Laura Bell Bundy
Achin’ and Shakin’
2010
Ahead of its time in 2010 and still ahead of its time nearly fifteen years later, Laura Bell Bundy’s Achin’ & Shakin’ is as audacious an album as Music Row has ever produced. Bifurcated into the trad-country “Achin’” half and the delirious, inventive “Shakin’” half, it’s a project that should’ve made Bundy a full-on genre icon.
What I love about Bundy’s approach to country music is the depth of herunderstanding of performance. From Porter Wagoner’s Nudie Suits, Loretta Lynn’s sequined ballgowns, and Johnny Cash’s all-black wardrobe to Chris Stapleton’s ragged beard, Orville Peck’s fringed mask, and Lainey Wilson’s bell-bottoms, it’s all a type of drag. Bundy embraced the notion of country stardom as a drag revue in a way that takes both of those artforms seriously, and the finest album in her far-too-small catalog captures a singular talent bringing her Broadway-trained skill and a deep knowledge of country history to bear on a genre that just didn’t know what to do with her.
The outré video for “Giddy On Up”– featured as one of our 20 Greatest Singles of the CU Era, and a hill I will forever die on– likely scared off the traditionalists who would’ve been on board with the Achin’ set. Where Bundy excelled in her traditionalism is that, while the production drew heavily and compellingly from the genre’s formative eras, she conveyed a perspective that never apologized for its modern, progressive feminism. “Drop On By” is a spiritual follow-up to “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” while “Cigarette” laces its list of vices with regret, all set to a sultry arrangement out of Bobbie Gentry’s playbook.
But then there’s the Shakin’ back half of the album, which takes all of the instrumentation and songwriting conventions Bundy mastered on Achin’ and filters them through a vision of where country music could go. Here, Bundy’s command of the natural meter of language is just astonishing. She doesn’t try to rap, but it’s clear she’s learned about rhythm and internal rhyme from the best artists in hip-hop, and she uses that skill on songs that are still strongly tethered to the work of country music’s women. “I don’t think you heard me correctly / I’m no good for ya, baby,” is a chorus that calls back to Dottie West and Lorrie Morgan, while, “If you want my broken-hearted, been-burned, jump-startin’, never-learnin’ love,” is an updated version of Patty Loveless’ “Blame it on Your Heart.”
What it all proved is that, while she reveled in tackiness and camp, Bundy still had impeccable taste when it came to her influences. She hit her every mark on this album and both hoped for a present and pointed toward a future for country music that was fearless in how it honored its past. Here’s hoping country music catches up to Bundy’s vision sometime in our next two decades.
Additional Listening:
- Bundy’s follow-up album, 2014’s Another Piece of Me, was uneven and included a few more overt bids for the mainstream, but it still includes more than a few worthwhile cuts. Sadly, her tremendous cover of Lady Gaga’s “Ü and I” seems to have been disappeared from the internet.
- Orville Peck’s best album, Bronco, shows a similar understanding of genre forms and iconography.
- Ashley McBryde’s Lindeville, easily the biggest swing a major label country act has taken since Bundy.
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