Chief Meets BossA couple weeks ago, Bruce Springsteen released Wrecking Ball, his (by my count) 17th studio album in a 40 year recording career. It’s a record that sounds a lot more like the Springsteen I grew up with than any of his other recent albums: anthemic and big and totally ‘merican (that’s a capital ‘postrophe there). It occurs to me that Born in the U.S.A. is now older than all those songs I saw on those “Freedom Rock” TV commercials were back when the “Freedom Rock” TV commercials were on TV.
So it’s sort of fitting and serendipitous that the same week Wrecking Ball showed up in stores also marked the crossover Hot 100 debut of country singer-songwriter Eric Church‘s latest single “Springsteen”, a song about how it feels to be a middle-aged schlub and to listen back to those old Springsteen records, with lyrics sprinkled all over with references to those (gulp) golden oldies (you know, like “Glory Days”).
“Spingsteen” is the third single from Church’s third album, the extraordinarily well-received Chief, which debuted at the top of the album charts last year. And despite the fact (or because of it) that the song, Church’s twangy delivery notwithstanding, is about as country as Matchbox Twenty, it looks on pace to become the singer’s biggest hit so far.
There’s certainly a lot to love about it, like how the lyrics, about a certain girl, a certain Jeep, and a long-ago Saturday night (now that’s country), occasionally give way to a sing-along “whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh”. Or just the song’s mellow, reflective vibe: its extended intro and outro, its piano key moonbeams, which sound more like something off a 10-year-old Josh Rouse CD than a 30-year-old Springsteen 45. And then, right at the fadeout, there a woman’s voice faintly, wordlessly echoing the chorus, as if to prove Church’s line about how a melody sounds like a memory.
#60#60: “DYNAMITE” by TAIO CRUZ.
Every time I hear a Taio Cruz song, I feel like I’ve just looked into the eyes of the Borg. Resistance – violent resistance even – may be the thinking person’s natural reaction to a song like this. But against Taio Cruz, resistance truly is futile. Just give in already. Don’t make this harder on yourself than it needs to be. Ayo. Time to let go.
#59#59: “HERE LIES LOVE” by DAVID BYRNE & FATBOY SLIM featuring FLORENCE WELCH.
That would be the Florence of Florence + the Machine, singing the glorious title song of David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s glorious song cycle on the life of Imelda Marcos, the Phillipines’ own Evita. The title is taken from Imelda Marcos’s epitaph. The album features an impressive roster of women (and Steve Earle) singing one or two songs each, portraying different characters and different aspects and ages of Imelda on her journey from simple country girl with a dream to the world’s most famous shoe collector. Incidentally, David Byrne went out of his way not to make any references to the famous shoe collection in any of the album’s two dozen songs.
#58#58: “JUST THE WAY YOU ARE” by BRUNO MARS.
I see me drivin’ round town with this song I love, and I’m like, f*ck yeah. Any current R&B or pop artist who can count The Students and The Flamingos among his influences is all right in my book. The fact that Bruno Mars has a sweet face, a sweet voice, an awesome 50s hairdo, and a weakness for singalong melodies just makes me love him that much more (and hope that Las Vegas cocaine possession thing really was just a one time bit of nouveau-pop-star hooliganism).
#57#57. “HANDS TIED” by TONI BRAXTON.
My favorite Toni Braxton ballad since “Un-break My Heart”. Unfortunately, the rest of her latest album “Pulse” is pretty weak.
#56#56: “SMOKE A LITTLE SMOKE” by ERIC CHURCH.
In which the rising country star confronts one of life’s greatest dilemmas. Namely: “Go, get her back” vs. “Find my stash”. I think Eric’s vote goes to stash-finding.
#55#55: “CLUB CAN’T HANDLE ME” by FLO RIDA featuring DAVID GUETTA.
I think that right now Flo Rida is the leading manufacturer of three minute guilty pleasures. I hate – HATE – that I love his music. But the joy in this song is absolutely relentless. I should never listen to this in the car. When he says “Put your hands up!”, I feel this automatic need to comply. It’s, like, the law.
#54#54: “CARRY OUT” by TIMBALAND featuring JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.
“Do you like it well done ’cause I do it well…” You may want to check the nutrition facts on this one. It has a dangerously high double-entrendre-per-second count.
#53#53: “SECRETS” by ONEREPUBLIC.
From Timbaland to Timbaland’s apprentice, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder. For as “everywhere” as his songs are, Ryan Tedder should really be a bigger star in his own right. Still, it’s nice to know that an actual band that plays actual instruments and stuff still has a place on Top 40 radio. Not to mention movie soundtracks and TV commercials.
#52#52: “RAISE YOUR GLASS” by P!NK.
Oh my gosh. Seriously. Where was P-exclamation point-nk 20 years ago when I needed her most? Back when I was a loud, nitty-gritty, dirty little freak who was too school for cool? This little manifesto comes from P!NK’s just-released greatest hits album. And really, 10 years ago when you first heard “There You Go”, did you think that this was an artist you’d still be caring about in 2010?
#51#51: “HEAVEN AND EARTH” by BLITZEN TRAPPER.
My favorite version of this song is the one where I’m listening to it in my car really late one hot July night after picking my son up from school after his band trip. “Your life is like a bolt of lightning seen across the sky so high and clean…” This is one of my favorite lyrics of the year, and I love the way the lines of the verses spiral out of each other. This is probably the most meditative track on the Portland OR band’s latest album Destroyer of the Void which sounds like a cross between Wilco (circa 2004) and Electric Light Orchestra (circa 1974).
Coming up in the next installment: We march. We trip. We run away.
Every couple of weeks, I make a couple of new mix CDs to listen to on my 40-or-so-minute each way commute to work, basically culling my current favorite tracks to create my very own Lorentz-centric Top 40 radio station. Just like any other Top 40 radio station, it’s all about the hits (hits with me, anyway): the playlist is necessarily limited (I can rarely fit more than 20 songs on a CD) and repetitive (the CD ends, it starts over). I love it. It drives my kids nuts. Just the other day, when the latest a-ha single “Butterfly, Butterfly” came on, my oldest (who invariably gravitates to “Take On Me” whenever there’s a karaoke machine nearby) begged me to skip it. I didn’t then, but eventually, I will. And that will be when I know it’s time for a new mix CD.
Lately, my morning commute mix CDs have been filling up with a surprising number of country songs. Now, while I’m certainly not one to dismiss country as a genre – I grew up with Kenny Rogers and the Oak Ridge Boys, and thanks to my Dad, I have a very deep love and respect for Willie Nelson – I’m no aficionado either. And as much as I’d like to say I keep an open mind, I have to admit that I’m more open-minded when we’re talking about Scandinavian dance pop than when we’re talking about guys named Garth and Randy who like to wear cowboy hats. I don’t know if it’s the music that’s changing or if it’s just me, but there’s just a lot of country music out there right now that’s, y’know, really good. And I’m not just talking about hipster-approved alternative country. That’s all fine too, but I’m talking about actual country hits. You know, country songs that are genuinely popular with country audiences, and increasingly with pop-crossover audiences as well.
For instance, Brad Paisley‘s “Water”, the fourth single from his 2009 album American Saturday Night which recently enjoyed a stay at the top of the country charts
Brad Paisley “Water”
What I love about this song – and all of Brad Paisley‘s songs really – is how he never wastes a verse. There’s nothing throwaway about how he builds a story, or in this case, builds a monument to something as almost cheesily simple, common, and universal as water. I mean, how dorky does this idea seem on paper? Hey guys, let’s do a song about how great water is. (While we’re at it, why not a song about how cool it is to see stuff?) But verse by verse, he details his ongoing “love affair with water” with images from snapshots that could be sitting in just about anybody’s photo album – the “inflatable pool full of Dad’s hot air” – until you realize that while he might be stating the obvious, sometimes the obvious thing is the easiest to take for granted, and it needs to be stated. Moreover, the song’s joyous invitation to hop into the car and “drive until the map turns blue” has taken on an unintentional and tragic urgency with news of the BP oil spill and its disgusting political and environmental implications casting a depressing pall over this summer season.
Like Brad Paisley, Georgia’s Zac Brown Band is currently riding on an album that’s destined to be regarded not just as one of the great country albums, but just one of the great albums of its time, period. Although they’ve been sending hits up the country charts and the Billboard Hot 100 since their major label debut The Foundation was released two years ago, it was their amazing 2010 Grammy Awards ceremony performance of their signature hit “Chicken Fried” done as a medley with “America the Beautiful” all dressed up in defiantly ragged harmonies, that established once and for all the force of nature this band is. Although their previous hits have had something of a novelty factor to them, this year they’ve sent two gorgeous ballads up the charts: “Highway 20 Ride”, a heartbreaking post-divorce father-to-son confessional, and “Free”, a song about being young, broke, and in love, and living out on the road – a song feels as big and endless as the road itself, and even gives a musical nod to Van Morrison’s classic “Into the Mystic.” Even as “Free” is still making its way up the Hot 100 (where it entered the Top 40 a couple weeks ago), the album’s sixth single “Different Kind of Fine” – a light-hearted romp celebrating a fine specimen of true country womanhood – has just landed on the country charts. I double-dog dare you not to dig it.
Zac Brown Band “Different Kind of Fine”
With his full beard and trademark knit caps, Zac Brown is one of those guys that’s made country radio playlists safe for guys who don’t wear cowboy hats. North Carolina native singer-songwriter Eric Church is a baseball hat kinda guy with a great voice – a boyish, impish, and immediately lovable tenor that he uses to fine effect on songs about love and how nice it is to be naughty. But for its decidedly un-PC celebration of liquor and death sticks, Church’s latest single “Smoke a Little Smoke” barely even qualifies as country, sounding like cross between a Ry Cooder electric blues and a Collective Soul arena rock anthem circa 1993, with all the requisite post-grunge quiet-loud-quiet dynamics. Country as a genre has proven itself relatively slow to evolve. But with the ongoing popular success of Eric Church (and Zac Brown and Brad Paisley), the fish may, in fact, be growing a small set of legs.
