All American Idol related "Honest Album Covers" tomorrow! Thanks for voting.
Aug 7, 2008
Tomorrow's theme is....
All American Idol related "Honest Album Covers" tomorrow! Thanks for voting.
Aug 6, 2008
Aug 5, 2008
An aside
It's rare that I'll get serious here, but I can't help it today. I'm actually excited about some new music I've heard. I'll leave the professional and interesting reviews to the music blogs on the list to the right, but I just had to post this... funny stuff tomorrow, I promise.
This just in. Country music is not dead. Jamey Johnson's "That Lonesome Song" is a modern commercial country masterpiece. That might sound like an oxymoron, but hear me out. Johnson turns recent years of pain, drug abuse and heartache into the best thing mainstream Nashville has put out in ages. There's a gray veil of cigarette ash thumped over the entire record, with the ghosts of honky tonk legends past hanging heavy in the background as Jamey sings songs of actual love lost (not just dictated to him by Nashville songwriters), real addiction and honest anger. The only song that comes close to "typical" commercial country is the final track with its name dropping, but he's not just blowing smoke when he mentions himself as "somewhere between Jennings and Jones." If not in status/talent (yet), at least in sound (and alphabetically in the record store, as he points out), the description rings true. Johnson also turns in an understated, heartbreaking rendition of Waylon's "Dreaming My Dreams With You." This is stone country - That Lonesome Song makes fellow neo-traditionalists like George Strait and Brad Paisley's recent records sound like Rascal Flatts. The twang is heavy (but not faked), the tone is dark and the reverence for real country music is obvious. Outside of Guitar Town and a couple of Dwight records, I'd go as far as to say this is the best mainstream country album since the 70's.
This just in. Country music is not dead. Jamey Johnson's "That Lonesome Song" is a modern commercial country masterpiece. That might sound like an oxymoron, but hear me out. Johnson turns recent years of pain, drug abuse and heartache into the best thing mainstream Nashville has put out in ages. There's a gray veil of cigarette ash thumped over the entire record, with the ghosts of honky tonk legends past hanging heavy in the background as Jamey sings songs of actual love lost (not just dictated to him by Nashville songwriters), real addiction and honest anger. The only song that comes close to "typical" commercial country is the final track with its name dropping, but he's not just blowing smoke when he mentions himself as "somewhere between Jennings and Jones." If not in status/talent (yet), at least in sound (and alphabetically in the record store, as he points out), the description rings true. Johnson also turns in an understated, heartbreaking rendition of Waylon's "Dreaming My Dreams With You." This is stone country - That Lonesome Song makes fellow neo-traditionalists like George Strait and Brad Paisley's recent records sound like Rascal Flatts. The twang is heavy (but not faked), the tone is dark and the reverence for real country music is obvious. Outside of Guitar Town and a couple of Dwight records, I'd go as far as to say this is the best mainstream country album since the 70's.
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