DISQUS

Popdose: Billboarding: 5/19/08

  • Elaine · 1 year ago
    - I want to like Brad Paisley, I really do. If he ever stops making hammy novelty songs I might be able to get there.

    - I do like Taylor Swift. Doesn't she write all of her own stuff? And my kids like her, and there's no reason (yet) that I shouldn't encourage it. I like that, too.

    - Rascal Flatts are metrosexual'd within an inch of their lives, and they creep me out.

    - I think it's a little unfair to allow George a pass and call out Trace, when they're both singing treacly syrup that's beneath them.

    - Carrie's lame ditty about being so drunk she married a stranger in Vegas impresses me almost as little as the song about being so mad she happily commits felony vandalism on a boyfriend's truck. Plus she screams through the thing; plus she looked AWFUL last night on that awards show. She was wearing a Fat Elvis jumpsuit!

    There. Ahhhhh I feel better now. Thanks!!
  • kalbiqueen · 1 year ago
    Just reading the name "Rascal Flatts" makes me nauseous. My kids played that horrific cover of "Life is a Highway" at me sixty times a day for months. I hate them. I hate their frosted hair and I hate hate HATE the guy's voice.
  • Bubba the Elder · 1 year ago
    Someone please shoot whoever ran sound for the CMAs last night. No one could hear their monitors and the up-front, dry vocal sound made everyone sound bad. Of course, there's no helping Chesney and Rodney Atkins and those other turds in the punchbowl...that's you, Rascal Flatts. Brad is cool, but Kix's creepy comment after Taylor Swift's soggy singing (did you hear the tape kick in when she got underwater?) sounded...barely legal.
    And, as someone who knows little about hip-hop, I'd like any excursions into the subject to be guided by a knowledgeable sherpa. So I get annoyed with Country music articles qualified with the lameass phrase " I don't really [usually] LIKE country music'. Then keep your piehole shut.
    Thanks, love the sit...really.
  • jefito · 1 year ago
    Well, I don't know that this necessarily qualifies as a "country music article" -- it's just a few words about each of the songs on the Top 10. And you don't have to LIKE something to be AWARE of it.
  • Bubba the Elder · 1 year ago
    ACM, CMA... when you type with two fingers, the details get left to spellcheck. Which missed the last word - "site" - as in, I really love your work, Jeff, I'm just in a bad mood after that piece of crap show. Been playing "New Country" covers recently and, while the technical songwriting aspects can be appreciated, the numbing pandering of the lyrics chafes my chaps. Gotta teach those boys some Buddy Miller...I'm kind of a geek about the history of country music, so the fading presence and influence of artists who created and developed the genre bothers me. I mean, I don't see any good for the future of the style if Rascal Flatts influences young kids picking up guitars for the first time. I realize it's pop music and styles change (witness the horror that greeted Billy Sherrill's string arrangements that became the standard just a couple of years later) and I appreciate artists who at least acknowledge the past (Brad Paisley, Sara Evans et al), but give me the alt-country scene any day. Just the old curmudgeon in me wanting out. Keep on.
  • jefito · 1 year ago
    Aw, not to worry, Bubba -- thanks for the clarification, though!
  • Thierry · 1 year ago
    Agreed about the bad sound, but those were the ACM Awards, not the CMAs.
  • DwDunphy · 1 year ago
    So, metal is about death and carnage and evil. Hip-hop is about goin' to da club and stealin' yo bitch and uh-huh, yeeah. Pop is about tween lolitas who aren't really like that but, come on already. And now country (or at least Nashville Country; it's a big distinction) is the self-help, fortune cookie, bumpersticker thing. You hope I dance? Really? Do you REALLY hope I dance?

    It makes it all that more special when you do hear a country song that avoids the treacle and boot-scootin' and redneckin' and just gets you at gut-level. A lot of it is the performer, and most of these newer acts wear the boots but don't have the callouses, if you get my meaning. I like a little country, but I like those mostly for their ability to transcend, and not wallow, in the cornpone.

    Hell, Trent Reznor wrote a great country tune. All it took was Johnny Cash to sing it.