05.31.06

Review or mad obsession, you decide: Hank III’s Straight to Hell

Posted in cricket spazzes, hank iii, some albums we done liked others we ain't - May 31st, 2006 at 12:23 am by Cricket

Hank III, Shelton Hank Williams, blah blah blah looks/sounds like his famous granddaddy blah blah battles with his record label. If you want to know that stuff a quick trip through Google search results will tell it to you over and over.

What’s really important about Hank III is that I think he’s hot. Like HOT. In that too-skinny, cracked-out, would probably be mean to you in front of his friends and nice when you were alone, and why am I so not over bad boys kind of way. For real, though I think he gets it. I’ve never met him, can’t do anything but infer from interviews and lyrics, but I think that he really does get it. What’s “it” you say? Why country music, of course. Isn’t that what it’s all about? [That noise in the background is Hank3 getting a restraining order. -- Mimi]

The new Hank III album, Straight to Hell — it’s good. I probably wouldn’t bother talking about it if it wasn’t, but I’m sure you’re desperate for details as to why it’s good, so I’ll tell you. Pull up a chair — I tend toward wordy when I’m madly obsessing.

After the initial, nearly gospel-esque, intro (the Louvin Brothers’ “Satan is Real”), it opens with the title track and the lyric: Well my worn-out boots are taking me downtown / and I’m looking for trouble and I wanna get loud. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. See it’s like he’s singing about me, or perhaps to me, for the whole album (this reasoning might become a little disturbing as we make our merry way through all the songs.) [I'm already scared, to be honest. Also, audience, I, personally, only like Hank's country music, the screaming shit hurts my soul. -- Mimi]

The album overall isn’t so much about heartbreak or leavin’ your woman or that sad side of country music, and it sounds less like his grandfather than the previous country albums — though some of that could be because every song on this album is about getting drunk or high, or losing your girl because you were drunk or high, or finding a girl to get drunk and high with. Which certainly doesn’t make me love it any less. Even if he doesn’t know it yet, Shelton’s been waiting his whole life to buy me a drink in a dive bar and then get kicked out because I picked a fight with some chick in the bathroom. The songs he sings show me it’s true. [Wow. Stalkerific! Run, Shelton, RUN! -- Mimi]

Most of the songs on this album hold to tried and true (and good) real country aesthetic. Hank III’s genre is Next Generation Outlaw Country. So far, he’s the only person in this genre, but let’s ignore that.

The tracks “Thrown Out of the Bar,” “Country Heroes,” “Pills I Took,” “Smoke & Wine,” and “Crazed Country Rebel” are surely the songs Hank III meant when he said the album had a lot songs about “drinkin’ and druggin’.” These are good old country songs, some with a whisper of high lonesomeness bringing to mind his granddaddy, and slower twang, slide guitar that’s nearly crying or toe-tappin’ fiddlin’ that might make me dance around the room a little, though I’d never admit it in public. [Are you nekkid or somethin'? I don't see how this isn't just your normal behavior. -- Mimi]

The idea of outlaw country heroes plays through “Thrown Out of the Bar,” “Country Heroes,” and “Not Everybody Likes Us.” These songs put Hank III up with the greats — Johnny, David Allen Coe, Waylon, and Merle — and firmly cements him there with the same subject matter and the “certain kind of livin’.” And as he says Not everybody like us / but we drive some folks wild. [You must be on dope. You are comparing Hank 3 to Johnny and Waylon? Get thee behind me, Satan! -- Mimi]

“Low Down,” “Things You Do To Me,” “My Drinkin Problem,” and “Angel of Sin,” scratch at the kind of heartbreak so detailed in Hank’s Lovesick, Broke and Driftin’ album with the same drug-induced twist the rest of this album has. Nearly every song listed above flutters with the feeling your girlfriend just left because of your drinking and you don’t even care ’cause you are that much of a broke down cowboy hard-ass.

Hank III has a serious hate on for the mainstream country music industry that veers toward religion (if country music is your religion like mine is), and that comes out in “”Not Everybody Likes Us” and “Dick in Dixie.” He staunchly honors the old country heroes and outlaw songs while avowing that pop country is destroying country music. He pleads that we should all be looking for country with real emotion, real meaning, or real balls. Sing it, Shelton, baby, I get it, I really do. The whole album could be my life, things I’ve done, things I will do, things I really understand (or perhaps it’s the imaginary life I live and Shelton’s just telling it all to me). Country music isn’t the music of youth, it’s the music of some life-lived. Shelton expresses that well with his whiskey-soaked and rage-fueled lyrics.

The one bump in this love fest is “D Ray White. It’s a great song to listen to, but I feel like I’m missing something with this — the song is nearly a story ballad, but not quite. I can’t find the story thread and the people mentioned aren’t familiar to me (is this gonna be something that totally outs me as a Yankee?).

The second disc on Straight to Hell flips the script 180°. It is in fact spectacular and maybe even innovative (at least for country music). It’s ambient noise of a sort: trains, thunderstorms, maybe stampeding horses and waterfalls (it’s hard to pin it all down) blended in with reverb effects echoing throughout neatly tied into a handful songs blending them into one long rollercoaster of a slow honky-took song. The individual songs are: a very slowed down version of “Smoke & Wine,” “Alone & Dying,” “Back By My Side,” “What’s His Name,” “Down In Houston,” “On My Own,” “I Could Never Be Ashamed Of You” (a Hank Williams Sr. cover), “Up In Smoke,” (yes it’s Cheech & Chong), and a cover of Wayne Hancock’s “Take My Pain.” All blended in a way that almost sounds like something crap-ass college kids would make when left stoned with recording equipment except this is good. Listenable, relaxing in a weird way. It’s sort of like lying in the tall grass of the high plains somewhere, at sunset, while God and Satan fight for your soul and you’re listening to everything around you, with music from the local honky-tonk blurring into all the ambient sounds.

(Also if the non-singing voiceover over the running water before the Jesus stuff starts is Shelton’s actual voice, oh fuck me I’m done, I might as well just start stalking him. And I swear, I don’t even ever date guys who smoke pot — uh, cause they are boring, not cause I give a fuck what they do).

The whole album is country to its core: dobro, fiddle, and just enough twang to make you want to beat time with it on the bar while you drink yourself to death. [Dobro RULES! -- Mimi]

Can I turn this little Hank III love fest over to some hate mongering about his press? Yeah, you know you want it.

Most reviewers seem to be calling the second disc the most interesting part of the album, writing the rest off as either country versions of hip-hip songs (WTF? Because hip-hop is the only acceptable place to sing about drugs?) or deriding it as either too old-timey or not genuine enough in it’s country-ness (again WTF?). But then I’m never able to read reviews of stuff I really like. I end up incredibly pissed off, feeling like the reviewers totally didn’t get it.

You know what’s worse than bad reviews? Badly written reviews. [Leaving the barn door open there for me to diss the snot outta you. -- Mimi] Even worse, humorless bad reviews indicating that the reviewer has no sense of humor, and in fact showing that reviewer barely listened to the album and then wrote a whole bunch of assumptions about it because s/he’s apparently afraid that hillbilly/white trash is a trend overtaking current media. Seriously, if this was happening, wouldn’t I have noticed? I live for shit like that. Yet go check out George Smith’s review of Straight to Hell. Like I told you: Hank III gets it, but George Smith apparently not only completely misses it, but has to be an asshat about it too.

So go listen to Straight to Hell and then tell old George how wrong he is, even if his hipster ass won’t listen to you.

In conclusion: reviewers, bite me. Readers, hook yourself up with this shit. Find Hank III’ s real country. Shelton? Call me, I get it, baby, let’s get married in Vegas. I promise when I leave your fucked-up ass I won’t ask for more than a few songs about me.

(mp3.com has the entirety of Straight to Hell available streaming, for free, if you want to give it a listen, but you should just go buy it.)

[I guess I really have no room here, considering my feelings on Cory Branan, but dear lord. Feel bad for me, folks! -- Mimi]

[Also, you didn't mention the making the first record to pay his child support thing, either. What's up with that? -- Mimi] [How could I forget! That's redneck cred right there. Judge tells him playing music isn't a job and he has to pay his damn child support, so he gets a record deal just to be contrary. LOVE. -- Cricket]

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