opening "babadabadaba's" nearly turned me off in the first place, but I stood strong and Billy hit a homerun with this release. I have a soft spot for bittersweet tunes like this. It's poppy, catchy and well-performed. A winning single.
B+
Margaret Durante - Maybe Tonight
Meh. Not catchy, not that well sung. Nothing to see here.
D
Rodney Atkins - Take a Back Road
Looks like my predictions that Rodney's 15 minutes were up were incorrect. He milked that last album with the sh*tty "Farmer's Daughter" tack-on-hit into some staying power, and follows that up with a surprisingly good new single. It follows his usual schtick, but without any of the shockingly embarrassing lyrics he usually drops in. There's a name-drop, but it's on-point with the song's theme, so no negative points for it. Unsurprisingly, a tractor is mentioned. I think he has a one-tractor-mention-per-song quota in his contract. Anyway, not a bad song at all.
B-
Jason Michael Carroll - Numbers
Cracker Barrel's newest employee delivers his first single for that label here, to not-so-great results. JMC's got a killer baritone, but he sounds way too stilted and karaoke-ish here. Also, the "numbers" theme gets tired out within the first two lines and it doesn't quit. This sounds like a too-clever lyric written by a lyric-critique message board regular (i.e. something I'd have written 5-6 years ago), and just isn't up to snuff with the market. Overkill in the thematic department too. Rewrite.
D
Randy Houser - In God's Time
Devastatingly good. Repeating myself: in the hands of a lesser vocalist, this might be overwrought and come off as way too schlocky… but Randy is not a lesser vocalist. In fact, he has, bar-none, the best voice in modern country music and he just kills in this song. If you don't listen to this with the ear of a jaded, better-taste-than-thou music snob, it's a near masterpiece. Here's hoping this guy finally gets his due.
A+
Sunny Sweeney - Staying's Worse than Leaving
Love this chick and this is my favorite track off her recent EP. It's kinda throwback in its theme - sounds very 90's in that aspect - but it's modern sounding. She's in great voice and this is a very solid tune. I'm so tired of happyhappyjoyjoy radio - we need more songs like this on Clearchannel.
A-
John Rich - For the Kids (warning: this vid's a tearjerker)
You know me - I want this guy to be FTM fodder for years to come - but he seems to possibly be maturing in more ways than one. His Celebrity Apprentice appearance actually had me rooting for him - on the show and in his life, that he'll overcome the reputation he's lived down to for years. Honestly, this is not a song I'll listen to multiple times, but for what it is (an anthem for the St. Jude's Childrens Hospital), it's excellent. John sounds better than he usually does on slower songs, and this isn't bad overall. I'll average out my personal feelings and my critical perspective and give this a:
B
Danielle Car - Pretty Please
Thin, poorly produced. Catchy though. Pretty good mix of country and rock with a little attitude mixed in. The lyrics are middling, but in parts, memorable. That all adds up to a:
C
May 26, 2011
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