When a favorite artist has a new album on the way, I go out of my way to not hear anything from it until its release.
Occasionally I’ll get sucked in, because it’s really hard to resist those “Check out the new song from the upcoming Vampire Weekend!” posts that pop up in my Facebook feed. But for the most part I want to go into an anticipated new album with virgin ears.
Today’s track isn’t from an album I own (yet) but one I’m definitely intrigued by.
Natalie Maines, lead singer of the on-hiatus Dixie Chicks, has released her first solo album — an album of mostly cover songs titled Mother. The title track (presented here as a live performance) is the Pink Floyd classic from The Wall — definitely an interesting choice.
Brad Paisley’s latest album, Wheelhouse, will probably never emerge from the shadow of its controversial, and hilariously bad, song ‘Accidental Racist.’
And that’s a shame, because while Wheelhouse is no American Saturday Night or Mud On the Tires, it’s an ambitious and often rewarding record. If I were to get mathematical, I’d say it’s 1/2 great, 1/3 mediocre and 1/6 head-scratchingly bad. It would be a shame to let the few spoil things for the many.
A few weeks back I posted that I had just ordered Same Trailer Different Park, the major label debut of Kacey Musgraves.
Musgraves is the shiny new object in country music circles, drawing favorable comparisons to both Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift. Her embrace of gay rights caught the attention of Ellen DeGeneres and the fact that those lyrics haven’t put her in the country music doghouse is a great sign for the future.
Novelty bands don’t generally make great second albums. The spark of ingenuity that led to their formation is good for one batch of songs and then the members retreat to their solo careers. If they reform again, the results tend to feel forced.
The Traveling Wilbury’s Vol. 3 is the classic example. The album was missing the late Roy Orbison, but that wasn’t the only reason it felt so ordinary when compared to the exceptional Vol. 1. It simply didn’t have the same sense of serendipity that made the first record so special.
Meet Me In Montauk 