09.20.07

Once we were lost, now we’re found

Posted in cricket hates on pop country, cricket spazzes, mucklewain - September 20th, 2007 at 11:32 pm by Cricket

Let’s face it. We’ve been on summer vacation. An unannounced and unplanned hiatus. August was too insanely hot in Tennessee for anyone to think let alone get work done. I’m surprised the whole state didn’t just shut down. And then Daisy joined us in Nashville. You’ll recognize her, surely, from her blog comments and editorial comments, as she’s been help us out around here for a while. Now the bright lights of Nashvegas have drawn her like a moth to a flame. [Sigh, clichés are so cliché.—Mimi] [I'm still waiting for the houseboy I was promised as part of my relocation—Daisy] Now she’s a full-fledged HCT Girl and resident of HCT HQ. She’ll be writing with us and hopefully keeping us a little more on track than we have been.

After Daisy arrived, a bunch of our friends that also hang around the site came to visit: Sarita, Lulu, Weston, Ethel Cannes, Texas Jen, and Esse. We took them to Arkansas. Not because we hate them, but for the Lucero Family Picnic featuring Cory Branan, Glossary, Southern Bitch, Two Cow Garage and, of course, Lucero. There were gallons of bourbon drank (literally), long hours in the car, much jackassery and not a single chigger bite. All in all, it was a successful venture [Hrmph.—Mimi]. The show was great; the White River in Arkansas and the weather treated us as well as the music. Admittedly, none of us wish to visit Arkansas again. Once was enough. [I have nothing against Arkansas, that is all y’all.—Mimi] [If we had been able to teleport to Batesville, our feelings might be different.—Daisy]

We have a lot of music to review, shows to talk about, news, podcasts and other stuff.

However, I haven’t been working on that. Instead, I’ve started listening to pop country radio in my drive time. You could say I’m a hideous masochist, but I like to think, instead, that I’m taking one for the team. It’s science, right? Proving I still hate it? And you know what? I do still hate it. Sure there’s occasional new-to-me George Strait song to make me smile and tap my toes. How much would I love a heavy, more alternative, punk infused cover of this song? If Drag the River hadn’t broken up I’d beg them to do it. So, I don’t hate everything I hear on country radio, but it seems the recent spate of new pop country stars are conspiring to make me more angry than I ever was before [For godsakes, then, listen to NPR on the way home!—Mimi] [You know that makes me more insane.—Cric]

The current female singers all blend together for me when I hear them on the radio. I can barely discern one from the next. It’s a sad state of affairs since there are so many amazing female singers in the various nooks of the country genre, but it seems none of them get radio play. The men aren’t faring much better. So many of the songs don’t even twang, just sound like bad easy-listening contemporary music. It’s tragic really. [You could always listen to my Crowded House CDs in the car.—Mimi]

The songs on heavy repeat on Top Twenty Country Radio just anger me. Luke Bryan’s “All My Friends Say” starts out well enough and then just fails. I don’t know Bryan from a hole in the ground and I’m too lazy to look him up. I’m going to take a wild guess that he didn’t write the song [No, really? You mean the people in Nashville don’t write their own songs? Oh, my illusions are burst! God, I am so bitter today and enjoying it! I pity whoever we run into tonight. HAHAH!—Mimi]. It’s a story of waking up drunk and having to call your friends to ask what happened the night before. I was with him through that part, and the middle section where he talks about how he sure showed his girlfriend by acting like a fool really ain’t bad. The problem is that the song itself requires some amount of ironic self-effacing that isn’t at all evident in Bryan’s rendition of it. Waylon could have carried it off. Bryan does not. In the interest of bringing you the exact facts, I just watched the video for the song and now I hate it even more than I did before. [Where is the quote about Toby Keith here?—Mimi] [Oh, hey! I have that right here in my notebook of mortifying quotes!

Conversation that actually happened last night:

Cricket: The song just doesn't have that...
Mimi: Toby Keith-ness?
Cricket: Yeah. Toby Keith totally could've done that song justice.
Mimi: Totally.

Look for this to be a regular feature I like to call "Things Cricket and Mimi wish Daisy hadn't been sober enough to remember them saying"—Daisy]

Tim McGraw’s “BBQ Stain” doesn’t hit the mark well, either. It works well enough as standard mainstream country song. [Which is what, I guess, from the words “Tim” and “McGraw”, is what it is.—Mimi] Its got the rhythm, form and structure I expect from this kind of song. The content is less insipid than most songs I hear on the radio. Mostly though, I just like the title and the idea of a country boy trying to hit on guy when he’s got BBQ sauce on his shirt. Also amusing is the Sims video some created for the song. [This is the greatest thing ever! There should be Sims videos for all the songs we like! Cory fans, get on that.—Daisy]

The rest of the current crop of crap on country radio blends together. I’m not sure if there’re three different songs about tractors in heavy radio rotation right now, or if it’s just one song so unmemorable that I can’t be sure if it’s the song I heard before. There are also some songs about American soldiers dying that I can get behind the sentiment of, but really, the execution is either too cutesy or too sentimentally overbearing to make the songs worth remembering.

I think I’ll be okay now that I’ve gotten this off my chest. Plus, I seem to have developed the ability to scan stations in the exact pattern needed to miss all Rascal Flatts songs. [Most useful superpower ever.—Daisy] At least I haven’t been listening to Fall Out Boy Like Mimi has (I’ll let her tell you about that herself). [I do not deny this. And I am going to have a word with you about even appearing to compare FoB to Rascal Flatts. Srly? GDIAF.—Mimi]. And Daisy is about to be inundated with new music, so look forward to hearing what she has to say.

We’re back. I mean it this time. Plus Mucklewain is coming up so we ought to get off our asses, huh? [God, I hate outdoor shows.—Mimi]

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