album review: 'storyteller' by carrie underwood

It's weird, for as much as I feel I've talked about Carrie Underwood and around Carrie Underwood, I've never actually covered one of her albums at length. And considering she's one of the main standard bearers for women in mainstream country that has a chance of getting radio play now that Taylor Swift is gone, that's saying something.

I think part of it is because I've got a complicated opinion of Carrie Underwood. Like Kelly Clarkson she emerged from American Idol with a ton of hype and was immediately catapulted to join the ranks of powerful female pop country acts that garnered a lot of attention throughout the mid-to-late 2000s. And while she might have been the most successful, she hasn't exactly been a critical darling - a ton of raw firepower but not exactly subtle in her delivery, instrumentation, and especially songwriting, even though she was working with some of the biggest names in the industry. It didn't help matters that songs like 'Before He Cheats' became ubiquitous and not for the best of reasons: you do realize that Carrie's got no proof this guy is cheating on her before she totals his car, right? It also didn't help that it was also around the time Miranda Lambert was breaking in the mainstream in the same lane and writing sharper and smarter songs without the huge arsenal of Nashville behind her, so I had an easy choice, especially as Carrie struggled around the turn of the decade especially with her third album.

Fortunately, things turned around with Blown Away in 2012, mostly through tightening her writing team and going for riskier, darker material that did cross into pop and rock much more but didn't lose that country feel entirely. Now I wouldn't say I loved that album - it had its bright spots paradoxically on the darkest tracks like 'Two Black Cadillacs' and 'Blown Away', though I have a soft spot for 'Good Girl' - but it was an improvement. And I had hope for Storyteller - she's kept most of the same team, 'Smoke Break' was a solid opening single, and though she had brought Jay Joyce onto her production team, I had hopes that he'd be kept in check and not screw up another album. Was I proven right?

video review: 'tangled up' by thomas rhett

God, I'm not a fan of this review. It's a mess, my hair looks terrible, and the bitterness really does sour me on it - even though it was like the fifteenth take and I really wasn't feeling pretty well. It's me pushing myself too hard in one night - all the more evidence I need to better manage my time.

Okay, Billboard BREAKDOWN next - stay tuned!

album review: 'tangled up' by thomas rhett

There's no easy way to do this review.

See, this is the problem with being one of the few critics who covers country on YouTube and one of the only ones who covers mainstream country. I feel I've got an obligation to show off the best stuff, mostly because I want to see it get more traction, but for the bad stuff... well, who wants this review? Certainly not me because as I've said in the past, negative reviews aren't often that fun, and you guys mostly come for recommendations. I know there's a certain visceral catharsis watching someone tear into a terrible record, but there's a hollowness to it for me - if there was ill intent, I could feel righteous, but this is just taking out the trash.

Now some of you have realized this is all predicated on the album being bad, which is not an assumption you ever want to enter into when it comes to art. The big problem was that almost every factor going into this record screamed of outright disaster. I covered Thomas Rhett's debut album back in 2013 when bro-country was near its peak, and that album sucked. And it did so in perhaps one of the worst possible ways: by being so forgettably sterile and limp its production and melodies that the only things that stood out were Thomas Rhett's obnoxious voice and even more obnoxious personality. Let me put it like this: when you owe your industry career to your dad being an average-at-best songwriter and you make songs like the cheating song 'Take You Home' and 'All-American Middle Class White Boy', and frame them both as glorification rather than commentary, there's nothing I can remotely respect about it. 

So I'll give Thomas Rhett the slightest bit of credit when he announced he was taking his new album Tangled Up in a different direction, more towards a metropolitan pop country sound. The problem was putting aside that he needed over twenty additional songwriters to do this, the lead-off single was 'Crash And Burn', a slice of bad pseudo-vintage pop that outright stole from Sam Cooke's 'Chain Gang', made Thomas Rhett look and sound like a braying asshole, and was cowritten by Chris Stapleton, which just makes me feel really, really sad. The presence of LunchMoney Lewis and Jordin Sparks on the features list only made me feel worse - more talented people completely wasting their time. That said, the ballad 'Die A Happy Man' actually seemed decent, and right now, this album has nowhere to go but up - is there anything that can save it?

video review: 'illinois' by brett eldredge

Yeah, I wish I could have gotten out more albums today too, but I'm exhausted right now, that Ought review is on its way.

But first, Billboard BREAKDOWN! Stay tuned!

album review: 'illinois' by brett eldredge

So one of the trends I probably haven't given the same time of day to in mainstream country is the slow trickling in of more R&B influences. It's not all that surprising, given the huge growth of R&B on pop radio, and as soon as Jason Aldean's 'Burn It Down' was a huge hit, it didn't surprise me others would gun for a similar sound. 

And like with bro-country, I'm more conflicted than outright negative towards this slicker, more metropolitan brand of country music. On the one hand, the increased usage of drum machines tends to irk me because it can lead to choppy, groove-lacking records like Sam Hunt's Montevallo or Luke Bryan's Kill The Lights, and given the modern association with hip-hop I can see why country fans might recoil from R&B, but on the other hand if handled well that spacier sound can lead to solidly melodic, more groove-driven albums. I may not have loved Billy Currington's last album Summer Forever or Dustin Lynch's Where It's At, but aside from being one of the few people who remembered those records exist I also remember there being cuts I liked. Hell, even though the Zac Brown Band's Jekyll + Hyde was a genre-bending mess, there were experiments that worked off of that album. What I'm ultimately saying is that while I get the antipathy from country purists, especially with this material clogging up mainstream country radio riding the trends, this isn't that far removed conceptually from the vintage pop that Lindi Ortega or Whitney Rose pull from, nor the psychedelic rock for Sturgill Simpson or the more progressive rock tendencies for that last Jason Isbell record.

As such, I wasn't certain what to expect with the sophomore record from Brett Eldredge called Illinois. Early buzz was suggesting he was going more towards that 'metropolitan' sound, mostly thanks to the backing of producer Ross Copperman, who did a lot of excellent production work on Dierks Bentley's last album. And I'll say it, the presence of Thomas Rhett as a guest star, the poster child for calling his brand of vintage pop/R&B garbage 'country music' did not raise my spirits. But on the other hand, Brett Eldredge is a good songwriter with a distinctive voice, and I really did love the warped melodies against the acoustic grooves of 'Lose My Mind' and I hoped at least this could at least be salvaged. So what did we get?

video review: 'start here' by maddie & tae

Glad I finally got to this. Pretty solid album, pretty easy review - in other words, the best kind.

Next up, I'm thinking about Whitney Rose, keep with more country. Stay tuned!

album review: 'start here' by maddie & tae

You know, it's funny, I think that I've said more about the phenomenon that is Maddie & Tae than their actual music itself.

Then again, I don't think I'm alone in that fact. When 'Girl In A Country Song' smashed into the country scene in the second half of 2014, it was seen as the long-awaited backlash to the sputtering phenomenon of bro-country, and even though the girls themselves were rather coy about the issue, it certainly inspired some anger from the bro-country set. After all, according to them, who wouldn't want to be a girl in one of their country songs?

Now I was a lot more sceptical here, and that had to do with the people backing them, albeit circumspectly: Big Machine, run by Scott Borchetta and the label responsible for introducing the world to Taylor Swift. But with Taylor Swift leaving country for pop, Borchetta knew he had to fill the hole in the country market, so why not introduce a country duo who could replace her, also wrote all of their own songs, and had easy marketing as the tide was turning on the bro-country he helped push to market? Play both sides against the middle, and rake in the cash.

This had been my hypothesis about Maddie & Tae last December, when I made my Billboard BREAKDOWN Special Comment about their success in the context of 'God Made Girls', that piece of overproduced junk from RaeLynn that at the time was on the rise. And I had originally seen Maddie & Tae and RaeLynn as two sides of the same coin replacing Taylor Swift - one would be the confrontational group willing to pick the fight, the other would cater to the more demure, more conservative Christian demographic. But a few important things happened since then that changed the script: RaeLynn dropped off the face of the earth; Maddie & Tae released their second single 'Fly' which proved they could reach that softer market; and most interestingly, they started pushing back. They spoke out against the increasingly stiff nature of modern country production and reportedly fought for more of a neotraditional country sound on their debut album. So okay, you've got me interested, how does Start Here turn out?

video review: 'the first time' by kelsea ballerini

Fair bit better than expected. Not sure how often I'll revisit it in the future, but eh, you never know.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, and after that... stay tuned!

album review: 'the first time' by kelsea ballerini

So I was planning on skipping this album.

And those of you who watch Billboard BREAKDOWN probably wouldn't have much cause to blame me here. I spoke a fair bit in that episode about the lead-off single 'Love Me Like You Mean It', and the independent country artist behind it Kelsea Ballerini. You also probably remember that I didn't really care for it that much, considering the stilted production and average at best lyrics that played on the less obnoxious side of Meghan Trainor. It did seem to show signs that mainstream country had finally slid far enough from bro-country that we might have more new female artists entering the scene, but it wasn't as though I liked the sound anymore, and it was disconcerting to see an indie label like Black River - who signed Kellie Pickler, for god's sake - try for the exact same game as mainstream Nashville.

And yet for some reason I started getting a sizeable number of requests to cover this album, and while June looks to be the much more promising month for country music with new releases - and most of them look pretty damn promising - I figured I might as well talk about Kelsea Ballerini. Who knows, Lucy Hale proved that she could rise above standard pop country with a better sound on Road Between - maybe 'Love Me Like You Mean It' wasn't representative of her whole album. So I checked out The First Time - how is it?

video review: 'jekyll + hyde' by the zac brown band

Man, I wish this album could have been stronger... although then again, experiments like this are always risks, so it's not surprising it might not have pulled off the power of a record like Uncaged. Eh, it happens.

Next up... honestly, I've got a few that I'm interested in covering. Stay tuned!

album review: 'jekyll + hyde' by the zac brown band

If you were to ask me what my most anticipated album of 2015 was... well, depending on the day I would have given you a number of answers. Depending on the genre I would have given you a number of answers, but I was getting asked about country, it wouldn't have even been a challenge. And for me, it's always a little odd admitting things like this, because it sets expectations for this review and immediately there'll be accusations of bias or some silliness like that. Let me say that my critical faculties are not impaired, and I'm not going to give something a pass just because I'm a fan - my Nightwish review was proof of that.

That said... the Zac Brown Band is probably one of my favourite country bands ever. The project of singer-songwriter Zac Brown and a killer selection of multi-instrumentalists and backing singers, it was a band that started small with The Foundation in 2008, and while I liked that album for its singles and a couple lightweight deep cuts, it wasn't until their 2010 record You Get What You Give that they seriously won me over. Not only was this a band that knew their neotraditional country and had a gift for killer melodies and great texture, but they were also strong songwriters that could sketch great pictures and had the talent to work with the greats like Alan Jackson. And with songs like 'Colder Weather' - which I should remind you all was my pick for the best hit song of 2011 - they proved that the success of 'Chicken Fried' or 'Toes' wasn't going to confine them to lightweight beach fodder.

But while You Get What You Give was a damn solid record, 2012's Uncaged was damn near a masterpiece. No joke, if I were to make a list of my top records of 2012, it'd be fighting with Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean for the top slot. Not only was the writing even better, it showed the band getting more experimental, fusing elements of reggae, bluegrass, rock, and even R&B into their music - and what was all the more amazing is that they made it feel cohesive and powerful with songs like 'Goodbye In Her Eyes', 'Natural Disaster', and 'Last But Not Least' standing as some of their best ever.

And then things really got interesting. They put out an EP with Dave Grohl, Zac Brown later showed up on one of the best songs of the Foo Fighters' Sonic Highways, and with an upcoming collaboration from Chris Cornell on their newest record Jekyll + Hyde - along with Sara Bareilles of all people - it looked as though the Zac Brown Band were continuing their experimentation. What worried me, though, was the producer: Jay Joyce, who in recent years has developed a bad reputation for overproduction and turning albums that could have been amazing or at least passable from Eric Church, Little Big Town, and Halestorm into complete messes. And I'll admit, I was worried here: I knew Zac Brown had a reputation for a tight grip in the studio, but swapping out Keith Stegall, known for working with Alan Jackson, for Joyce struck me as a monumentally bad decision, especially considering they were already working with Grohl! But even putting that aside, I hoped for the best: did the Zac Brown Band manage to pull something together?