Single Review: Rascal Flatts, “Why Wait”
Maybe it’s a product of their new home, Big Machine Records, or maybe it’s their way of responding to the monster success of Lady Antebellum – but the Flatts boys are back on their game.
For five years and three albums, we’ve heard only a watered-down brand of Rascal Flatts: their signature tight harmonies have been masked by overblown production, and their typically well-crafted melodies have seemed stale. Their music as of late has generally lacked the spark that turned their early 2000s hits into gems.
Single Review: Sugarland, “Stuck Like Glue”
I could write a few paragraphs about why I love this song, but what’s the point?
They don’t sing the praises of Bubble Yum and S’Mores in Food & Wine magazine, but boy, do those treats taste good.
So you’ll have to look for the country connoisseur perspective elsewhere. All I have to say about “Stuck Like Glue” is this:
Single Review: Taylor Swift, “Mine”
Where do you go from the top of the world? It’s a question all kinds of music icons have had to answer, but it’s hard to imagine most of them facing Taylor Swift’s level of pressure. Consider her standing: an American Sweetheart adored by young people and respected by their parents, staple of multiple radio formats, winner of commercial music’s very biggest awards, but facing sharp backlash for embarrassing live vocals, for a narrow songwriting perspective, and all in the most media-pervasive climate ever, a fame minefield where one bad move can mean national embarrassment – and all, of course, before she turns twenty-one.
Single Review: Brad Paisley, “Anything Like Me”
A common element that runs through Brad Paisley’s songs is a style of conversational storytelling. To many it seems simple and authentic while others just feel it’s simplistic without real depth. Depending on the song, either opinion is relevant or in some instances, both views are valid within the same song. “Anything Like Me” just may be one such song, but leaning closer to the positive than negative. The song is written in the trademark conversational tone, but the personal sentimentality of the subject matter is strongly present.
iPod Check: Back to the Nineties
To continue Country Universe’s celebration of the nineties, I’m throwing in a nineties edition of iPod Check. The rules are simple: put your iPod on shuffle and list the first ten songs to pop up that were released in the nineties. They don’t have to be singles, and they don’t have to be country.
I’ve listed my ten songs below. Share yours in the comments, and check your shame at the door! (I’ve got 1994’s “Hakuna Matata” on my iPod, but sadly, it did not come up in shuffle.)
Single Review: Sunny Sweeney, “From A Table Away”
Due to lack of mainstream attention, not enough people know about Sunny Sweeney’s debut album, Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame, which was nothing short of a pure honky tonk delight. Her crisp nasal voice sounds as if it’s only meant to sing country music, which is probably, somehow, underselling her range of talent, but good for the prospect of permanence in the genre nonetheless.
For better or for worse, the first single from her sophomore album, this time produced by Brett Beavers (Dierks Bentley), has a slicker sound than that of her first album. As one can expect from a big name producer, the record is tighter both in instrumentation and vocal performance. Of course, these factors are hardly criticisms, but merely something to become accustomed to as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the looser nature of her more relaxed independent project.
