Another Year In America June 11 and 18, 2009

[koganbot]

As Another Year In America returns from vacation with a two-fer, the Black Eyed Peas fend off the Black Eyed Peas to stay atop the chart, "You Belong With Me" continues its Indian summer, and country stalwarts Chesney and Bentley welcome the real summer with a couple of bright tracks from the night.

The Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling": After scoring one improbable piece of brilliance after another from a seemingly endless variety of left fields, the Peas hit a slow, stodgy DOR dribbler to short, with just enough melody and just enough Fergie to beat out the throw to first. BORDERLINE TICK.

Kenny Chesney "Out Last Night": A party song about partying, Kenny never loses his sense of relaxation, while kicking this friendly two-step through the ceiling and up the charts. TICK.

Kings Of Leon "Use Somebody": Hasn't this been around for eight months or something? Is a good tune with a sense of swell that's buoying rather than blatant, but it's burdened with a forced guttural rock voice that I can't stand. BORDERLINE NONTICK.

Lady Antebellum "I Run To You": And a track that's been on the country chart for ages finally moves Top 40. Placid and pretty MOR mush. In the vid, a harried woman gives up her seat at the bus stop to a woman with two kids, feels reinvigorated by this sacrifice. BORDERLINE TICK.

Dierks Bentley "Sideways": Cheerful guy on the make makes cheery song 'bout bein' on the make. Country cats make hick-hop boyband moves in the vid. TICK.

Comments

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

I think i am going to see Kenny in August in the Lawn Seats, and am hoping to write it for one of the fag rags here...he sounds almost bored here though--obligatory and cliche ridden, his ability to craft much more sophisticated narratives is lost in this list song, i did this, and i did that, and no believes you, and go back to nostaliga if you need to, but give us something to sink our teeth into.

That said, Dierks has a much more explicit erotic energy, a sly flourish that is v. much in opposition to the Chesney.

[koganbot]

What struck me about the Chesney was that his beat was more assertive than it usually is, which is why the song hits for me. It's a two-step but it has a rock feel. It pushes.

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

I am not sure that it pushes as much as Shift Work, Wants To Go To Heaven, She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy, Summertime, or esp. Big Star--I mean it's solid, he is at the point in his career where everything he produces will be solid, but solid only goes so far.

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

or STeamy Windows!

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

I would have given the Chesney and Antebellum songs easy Ticks, and the Bentley (which sounds pretty darn pat to me, despite being one of the better songs on his mediocre current album) a Borderline. Chesney, besides having a great easy roll to it as Frank suggests, is just really really well-written, totally witty and on-target in its specificity: I really love "girls from Argentina and Arkansas/Maine, Alabama and Panama" and "I was a doctor, a lawyer, a senator’s son/Brad Pitt’s brother and a man on the run/Anything I thought would get the job done" and especially "two karaoke girls drunk on a dare/Singing 'I Got You Babe' by Sonny and Cher." More fun to my ears than most Kenny songs Anthony mentions (at least the ones I remember off the top of my head.) (My favorite Chesney songs ever is probably either "Young" or "Anything But Mine," fwiw.)

With the Lady Antebellum song, I always loved the vague but (always I guess, whatever) timely "the word keeps spinning faster to a new disaster" on the CD; what's struck me on the radio this year, though, is the bottomless beauty of those high ethereal openings harmonies at the beginning. Otherwise, if it's mush, which I guess it is, it's tough mush. Never get tired of hearing it, and I hear it on the radio constantly.

I got tired of hearing Dierks's "Sideways" a long time ago, though. I like that it's explicitly a dance song, like that he kicks the rednecks out to the parking lot, I like that once I heard it just minutes after Paul Wall's (preferable) "Sittin Sidewayz" on another station. But it's got to rank with the least sexy songs Dierks has ever hit with; there's something clunky about it -- maybe because he sounds less laid-back than at his best, I'm not sure. It's okay, though.

Amazingly, I apparently like that new Black Eyed Peas single more than Frank does. (Wrote about it at the Jukebox.) Have never been able to tolerate Kings of Leon even a little.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

(Sorry about the grammatical typos in there, btw; should have edited before posting I guess.)

[koganbot]

Actually, the rednecks are sent to the parking lot, just aren't allowed back in the club.

(Btw, I see that Chuck It All In has returned. I'll put it back on my sidebar if I can remember how.)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Well, it should be noted that Chuck It All In ain't exactly what it was last year -- mostly just playlists now, because that's what Rhapsody wants from me these days. But yep, it's there.

By the way, this discussion reminds me of that, since I've been writing for Singles Jukebox, we've graded four Kanye West singles but only two country singles. I find that really perplexing -- and somewhat imbalanced, to say the very least.

[koganbot]

Will regularly checks the country promo radio samplers, probably hasn't found a lot recently that he thinks that many Jukeboxers will like. There were more on Jukebox about a month and a half back.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

I dunno, hard to buy that's the actual criteria when Will includes plenty of non-country singles most Jukeboxers aren't likely to like. I mean, if Jukeboxers liking songs is mandatory, why bother including Lady Gaga and Linkin Park tracks? (And I can't imagine he thought many Jukeboxers would like Darius Rucker, either. If Hootie's the best he could do, seems to me he's not looking all that hard. But what do I know.)

(Btw, I'm not saying Will doesn't do stellar work otherwise, because actually, I think just the opposite. The site just gets better and better. I know how hard it is to turn so many blurbs from different people into a conversation, and he pulls it off almost every time. That's amazing.)

Also discouraged about country's prospects in that '00s Poptimists poll -- as much as I like "Party Up," it's hard to get worked up about DMX maybe not making the cut when, chances are, no country singles will make the cut until, what, "Before He Cheats", maybe? Or "You Belong With Me"? But maybe I'm just cranky.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Frigging HTML. Please reread previous post with only the "non" in "non-country" and "no" in "no country singles" italicized.

[koganbot]

Here it is:

dunno, hard to buy that's the actual criteria when Will includes plenty of non-country singles most Jukeboxers aren't likely to like. I mean, if Jukeboxers liking songs is mandatory, why bother including Lady Gaga and Linkin Park tracks? (And I can't imagine he thought many Jukeboxers would like Darius Rucker, either. If Hootie's the best he could do, seems to me he's not looking all that hard. But what do I know.)

(Btw, I'm not saying Will doesn't do stellar work otherwise, because actually, I think just the opposite. The site just gets better and better. I know how hard it is to turn so many blurbs from different people into a conversation, and he pulls it off almost every time. That's amazing.)

Also discouraged about country's prospects in that '00s Poptimists poll -- as much as I like "Party Up," it's hard to get worked up about DMX maybe not making the cut when, chances are, no country singles will make the cut until, what, "Before He Cheats", maybe? Or "You Belong With Me"? But maybe I'm just cranky.

Back being Frank: Well, also, and this is my opinion and it might not be Will's, the Jukeboxers write poorly about the country stuff they don't like, while writing well about the other music they don't like. But also I'm sure Will is making calculations about what the readers are likely to be interested in. Someone like Rucker has higher name recognition among likely readers than Chesney or Covington do. Of course, such decisions become self-fulfilling. But coverage of metal and adult contemporary is just as sparse.