Review Jon Pardi - California Sunrise

I've had this one marinating on my playlist until I had a solid opinion about it.  The takeaway.  This is the most legitimate country sounding album by a mainstream artist so far in 2016 and it's not even close.  Still at times the Nashville machine makes its presence known so it's far from perfect.


The album leads off with "Out of Style" which I was hoping would be more about how he is different, but just states how country doesn't go out of style.  A bit cliché at times, but not a bad start.


Next is "Cowboy Hat" one of the better cuts on here with plenty of steel and fiddle.  It's basically a song about how his lady looks good in nothing but the cowboy hat.  If this song were done by FGL or the likes, it'd be full of clichés and probably a girl they met while crunking at the club, but with Pardi it works.  The implication I get, it is a wife or intimate girlfriend that he is singing too not a one night stand.  I could see this one being a single.  Great infectious rhythm and lyrics that even some mainstream fans could enjoy.


Following that is the lead single "Head Over Boots" which isn't anything great, but again has traditional country arrangements and decent (if cliché) lyrics at times.  Would fit in with most 90's country songs and great to see it as a single.


Next is "Night Shift" which is a perfectly fine drinking song with some good fiddle play throughout. 


After this the album starts to get off the rails a bit.  "Can't Turn You Down" isn't a bad song per se and does feature actual country instrumentation again, but the "phone call turns into a what’s up, what’s up" makes me cringe every time. 


"Dirt On My Boots" is one of the worst songs on the album, but still has some decent fiddle play.  It starts off with a EDM vibe though and is full of clichés.  Oh Rhett Akins was one of the writers.  Makes perfect sense now.  I'm assuming this is something the label made him throw on and he does the best he can with it.  Still a skip.


After that auditory assault though is a pleasant heartbreak ballad and hands down best song on the album, "She Ain't In It".  This sounds like something Alan Jackson or George Strait would have pulled off back in the day.  He's trying to move on after a breakup and is back to normal as long as she's not a part of whatever he's doing.  This has song of the year potential especially among mainstream songs if it's released as a single.


After that uptick though it's back to some questionable songs.  "All Time High" is cliché to the nth degree with some lyrics sounding very forced.  Still has lots of fiddle though.  Even the lesser cuts, Pardi still stamps with strong instrumentation at times.


"Heartache On The Dance Floor"'s intro makes me want to hit the skip button which I do occasionally.  Starts out with a horrible drum loop/EDM rhythm but then features steel guitar and fiddle later on.  Very strange song that may be better cutting the intro.


"Paycheck" is a rockier hard working, hard drinking song.  It's not the best, but it's fine and perfectly at home being an album track.


"Lucky Tonight" features some more fiddle and steel guitar work, but I can't get past the lyrics on it usually.  Again though it's a step above the other dreck in the mainstream due to instrumentation again.


The album finishes with the title track.  "California Sunrise" is one of the stronger (and longer) songs on the album.  By this point, I think I've hammered home enough how much Pardi appreciates traditional arrangement.  More steel guitar and fiddle drive this song.


I was initially torn what to think of this album and I don't think I can really make a complete judgement until we see the singles that pop off of it.  It's clear what Jon Pardi wants to be.  He features steel guitar and fiddle prominently in every song with minimal electronic music and sings without needing autotuning to correct every note.  Still I'm leery at how much pull the label will have over a young and un-established (as of yet) artist. 


He also co-wrote 8 of the 12 tracks which is a highly encouraging sign even if his lyrics border on cliche at times.   Just as good is one of the songs he didn't write ("She Ain't In It") is the highlight of the album showing he has a good appreciation of what makes a good song.  He's young and I can see his writing improve once he has more experience.


Also encouraging is how hard he apparently pushed for "Head Over Boots" to be the lead single.  It's sad when releasing an actual country song is bold, but that's what this was.  It did well too which is a great sign. 


If "She Ain't In It", "Cowboy Hat" and/or "California Sunrise" get released as singles, this album will have even more impact especially since the first 2 have #1 potential.  If the label pushes for "Dirt On My Boots" or "Heartache On The Dancefloor" not so much.


I am torn on a grade for this.  If this were released by an artist on Thirty Tigers, I'm thinking maybe a 6 or so.  The fact is though that it was released on a major label.  Just like we'll see in the Olympics, I think the much higher degree of difficulty is enough to bump this up.  This is hands down the best mainstream release of the year and most likely the year.  Jon Pardi may not be perfect, but if country radio is going to be saved, it's going to be a bunch of guys like him that do it and this is a huge step in the right direction.


8/10

Review Luke Bell Self Titled

2016 has been a horrible year in music.  Between losing legends in all fields and lots of mainstream dreck including artists like Dierks Bentley who used to be reliable, there hasn't been much to celebrate so far.  This album is a step in the right direction.


I've been looking forward to this one for a long time and my appetite was only whetted more as a few songs slowly trickled out over the past few weeks.  There's not a bad song on this album and it's the type of album that will probably only grow on me the more spins it gets.


Luke Bell is a traditional country artist through and through.  Songwriting teams on mainstream hits and artist with no soul in their voice or ones that require auto tuning turn me off.  The biggest problem I have with modern music (including most rock) is the production.  It's all digitized with electronic instruments, autotune and compressed so much it just sounds like a wall of noise.  It's refreshing to hear this.  I read somewhere this album was recorded in analog and the authenticity shows.  There are dynamics and all the instruments and Luke's voice all shine through.


There's a lot of variety on this.  There are your typical heartbreak and cowboy songs.  There's some bluegrassy harmonica.  There's some easy going stuff that reminds me of 50's and 60's rock and roll as well as classic country.


The album starts out with "Sometimes" a great old timey heartache song.  This is the first song I heard on here and it sucked me in instantly.  Also a very cool video (embedded at the end of the post).  Next up is a bluegrassy harmonica song, "All Blue".  Again a very classic country sound.


The next song, "Where You Been" is one of the standouts on here for me.  Reminds me a little of some 60's rock song, but still solid country.  It's a mid-tempo song about drinking that is very welcoming to the ear.  The production shines on this.  It's very pleasing to the ears with subtle steel guitar and fiddle throughout and great vocals.


"Hold On" is a nice swing tune that again takes me back to all the great music from the 50's and 60's and features some good work on the steel guitar.  "Loretta" follows with a song about drifting away slowly from a woman.  The instrumentation is fantastic on this.  Understated piano, steel guitar and fiddle meld together beautifully to create a warm pleasing sound to accompany the vocals.


I mentioned variety earlier and "Workin' Man Dreams" is a great example.  Lots of fiddle in a more upbeat song.  Also yodeling.  When is the last time you've heard yodeling?  It's usually not my favorite, but as everything else on here, it works.


"Glory and the Grace" is a yet another classic country cowboy song with vocals similar to "Everywhere" listing classic western images and a great honky tonk piano.  "Bullfighter" is a spitfire song that reminds me a lot of something Johnny Cash would've recorded in his heyday.  I have a feeling this one is going to grow on me even more after a few weeks in regular rotation.


"Ragtime Blues" unsurprisingly is a ragtime swing song with some great honky tonk piano.  It touches on the roughneck lifestyle, but this narrator doesn't regret it at all.  He enjoys it and doesn't let the bad times detract.


The album finishes off with another one of my favorites "The Great Pretender".  Maybe it's the name of the song leading me in this direction, but this reminds me of some 50's rock ballads although very countrified lyrics.  It's about a man who loves them and leaves them, but in the last verse the tables are turned and a girl plays the role of great pretender.


Front to back this album is fantastic.  I've been listening on repeat since the streaming became available and now that I have my own copy it will be on constant rotation in my car for as long as the wife allows.  Luke Bell is the real deal.  This is album of the year material here and I think this could be huge in the realm of real country music.


Usually the more I'm looking forward to something, the more it disappoints if it doesn't live up to it.  This album exceeded my already high expectations.  It's pretty much perfect.  Do yourself a favor and listen as soon as possible.


10/10

Review Maren Morris - HERO

Well this sucks...


I'm not one to speak about being pious, but maybe Maren should have attended her church more.  If Hank is giving the sermon about this album, it's one about fire and brimstone end of the world stuff.


I can't say I'm all that surprised as the more surprising thing these days would be a country artist actually releasing an album of country music, but the hopes for this album from some were very high after hearing her lead single "My Church".  Turns out it was just another bait and switch to release pop music on country radio.


While I love "My Church" the name drops were a little contrived and the production a little too slick at times.  It's a very good song, but there were enough red flags to give me pause at to what the rest of the album would sound like.


"My Church" is the only remotely country song on this entire album.  This is an out and out pop album and the scary thing about it is it is a pretty good pop album.  That scares me even more than the dreck Thomas Rhett is releasing as a single.  It's easy enough to laugh it off because it is crap regardless of the genre released in, but there are some catchy pop songs on this album.  I predict "80's Mercedes" will be a huge hit.  It's very catchy.  It's better than Katy Perry for sure.


The name drops and product placement make some of the songs sound like an advertisement, but beyond that there are catchy songs played by real musicians.  Beyond "80's Mercedes", "I Wish I Was" is a soulful Bonnie Raitt sounding cut.  Maren has a great voice and the only thing holding back this album is the production which is still lighter than most pop.  If this were a pop album, I'd applaud it. 


But it's not.  We are being told this is country music.  Pop fans have it easy.  They can turn on pop or country stations now and listen to their favorite music.  Cries of "If you don't like it, don't listen to it" are hollow.  They get both worlds.  Country fans now have none at least on mainstream radio.  I guarantee if pop stations started sneaking in George Strait songs, they would complain just as loudly as I do when pop music comes on a country station.


As a pop album this is probably a solid 6/10, but as a country album it's 1/10 and that's begrudgingly because I can't give something that contains "My Church" a 0. 

Hypothetical dinner

or "If music were food"


Husband:  What are we having for dinner tonight?


Wife:  Steak!  It's ready now.


Husband:  Umm...This isn't steak.  It's a pork chop.


Wife:  That's what I thought too, but it was labeled steak at the grocery store.  I thought it looked like a pork chop, but I asked the butcher and he told me it was definitely steak. 


Husband:  That doesn't make sense.  My family shopped at that grocery store when I was a kid and we definitely got steak there.


Wife:  I asked him that too and he questioned why we wanted to eat the same steak as our parent's generation.  He said steak needs to evolve and accused me of clinging to the past.


Husband:  That's crazy!  I mean, couldn't it evolve by using a different sauce or different seasoning, but still be steak at the core?  This is clearly a pork chop.  That's not evolving.  That's using a totally different kind of meat.


Moments later


Husband:  I don't mean to be rude, but not only is this steak actually a pork chop,  it doesn't even taste good.  It's completely bland with no flavor complexity at all.  I mean, I like a good pork chop from time to time, but this is bad for a pork chop and it's even worse that people are labeling it steak.


Wife:  I know.  I feel the same.  I don't understand.  Since we got that new cable package I watch The Steak Channel all the time and almost every chef on there uses this recipe.  It's a little hard to follow sometimes since almost all the chefs look the same and most are male, but they all insist this is the best kind of steak.


Husband:  That doesn't make any sense!  How do professional chefs think this is a good steak?  Doesn't anyone on that channel know what a steak is?


Wife:  Well there is one guy who cooks what actually looks like a steak, but he's a rough looking character.  I heard he was a sous chef for almost 15 years before they gave him his own show.  He's won a lot of awards for his steaks and everyone seems to like him, but they still haven't hired any more chefs that cook a steak like him for some reason.  One night I couldn't sleep so I watched some reruns.  There were a couple chefs named Jamey and Kasey that cooked some good looking steak, but I think their shows got cancelled because I never see them on anymore.


Husband:  So you're telling me that almost no one on The Steak Channel actually makes steak and all of them make the same bland pork chop recipe we are having tonight?


Wife:  Well not quite all of them.  There are a couple of chefs named Thomas and Sam who more or less use this recipe, but they like to let the "steak" sit out in the sun for 3 days before cooking it.


Husband:  That's it.  We're cancelling our cable and ordering some steak from Oklahoma.  I've heard of this guy named Evan who makes a killer steak.

Review - Blake Shelton If I'm Honest

It's finally here.  Everyone's favorite faux country reality star is out with his "deeply personal" album after the break up with Miranda Lambert.


If I'm honest this isn't quite as bad as I expected, but it also isn't anywhere near good.  The production on almost all the tracks is completely bland and adult contemporary.  The lyrics for the majority are trite and boring if not outright cringe-worthy.


The album opens with "Straight Outta Cold Beer" which is just a word jumble of "Boys Round Here".  Have you the one about the guy who drinks beer and likes to look at hot women?  1,000 times you say?  Well make it 1,001.  Don't worry.  There are more later.  He brings the Oak Ridge Boys in to sing a song that would amuse teenage boys.  Not to mention the atrocious lead single "Came Here to Forget".


The next song, "She's Got a Way with Words" has drawn controversy and is also very very bad.  A song like this in the right hands could work and the verses aren't half bad.  The chorus is an example of cringe-worthy though.  Full of vitrol and forced clichés, it is borderline unlistenable.


The album doesn't flow very well alternating between break up and hook up songs somewhat randomly and then a song from Angry Birds (Friends) and a rehashed song from an old album (Green). 


The best song is the closer "Savior's Shadow".  A stripped down gospel song has nice instrumentation and lyrics.  Blake also tries on the vocals which is more than can said for most of the others.  Country and gospel have a rich history together and this works well.  It's also one of 3 songs Blake co-wrote out of 15 along with "Friends" and "Go Ahead and Break My Heart".


Yes, this "deeply personal" album is full of 12 songs that Blake had no part in creating.  I definitely prefer artists who write their own songs, but it's not 100% necessary.  George Strait knows how to pick a good one.  Elvis also got pretty popular singing other people's songs.  The whole point of this album though makes it hypocritical to pick a bunch of songs teams of Nashville writers wrote especially since the 3 Blake had a hand in are most of the better songs on the album (even if Go Ahead and Break My Heart isn't a country song)


The only thing deeply personal to Blake Shelton seems to be the amount of money he makes by releasing bland radio friendly singles and promoting his role in The Voice.  If this album were filled with more songs like "Savior's Shadow" instead of a bunch of bro country and hook up songs, it may rate better.  It's a cut above the Thomas Rhetts and FGLs but just barely.  Blake Shelton has the talent to make good country music.  I just wish he would.


3/10

Review Turnpike Troubadours - Self Titled

I know this album came out in September, but I still wanted to write a review because I'm still listening to it and it just keeps getting even better with age.  I was a little late to the party on their bandwagon, but I will be seeing them live for the first time in 4 weeks.  They are performing at a beer release I wanted to go to anyway.  Win-Win.  I fell in love with the latest two albums earlier last year while awaiting this release and it did not disappoint.


Gun to my head, I would probably say Bruce Springsteen is my favorite artist.  He does so much with words and phrases and don't really make sense, but are absolutely perfect.  I'm starting to feel Even Felker is his country equivalent. 


The album starts out with what may now be my favorite song of theirs, The Bird Hunters.  It shows how great Evan Felker is at songwriting.  The story is about a man hunting with his childhood friend after breaking up with his gal.  From the opening fiddle notes, this is fantastic.


The Mercury is a good rocking tune that references Jimmy and Lorrie from previous songs.


Down Here and Time of Day are the closest to fluff lyrics and still miles above anything on the radio.  They also both have killer melodies and music.  I can listen to the fiddle over the chorus of Time of Day endlessly.


Ringing in the Year finds Felker back in his lyrical sweet spot that continues through the lower key A Little Song.


If not for The Bird Hunters, Long Drive Home or Easton and Main may be my favorites off of this album.  Easton and Main is a reworked (and superior) version of a song on their first album and Long Drive Home has some of the best lyrics on the album.  The opening line about the "squeak of the hardwood floor" really puts you in the moment much like the opening to Thunder Road.  I also love the line "Damn that girl was pretty in the artificial moonlight" from Easton & Main written by bassist RC Edwards, a great songwriter in his own right.


7 Oaks is a great faster paced song that will probably be amazing live.  Doreen, a cover of an Old 97's song, is the only one on this album that doesn't really do it for me.  I know others love it, but I just can't get into it.  A little too one note musically for my taste.


RC Edwards shows his chops again on the slower Fall Out of Love.  The album wraps up with another song off the first album, Bossier City which will be another fun concert song.


Fantastic album from first to last.  These guys may be the best in the game right now.  If it takes another 3 years for the next album, it will be well worth the wait.

Mission statement

I've written about music a lot before, but country music seems to be where I have the most opinions so I decided to dedicate a blog to real country music.




As a fan of at least a piece of most genres and someone who grew up listening to mainly rock, I just want good music despite the genre.  My main problems with pop country
1.  It's not country (yes even though they added a token banjo, still no)
2.  It's mostly bad music regardless of the genre.


I used to make jokes circa 10 years ago that country radio was pop music with a fiddle.  Sadly the joke was on me as I can now remove the phrase "with a fiddle" from that statement.




For the most part my sweet spot is Americana or more rock oriented country or vice versa.  Rock radio got so fractured it was hard to find what I was looking for.    Country music was starting to be bland drivel.  In 2004 I fell in love with Cross Canadian Ragweed and Isbell era Drive By Truckers and opened the flood gate to Red Dirt & Texas country music and the rest is history. 


Thanks to Country Perspective and Saving Country Music, it's easy to find like minded people who enjoy good music.  Unfortunately this is a small percentage of the population.




The reason this annoys me is I am greeted with the same 2 responses anytime someone finds out I like country music.


1.  "I hate country"  For the most part, these people only know country in radio form.  They may have grown up listening to the Eagles or other country leaning rock bands, but their only experience with country is the dreck on the radio.


2.  "I love all country music like Sam Hunt, Thomas Rhett, FGL, etc."  These people are more annoying and often the reason person 1 says they hate country.




Regardless of the response, I'm tired of having to explain that yes I like country music, but no I hate the stuff they play on country radio.  The frustrating part is a lot of both groups of people would find something to like be it William Clark Green perhaps for person 1 or Turnpike Troubadours for person 2 who may enjoy actual country music as well, but isn't exposed to it.


I just like good music and want to share it with everyone.  The faster Sam Hunt and Thomas Rhett go away, the better the world will be.