Posts Tagged ‘Legacy’

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Cheap Trick: Setlist – The Very Best Of

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Rockin’ sampler of Cheap Trick live tracks

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the band’s stage act.

Cheap Trick’s volume of Setlist features eleven tracks drawn primarily from the late ‘70s, including a generous helping borrowed from Sex America Cheap Trick and At Budokan. Filling out the set are tracks from Found all the Parts, the extended reissue of Dream Police, and 2000’s Authorized Greatest Hits. Everything here has been issued before, but pulling together tracks from 1977 through 1979, plus a pair from 1988, gives a fuller sense of Cheap Trick as a live act than their breakthrough Budokan album. In particular, the lengthy opening cover (from a 1977 show at Los Angeles’ Whiskey a Go Go) of Dylan’s “Mrs. Henry” provides a terrific view of the band’s Who-like power and abandon, with excellent drumming from Bun E. Carlos and blazing guitar and bass from Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson. Cheap Trick may have earned a reputation as one of power pop’s greatest exponents, but they could be downright heavy when they wanted to.

The same 1977 Whiskey date also provides “Ballad of TV Violence,” which shows the edgy emotion and raw power of Robin Zander’s voice better than the more famous Budokan cuts, “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender.” And after a seven-year hiatus from the band, bassist Tom Petersson stepped to the microphone to sing “I Know What I Want” at a 1988 date in Daytona Beach; from the same show, the band performs their overwrought, yet chart-topping and crowd-pleasing hit, “The Flame.” Throughout this collection Cheap Trick proves and over what a great live band they are, and how well their songs translate from studio to stage. Fans may already have all of these tracks, but anyone who knows only a hit or two will find this a worthy introduction to the power and the glory that is Cheap Trick on stage. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Johnny Cash: Setlist – The Very Best Of

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Nice overview of Johnny Cash as a performer and entertainer

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Johnny Cash’s volume of Setlist features fourteen tracks drawn from only five years of performing, 1968-72, yet the range of venues and audiences shows off the breadth of Cash as a performer and entertainer. In addition to his two iconic live albums recorded at Folsom and San Quentin Prison, Cash also performed for down home audiences at the Ryman Auditorium and uptown city slickers at Madison Square Garden. He sang for Swedish prisoners and American presidents, and hosted a national television show that bridged hippies and squares. Everything here has been issued before, but unlike the full-concert albums and videos, this collection gives a sense of Cash’s universality, rather than the depth with which he connected to each specific audience.

The Folsom and San Quentin tracks (“Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Got a Woman,” “Wreck of the Old 97,” “I Walk the Line” and “Big River”) are the most familiar – and if they’re not, you’re recommended to the full albums and videos [1 2]. Less famous is Cash’s performance of his original “What is Truth” at the White House in 1970. He shook off Nixon’s request for “Okie From Muskogee” and “Welfare Cadillac,” and challenged the sitting president with songs of the underclass. Cash seems nearly exhausted by the cultural conflicts of the times as he asks for understanding of the young people who would soon inherit the country. Cash’s humor and his chemistry with wife June are shown in a warm 1969 medley of “Darlin’ Companion,” “If I Were a Carpenter,” and “Jackson” recorded at the home of the Grand Ol’ Opry for his television show.

Cash sings his Christian faith in a pair of gospel songs, but it’s the firmness with which he stands by the world’s underdogs that really shows his beliefs in practice; every time he steps onto the stage he earns his Man in Black nickname. Cash’s best-known live song, “A Boy Named Sue,” which he debuted at his 1969 San Quentin concert, is heard here in a 1972 performance at Sweden’s Österåker Prison. By this point the song had been a big hit, and so the audience doesn’t have the hysterical reaction of the earlier recording, but Cash still sings it with the same sly smile as the single. The collection’s tracks are thoughtfully selected and sequenced, with tracks from different concerts flowing impressively. This is no substitute for the full concert recordings, but it’s a terrific single-disc introduction to Johnny Cash in his performing prime. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Dixie Chicks: Playlist – The Very Best of the Dixie Chicks

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Short overview of game-changing country trio’s career

Whether or not Natalie Maines’ opinions give you heartburn, there’s no denying her arrival in the Dixie Chicks launched the group to unparalleled commercial and artistic success. With her lead vocals and her bandmates’ harmonies and instrumental chops, the group cut a new template for commercial country radio, finding favor with both the mainstream and traditionalist crowds. All was peaches and cream until Maines’ outspoken criticism of the Bush administration placed them at odds with the Nashville establishment and many of the band’s fans. But in the face of a country radio backlash, the group stuck to their guns, found favor with the pop buying public, and netted their fourth consecutive country album Grammy – and their first Album of the Year – with the unapologetic Taking the Long Way.

This twelve song collection includes tracks from the four studio albums recorded with Maines’ as lead vocalist, and skips over the group’s three earlier releases. It follows the form of earlier Playlist releases by combining a selection of hits with album tracks that the artist has selected as representative of their career. That means most of the Dixie Chicks’ sixteen Top 10 hits are omitted in favor of album tracks (all twelve tracks have been previously issued and are readily available on the group’s regular releases), including the concert favorite “Sin Wagon” and a poignant cover of Patty Griffin’s “Let Him Fly.” The chronological set plays quite well, giving listeners a good helping of the Chicks’ vocal and instrumental talents, and shows how they straddled the line between rootsy twang and polished radio country with their cannily selected cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” The Dixie Chicks deftly bridged their country home base with their pop influences, magnifying, rather than losing, the potency of each.

These songs say as much about the group members’ lives as their careers, following the turbulence of divorces and marriages, professional daring, and settled family lives. The disc is delivered in an all-cardboard folder, with a digital booklet that includes six highly-styled photographs, liner notes, production/writing/chart credits, an interactive album discography (that conveniently links to Sony BMG’s online store), and a pair of desktop wallpapers. What’s here is compelling, but what’s missing is essential to really telling the group’s story; a recitation of the group’s hits can be put together from digital download services, but at a cost that’s likely to keep many waiting for a more definitive greatest hits collection or career anthology. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dixie Chicks’ Home Page
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Dolly Parton: Letter to Heaven – Songs of Faith and Inspiration

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

Parton’s 1971 album of faith and praise + 7 bonuses

Letter to Heaven returns to print 1971’s Golden Streets of Glory, Dolly Parton’s first full album of inspirational song. The seventeen tracks of this 45-minute collection include the album’s original ten and six bonuses cherry-picked from Parton’s albums and singles of the 1970s. As a treat for collectors, the original album session track “Would You Know Him (If You Saw Him) is released here for the first time. The latter is among Parton’s most compelling vocals in the set, and a real mystery as to how it was left off the original release. Parton wrote or co-wrote ten of the seventeen titles and puts her vocal stamp on standards (“I Believe”), country (“Wings of a Dove”), gospel (“How Great Thou Art”) and classic spirituals (“Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” here reworked as “Comin’ For to Carry Me Home”). The album’s originals are surprisingly generic songs of faith and praise, unsatisfying in comparison to the following year’s brilliant “Coat of Many Colors.”

The bonus tracks fare much better. Parton’s tribute to her grandfather, “Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man” is joined by memories of childhood church-going in “Sacred Memories.” Her appreciation of creation’s majesty, “God’s Coloring Book” is personal and intimate, and “Letter to Heaven” retains its power to evoke a lump in your throat forty years after it was recorded. Producer Bob Ferguson dials back his Nashville Sound to light arrangements of country, soul and gospel; the twang is still minimized, but neither the strings nor backing choruses overwhelm. RCA Legacy’s single-CD reissue includes recording details and liner note by Deborah Evans Price. Fans will be glad to have this back in print, but those new to the Parton catalog might check out other key album reissues first, such as Coat of Many Colors, Jolene, or My Tennessee Mountain Home. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dolly Parton’s Home Page

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Elvis Presley: On Stage (Legacy Edition)

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Elvis recorded live amid the blaze of his 1968-71 revival

After an eight-year layoff from concert performance, Elvis returned to the stage with a pair of runs at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. The first shows, in the summer of 1969, were first captured on Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, and featured samples of his seminal early hits and then-contemporary smashes. In early 1970 he returned for a second set of shows, documented on On Stage, and changed up the set list to highlight his restyling of others’ hits in his own image. RCA’s new two-disc Legacy Edition combines both albums and ten bonus tracks into a superbly detailed picture of Elvis’ return to the stage and the physical reconnection to his fans.

When originally released, the albums caught Elvis amid his biggest blaze of glory. His televised ’68 Comeback Special had proved him still vital, and the 1969 studio sessions that resulted in From Elvis in Memphis (and its own 2-CD Legacy reissue) had proved him still relevant. The live sets showed Elvis to be both a star of the brightest magnitude and an artist with something to say to contemporary audiences. With both an extensive legacy and new singles, Elvis had to find a way to satisfy crowds that came to hear both his rich back catalog and his hot new hits. In the ’69 shows, featured on disc two of this set, Elvis cherry-picked from his seminal rock ‘n’ roll sides (including blistering versions of “Mystery Train” and “Hound Dog”), his early’60s post-army comeback hits, and the contemporary tracks he’d recently laid down with Chips Moman at American Studios.

For his 1970 return to Las Vegas, featured on disc one, Elvis leaned away from the rocked-up performances of 1969 and more heavily on his then-current penchant for covers. Beyond his Top 10 cover of Ray Peterson’s “The Wonder of You,” the selections forsook the golden oldies in favor of recent hits by Engelbert Humperdinck (“Release Me”), Neil Diamond (“Sweet Caroline”), Tony Joe White (“Polk Salad Annie”), the Beatles (“Yesterday,” recorded at the 1969 shows), Creedence Clearwater Revival (“Proud Mary”), and Joe South (“Walk a Mile in My Shoes”). It’s a mark of Elvis’ force and singularity as a performer that the original singers often disappeared in his wake, and a few of these songs (particularly “Walk a Mile in My Shoes”) became as closely associated with the King as with their originators.

Elvis sounds loose, comfortable and artistically commanding on stage, a surprise given his eight-year hiatus from live performance. No doubt his A-list TCB Band (which included James Burton, Jerry Scheff, Glen D. Hardin and the Sweet Inspirations) helped him regain his crown, but the essential flame that sparked in 1954 was clearly still burning within sixteen years later. A hint of his humble uncertainty is shown as he introduces “Kentucky Rain” with “I have out a new record, just came out in the past week or so, I hope you like it,” but his fans never had a doubt. As with his Memphis sessions of 1969, the liberty to engage his musical muse spurred Elvis to great artistic heights. Freed from the musical dross that filled many of his film soundtracks, standing in front of an audience he’d not seen face-to-face in nearly a decade, Elvis dug deep into the music he loved.

As with much of Elvis’ catalog, these tracks have been issued, reissued and scattered among previous collections. The original 10-track On Stage was reissued on CD in 1999 with six bonus tracks, and all of the extras collected here (four for On Stage, six for Elvis in Person) have seen previous release on reissues, greatest hits collections and collector’s discs from Follow That Dream. But gathered together into a single volume they paint a compelling picture of Elvis’ live show: the seminal early hits, post-army comebacks, contemporary breakthroughs, and refashioned covers, and amid it all the revival of a legendary musical talent mid-stride between the triumphs of the late ‘60s and the forthcoming early-70s successes (e.g., Elvis Country) that would cap his incredible comeback. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley’s Home Page

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Bobby Vinton: The Best Of

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Excellent collection of ‘60s crooner’s top hits

A wave of attractive, talented male singers sprouted in the lull between Elvis’ induction into the army and the Beatles arrival on U.S. shores. Among them, Bobby Vinton had one of the prettiest voices, an instrument with which he carved out a niche of pop songs that didn’t even feint towards rock ‘n’ roll. While Bobby Vee, Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon and others were non-threatening hit-makers who barely hinted at the darker side of ‘50s rockers, Vinton looked further back to earlier, pre-rock pop. His lushly orchestrated recordings were more apiece with the pre-rock ‘n’ roll hit parade than with the amalgam of blues, R&B, country and gospel that in 1963 might have seemed like a commercial fad that was then in repose or decline.

Vinton made no pretension to following in the footsteps of rock ‘n’ roll, as his ballads were winsome and filled with treacle and tears. What made the songs work, and surprisingly still keeps them emotionally effective, is the sweetness with which Vinton indulges the songs’ idealized heartaches. Romantic totems of roses, childhood sweethearts, high school romances, unrequited love and broken hearts are all magnified by vocals that sound as if they might break down at any moment – Roy Orbison minus the operatic distress. Vinton hit a weeping artistic peak with the teary-eyed soldier of “Mr. Lonely,” but even his occasional declarations of love, like “There! I’ve Said it Again” and “My Heart Belongs to Only You” are just as much wishful thinking as they are returned fulfillment.

These fourteen tracks cover most of Vinton’s Top 20 hits, including his four chart toppers, but given Vinton’s sustained success through the ‘60s and early ‘70s, this isn’t complete. In addition to a couple dozen lower charting singles, the top-20 “Clinging Vine” (#17) and seasonal “Dearest Santa” (#8) are missing. A more important omission is his Top-5 comeback “My Melody of Love,” waxed for ABC in 1975 after having departed from Epic. This marked a brief return to the Top 5 and garnered enough publicity to land Vinton a television show. You can find it on the much shorter Collections, but you’re best bet is this set (or Varese’s more complete All-Time Greatest Hits), plus a digital download of “My Melody of Love.” [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Bobby Vinton’s Home Page

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Elvis Presley: Elvis 75

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Career spanning single CD skims the surface of Elvis’ greatness

This single CD, issued in celebration of Elvis Presley’s 75th birthday anniversary, includes twenty-five tracks selected from the more thorough 4-CD Elvis 75 Good Rockin’ Tonight. Much like the box set, this disc covers the length of Elvis’ career, including early sides for Sun, incendiary rock ‘n’ ‘roll for RCA, hits from the movies, post-Army comebacks, gospel, late-60s Memphis gems, live performances and later studio work from 1972. Unlike the box set, you’ll miss his pre-Sun acetate and his post-72 recordings. More importantly, each phase of Elvis’ career gets only one or a few cuts here, and the lesser known tracks that provide compelling context in the box set are dropped.

Obviously, a career as rich as Elvis Presley’s can’t be summed up in a single disc. Even his Top 10 hits won’t fit on a single CD, and there’s so much material beyond the charts that a fair hearing of the King’s catalog really takes multiple discs or sets. 30 #1 Hits painted a picture of Presley’s career through a recitation of his best-known hits; it’s a fair summary, as is the broader 2-1/2 CD Essential 3.0. But none of these short collections, this one included, provide enough depth on Elvis’ innovations, failures and resurgences to really essay the full arc of his career. A single disc such as this can serve as a map to an artist’s career, but it’s no substitute for a more thorough hearing.

What’s here is fantastic. From the early rave-up of Arthur “Big Boy” Cruddup’s “That’s All Right” through the deeply-felt “Always On My Mind,” Elvis is nothing less than brilliant. The disc is nicely programmed and plays well, but with so few tracks to provide context, you’ll have to figure out for yourself how Elvis got from “Viva Las Vegas” to “How Great Thou Art.” If you want to dig deeper, seek out the 4-CD box, or sets that survey his 50s, 60s and 70s masters, soundtracks, sessions at Sun and American Studios, his ’68 comeback special, and his numerous live recordings.

The disc is delivered in a two-section digipack featuring a pair of full-panel Presley photos. The 16-page booklet includes a short biographical essay by Billy Altman (seemingly excerpted from his much longer essay in the box set), additional photos, and recording and chart data. If you think you only need one disc of Elvis Presley’s music, this isn’t a bad place to get an earful, but be forewarned that it’s a gateway to a large catalog that you may find yourself unable to resist. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Various Artists: Radio Hits of the 60s

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Terrific collection of AM radio’s highly varied legacy

Rather than picking an artist or label or scene or sound, Legacy’s pulled together thirteen original hit recordings that show the range of music that AM radio brought to its listeners. Collected here is New Orleans R&B (“Ya Ya,” 1961 and “Working in the Coal Mine,” 1966), Dixieland Jazz (“Washington Square,” 1963), Easy Listening (“A Fool Never Learns,” 1964), Folk Pop and Rock (“We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” 1964 and “In the Year 2525,” 1969), Garage Punk (“Little Girl,” 1966), Soul (“I’m Your Puppet,” 1966 and “Cherry Hill Park,” 1969), Bubblegum (“Simon Says,” 1968), Trad Jazz Vocal (“The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde,” 1968), and Vocal Pop (“Worst That Could Happen,” 1969).

Even within these individual songs you can often hear more than one genre exerting its influence, such as the steel guitar and horns that provide accents to the superb pop production of Merrilee Rush’s “Angel of the Morning.” In this day of highly balkanized music channels and individually programmed MP3 playlists, it’s hard to imagine such variety inhabiting a single mass-market playlist, but that was part of AM radio’s power to attract and keep a broad swath of listeners. Playing this collection will remind you how good record and radio people were at picking and making hits – the winnowing process disenfranchised many, but what got through the sieves, particularly what got to the top of the charts, was often highly memorable.

Legacy’s disc clocks in at a slim 35 minutes, but what’s here is a terrifically nostalgic spin whose songs stand up to repeated listening forty-plus years later. True, Andy Williams’ “A Fool Never Learns” might wear out its welcome before the other tracks, but it’s part and parcel of the ebb and flow of 1960s AM radio. This set isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive compilation of any one thing in particular, but a reminder of the breadth that once graced individual radio stations across the land. There was a unity to AM radio’s audience that’s been replace by the free choice of the empowered individual. That personalization carries with it many benefits, but the range of this set may remind you of what’s also been lost. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Elvis Presley: Elvis 75- Good Rockin’ Tonight

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

4-CD anthology shines as brightly as a King’s crown

Elvis was not only the king of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Little Richard’s claim on the crown notwithstanding), but in his afterlife he has also become the undisputed king of reissues and anthologies. RCA’s four-CD set, spanning from his earliest self-funded acetates through late home recordings and live sides, his last major studio works and a post-mortem remix, offers no new tracks for Presley’s legions of collectors, but provides a superb introduction and deep overview for anyone who’s heard about, rather than heard, the King. Those who know a few hits or have sat through an Elvis movie or two will find the greatness of his musical catalog measures up to the hype and explains the dedication of his most ardent fans.

Collected here are one hundred tracks, beginning with Presley’s very first recording, “My Happiness,” waxed on his own dime as a gift for his mother. His earliest commercial sides show how he forged hillbilly, blues and country roots into his personal strand of rock ‘n’ roll, first for Sun with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, and then, with the addition of D.J. Fontana on drums and A-list guests like Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins, for RCA. These early works aren’t so much primitive as they are elemental – the lack of production pomp or circumstance presents Elvis as an unadorned and raw rock ‘n’ roll spirit. The addition of a backing vocal trio, as can first be heard on 1956’s “I Was the One,” showed a crooning side of Elvis that would continue to reappear even as he continued to explore rockabilly and blues.

From the 50s through the 70s Elvis moved through a variety of producer’s hands and a number of different studios, and got something different from each. His studio recordings took him from Memphis to Nashville, north to New York, west to Hollywood, back to Nashville where he worked in RCA’s legendary Studio B and back to Memphis for his legendary late-60s sessions at Chip Moman’s American Studios. By the early ‘70s, on the heels of his televised comeback special, Elvis once again became a live draw, and selected sides find him in Las Vegas, Honolulu and on the road in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Elvis waxed his share of clunkers, but with each new direction and in each new setting he seemed to record something worthwhile, and producer Ernst Mikael Jorgensen has done a masterful job of picking highlights.

More importantly, Jorgensen has intermixed iconic hits with lesser known singles and album tracks, showing the depth of Elvis’ artistry and the catalog he created. Elvis often overwhelmed the charts with hit singles, leaving terrific performances such as the energized “One-Sided Love Affair,” a bluesy cover of Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and the gospel “Thrill of Your Love” to languish as album tracks. Even more surprising is a 1962 version of “Suspicion” that pre-dates Terry Stafford’s hit by two years. Elvis’ soundtracks included their share of dregs, particularly as the ‘60s wore on, but they also included hits and great album tracks like a scorching version of “Trouble” from King Creole and bluesy covers of Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time” from Spinout and Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” from Clambake.

While other artists reinvented themselves to fit the times, Elvis bent the times around himself (excepting “Yoga is as Yoga Does,” thankfully not included here), staying true to his voice as everything around him changed. His producers, songwriters, and musicians kept turning over, but in the center of it all Elvis sang a surprisingly straight line from ’53 to ‘77. Even as his voice matured and the productions were influenced by his Vegas stage show, the fire in his delivery remained. Whether singing rock, blues, country, soul, pop or gospel, his performances found a true line stretched from the Sun sessions through RCA studios in Nashville, New York and Hollywood, a stint in the army, a catalog of often mediocre films, his 1968 resurrection, a triumphant return to Memphis, and country sessions that brought him back to his roots.

For many listeners, disc four will be the least familiar. Covering 1970 through 1977, these selections find Elvis’ singles charting lower, but still delivering the goods. Only “Burning Love” made the top-5, and his other top-10 from that stretch, “The Wonder of You,” is not included. “An American Trilogy,” is at once bombastic and utterly show-stopping, his version of “Always on My Mind” made the country charts but should have found cross-over success before Willie Nelson ten years later, and his last single, “Way Down,” though given to ‘70s production sounds, finds his gospel fervor undimmed. The beat heavy remix of “A Little Less Conversation” that closes the set shows just how easily Elvis’ voice could slide into new contexts (the original film performance from Live a Little, Love a Little is worth searching out on DVD, by the way). These hundred tracks aren’t a complete run through every Elvis highlight, but they tell the entire arc of his musical career in a compelling and thorough way.

The box includes an 80-page booklet that features a biographical essay by Billy Altman, numerous photos, reproductions of original record labels, covers and picture sleeves, movie posters, master tape boxes, and detailed recording, chart and personnel data. RCA/Legacy is releasing a companion 26-track single disc that cherry-picks this box, and though it may prove useful as a guide to further Elvis purchases, it doesn’t provide the compelling, detailed portrait of this four-disc set. With more Elvis 75th-birthday anniversary reissues on the way (and a terrific 2-CD version of From Elvis in Memphis already out) you may be tempted to put together your own collection, but you’d have a hard time assembling a more compelling introduction than this box. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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Various Artists: NOW That’s What I Call Country, Volume 2

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Various_NowThatsWhatICallCountryMusicVolume2Modern country hits – pop, twang and country-rock

Singles – whether 7” vinyl or MP3s – have had a tumultuous history. They were the standard bearer in the juke box and top-40 eras, they shared the spotlight with long-playing albums that were purpose-built as “artistic statements,” were revitalized as soundtracks to MTV videos, lost ground with the demise of rock radio, and were renewed by per-song download services. Throughout the roller coaster ride of rock singles, the country single retained both its marketing and artistic clout. Country radio continues to be a major force in conveying new music to the commercial mainstream, and country music videos still appear regularly on cable channels. To that end, RCA’s second compilation of modern country hits will be quite familiar to listeners who’ve tuned to country radio the past couple of years.

The generous twenty-track set focuses on hits from the last half of 2008 and first half of 2009, extending all the way to recent hits by Dierks Bentley (“Sideways”) and Lady Antebellum (“I Run to You”). Nearly half the tracks are well-known #1s, but the lower-charting hits offer substantial charms. Jamie Johnson’s “In Color” (which peaked at #9) is as good as any of the chart-toppers, Trade Adkins’ “Marry for Money” (#14) is a catchy honky-tonker, Josh Turner’s “Everything is Fine” (#20) digs deeply into his lazy low notes, Miranda Lambert’s “Gunpowder & Lead” (#7) is firey, Gary Allen’s “Learning How to Bend” (#13) is an emotional tour de force, and George Strait’s “Troubadour” (#7) remains a terrific statement about age, experience and principle.

The bulk of these productions lean to the polished country-pop end of Nashville’s output, but there are a few twangy tracks and some powerful country-rockers. Many of the songs are loaded with radio-ready melodic hooks and sing-along choruses. The instantly recognizable voices of Turner, Johnson, Adkins and Strait and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland will remind you how thoroughly a country singer can stamp a song with the tone of their voice. Oddly, Carrie Underwood is featured singing her 2007 cover of Randy Travis’ “I Told You So” from her album Carnival Ride, rather than the recent hit duet with Travis himself. Perhaps there was a licensing problem, but this over-emotional rendition doesn’t measure up to the more recent remake.

Those who buy the physical CD gain web access to five recent tracks from young artists: David Nail’s “Turning Home,” Easton Corbin’s “A Little More Country That That,” Chris Young’s “Getting’ You Home,” Caitlin & Will’s “Address in the Stars,” and Emily West’s “Blue Sky.” That’s a nice bonus on top of the hit-packed disc and a clever way for the label group to expose new artists to modern country fans. Note that downloading the bonus tracks will require you to run a piece of Java code downloaded to your browser from Push Entertainment; this applet validates that the CD is present in your computer’s drive. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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