Tag Archives: Brad Paisley

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Song of the Day #2,233: ‘Cover Girl’ – Brad Paisley

brad_paisley_moonshine_trunkBrad Paisley took a massive hit to his credibility, not to mention his album sales, with 2013’s Wheelhouse.

The harsher blows were due to the ill-advised crapfest ‘Accidental Racist,’ a stab at racial harmony (performed with LL Cool J) that turned out laughably bad and, ironically, a bit racist itself.

But the album’s lack of chart success (relative to Paisley’s astronomical sales numbers up to that point) wasn’t the fault of ‘Accidental Racist.’ It was a sign that Paisley’s increasingly experimental, envelope-pushing approach to country music had finally alienated a sizable portion of his audience.

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Song of the Day #1,858: ‘American Saturday Night’ – Brad Paisley

americansaturdaynightI’m interested in the way time transforms opinions. Looking back on top ten lists from previous years, it’s funny to see which films or albums went from cream of the crop to afterthought, and which lower-ranked works wound up as future favorites.

Sometimes a work makes a strong initial impression but I’m never moved to experience it again, so it fades. Perhaps if I did revisit it my original opinion would be renewed, but the fact that I don’t really want to probably means something.

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Song of the Day #1,777: ‘Outstanding in Our Field’ – Brad Paisley

paisley_wheelhouseBrad 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.

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Song of the Day #1,748: ‘Accidental Racist’ – Brad Paisley with LL Cool J

paisley_wheelhouseMy old pal Brad Paisley has been in the news a lot the past week or so, and not in a good way.

A track on his new album, Wheelhouse, called ‘Accidental Racist’ has been vilified as racist itself, or at the very least tone deaf about race relations.

The track, a duet between Paisley and rapper LL Cool J, is an imagined conversation between a “Skynrd fan” with a confederate flag on his T-shirt and a black Starbucks employee who (presumably on his off hours) wears a do-rag, sagging pants and gold chains.

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Song of the Day #1,647: ‘Catch All the Fish’ – Brad Paisley

americansaturdaynightBrad Paisley tends to put at least one rip-roaring ass-kicker of a song on every album — the sort of instrumental throwdown that ensures all of the players will have blisters on their fingers.

On his best album, 2009’s American Saturday Night, that song is ‘Catch All the Fish,’ an anthem for every beer-drinking fisherman in the world (which is probably all of them).

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