Monthly Archives: January 2010

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Song of the Day #552: ‘Then’ – Brad Paisley

And now the third reason I totally dig Mr. Kimberly Williams: Brad Paisley is romantic.

And I mean very romantic. His albums are generally split between three kinds of songs… the funny songs, the heartbreak songs and the love songs. I wouldn’t say he’s any better at one group than the others — he’s great at them all — but he comes across as particularly sincere in the love songs.

I imagine that’s because he’s still in the extended honeymoon phase of his marriage, together seven years with two young children, and because Kimberly Williams — in addition to being extremely cute — seems like a very cool person. I shamefully admit to reading her Twitter feed in preparation for this blog entry.

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Song of the Day #551: ‘He Didn’t Have to Be’ – Brad Paisley

As my Brad Paisley theme week continues, I will now move on to another aspect of the man’s music that contributes to his enormous appeal: Brad Paisley is sweet.

I’m sure numerous essays have been written about the appeal of cowboys to modern women, especially sensitive and polite cowboys. Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights has all the women I know panting like lapdogs because he epitomizes that concept, even if he generally trades the cowboy hat for a football helmet. He’s a little macho and a little blunt but he’s also charming as hell and deep down he’s a teddy bear.

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Song of the Day #550: ‘Me Neither’ – Brad Paisley

About once every two years I discover a new artist who joins the ranks of my favorites. Often it’s an established artist who’s just new to me… maybe somebody I’d heard of but never heard, or somebody who somehow managed to escape my radar altogether.

Over the past decade or so, artists who have joined this club include Josh Rouse, Lucinda Williams, Tift Merritt, Shakira and Stew. These are people whose collected works I quickly gobbled up in an effort to own and appreciate everything they’d ever recorded, people whose names were added to the growing list of all-time favorites.

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Sherlock Holmes

After my experience with the negative impact of high expectations for The Hurt Locker, I now have a perfect example of the opposite… the positive impact of low expectations for the delightful Sherlock Holmes.

I’d written this one off as a rental, if that, based on my low opinion of director Guy Ritchie and less than stellar reviews. But when my wife and I wanted a nice cinematic diversion the other night and didn’t want to travel across the county to find it, Sherlock Holmes emerged as the best candidate (I promptly vetoed Leap Year when that possibility came up).

I was a big Sherlock Holmes fan during junior high and high school, though I haven’t given him much thought since then. But my inner 14-year-old bristled at the thought of Ritchie turning the beloved Holmes into a slow-mo kung-fu fighter, as the trailer suggested. Why modernize and make hip something decidedly (and wonderfully) old-fashioned?

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Song of the Day #549: Abbey Road medley – The Beatles

For my final Beatles song, or at least my final Beatles Weekend song, I’m going with not a single track but the medley that closes side two of Abbey Road. Technically, this medley probably begins with ‘Sun King’ or even ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ — I don’t know if the band members ever clarified which songs are officially part of it — but this YouTube clip I found starts with ‘Mean Mr. Mustard.’

This is an odd little group of songs. It starts with sketches of Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam, an interesting brother and sister team… he shouts obscenities at the queen while she dresses in drag.

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