Single Reviews – Page 102 – Country Universe

Gary Allan, “Today”

July 2, 2009 Leeann Ward 12

I’ll say it again. Gary Allan has one of the most interesting and compelling voices in country music right now. Furthermore, he is able to convey emotion with an ease that should be the envy of his peers. Thankfully, he has also been particularly good at selecting equally engaging songs that have been worthy of his gifted talent. Unfortunately, “Today happens to rank among the few songs that do not rise to the challenge.

With a moody piano to serve as the foundation for the swelling strings and over all dramatic angst, Allan sings of the pain of loosing his former lover to another man. He knows that his chance has officially passed as he laments her wedding day: “Today is the happiest day of her life./I should be happy for her today./So, tell me, why are these tears in my eyes?/I know I should be happy for her./But I lost everything/I lost everything I ever wanted today.”

Sara Evans, “Feels Just Like a Love Song”

July 1, 2009 Kevin John Coyne 38

Sara Evans is an excellent singer in desperate need of a better production team. She sings the fire out of a fairly decent pop-country song here, but the arrangement is an overwhelming distraction, with far too much clutter in the mix.

It’s to her credit as a vocalist that she’s not drowned out completely, but she’s ill-served by the production philosophy that bigger is better. The opposite is true with both pop and country music, so it never ceases to amaze me how difficult that concept is to grasp for too many of those who make pop-country records.

Whitney Duncan, “Skinny Dippin'”

June 24, 2009 Leeann Ward 18

As a former Nashville Star, Whitney Duncan has been seriously struggling to break through as a Warner Brothers recording artist for some time now. Out of the somewhat inferior material that she’s released so far, her third single, “Skinny Dippin’”, has the best shot of becoming a minor hit due to its sultry melodic structure and summertime timeliness. As an actual song, however, “Skinny Dippin’” suffers from some glaring flaws that could keep it from being the break through hit that Warner Brothers and Duncan are counting on.

Charlie Robison, “Reconsider”

June 17, 2009 Leeann Ward 3

While I’m always interested in learning the story behind a song, I generally insist that a song must be able to stand on its own without the support of a back story to prop it up. In that vein, I typically balk against unconfirmed assertions regarding motivations for a song as a justification for the song’s existence. With that said, it would be remiss of me to deny that a confirmed story behind a song often positively helps to inform an artist’s performance of the said song.

Therefore, it’s not farfetched to assume that Charlie Robison’s fairly recent divorce from Dixie Chick, Emily Robison, has had a tangible effect on the maudlin “Reconsider”, which was recorded in the aftermath of the highly publicized 2008 divorce. While Robison did not write the song, his emotion is palpable enough to make us forget such a technical detail.

George Strait, “Living for The Night”

June 14, 2009 Leeann Ward 10

It is already well documented that George Strait co-wrote “Living for the Night” with his son along with Dean Dillon, one of Strait’s most relied upon songwriters. With this knowledge, it is nearly impossible not to be curious as to how this song, one of Strait’s very few compositions, compares to the others in his strong singles catalog. Unfortunately, it is a cut below most of his biggest hits, but it’s not a complete throw away.

Strait sings “Every Day is a lifetime without you/Hard to get through/Since you’ve gone.” The days are a painful reminder of his loss. So, he drinks as he lives for the night because it’s the only way he knows how to escape the pain. In fact, he even creates his own night by drawing the curtains to keep the daylight out and waits for the night so that he can “venture out into those neon arms that hold {him} tight.”

Montgomery Gentry, “Long Line of Losers”

June 10, 2009 Dan Milliken 11

What do you know? Coming off of their invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry, Montgomery Gentry release their most country-sounding single in some time. The sound is a nice blend of Alabama, Hank Jr., and 70’s folk-rock, with a chorus ready-made for barroom singalongs and a colorful set of dobro fills.

It’s a credit to the songwriting that it manages to breathe life into a fairly tired theme. This whole “I’m proud of my broken family, gosh darn it” shtick has been done a good deal in recent years, and it’s been done well, with tracks like LeAnn Rimes’ “Family” and Eric Church’s “Sinners Like Me” providing some of the most memorable moments in those artists’ catalogs.

As with those examples, what elevates Montgomery Gentry’s take on the idea is its candor. Rather than try to falsely glamorize the relatives’ imperfections, as so many would-be Redneck Anthems would do, this song just throws them all out on the table, acknowledging them as they really are – not necessarily desirable, yet inescapable. Granted, the family does sound a little bit sensationalized, but the details are at least interesting enough to warrant a momentary suspension of disbelief.

Love and Theft, “Runaway”

June 10, 2009 Dan Milliken 6

Lyric Street really seems to lead the pack in terms of “country” acts who don’t sound particularly “country”, huh?

Their new rising act on imprint Carolwood is another three-piece boy band who sound like they paid a lot of attention to 80’s pop-rock and care deeply about the inner yearnings of suburban girls between the ages of 11 and 17. If you’re like me, you’ll play the first two seconds of this and marvel that it’s climbing the same charts that once featured the late Vern Gosdin.

But alright, I’ll admit it’s a catchy little thing. I don’t know that music gets a whole lot blander than this – even in fantasizing about ditching town and a paying job, they still sound as safe and neutered as can be – but it’s competent, pleasant pop-rock whose only real artistic fault is just that it’s not nearly as edgy or exciting as it would clearly like to be.

Jason Aldean, “Big Green Tractor”

June 6, 2009 Leeann Ward 13

In Northern Maine, where I’m from, there’s something called tooling. You all know it by that term or other names if you live or lived in a small town, but it’s when people simply ride aimlessly around in their cars, up one street and down another with no reason but having “nothing better to do”, which may very well be true in my small hometown at least.

Well, Jason Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor” is the redneck version. Instead of a car, it’s a big green tractor and in the place of small town roads are country pastures and woods. At any rate, it’s the being together that’s the main attraction.
While it seems that Aldean’s more refined sweetheart is all ready for a date in town, he offers a more low key alternative: “We could take a ride on my big green tractor/We can go slow or make it go faster/Down through the woods or out to the pasture/Long as I’m with you, it really don’t matter…We could go to town/But baby if you’d rather/I’ll take you for a ride on my big green tractor.”

Jimmy Wayne, “I’ll Be That”

May 23, 2009 Tara Seetharam 0

After Wayne’s strangely soft rock-esque single “I Will,” it seemed anything a bit more country and a bit less melodramatic would move him in a positive direction. Meet “I’ll Be That”: a catchy summer track that does just that.

It’s not a particularly interesting song, but by design, it’s not supposed to be. “I’ll Be That” serves its purpose as a pleasing sing-a-long with a decent hook, packed with sweet albeit unoriginal promises: “The one that’ll stand and fight for you/A safe place you can run to/The truth in the words ‘I do’/I’ll be that to you.” Stacked against the crop of male regulars on country radio, Wayne has one of the better, more soothing voices, so the song automatically gets an added boost. Of course, it’s a little difficult to pick Wayne’s voice out from the over-produced chorus, but as clamoring radio releases go, it could be worse.

Phil Vassar, "Bobbi with an I"

May 21, 2009 Leeann Ward 32

I’ve had to listen to this song several times just to be sure it was real and not just an insane figment of my imagination. But alas, whether I like it or not, it is real and I’m the one who has been charged with the task of attributing words from the English language to this strange composition, which suddenly seems limiting. So, please excuse my casual tone just this once, because I’m going to have to forgo the formal conventions of a review in order to even come close to adequately describing this song.

“Bobby With an I” is about a cross dresser. Bobby is a man’s man during the week, but he turns into Bobbi when the work week is through. He makes such a convincing woman that “you better watch how much you drink/He might look better than you think.” Right.

Despite how others may feel about the somewhat subversive topic, it is actually a redeeming quality of the song. While it’s treated very lightly here, it is still likely to offend the sensibilities of some disapproving country music listeners. However, what offends my sensibilities is the execution of the song in general.

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