Ok.

I do drop some music posts into the  enlightenedconflict site mix typically as i hear the music (unplanned and I just want to write about it).   I noticed I haven’t included any country music for awhile.  Not for lack of interest. I wanted to.  But frankly I haven’t heard anything worth writing about.

So I had a long business drive in the car and set my mind to using the entire drive to finding a country song.  Think 4 hours of shifting the radio dial to country station after country station.  Not exactly bamboo shoots under the fingernails but apparently given the current state of country music on air it did feel slightly like a 4 hour death march of Bataan. My overall conclusion is that there really isn’t a lot of good original country music happening at the moment.

I found myself cringing over lots of songs about drinking over breaking up, crying over someone in the hospital and bad lyrical rhymes (“whiskey frisky” comes to mind as the hugest offender).

And the biggest bad song offender?

“A little more country” (c’mon).

Ok. its not a really really bad song. Maybe disappointingly massively mediocre.  But it has been written and sung 1 million different times and ways before.

Hey. I like country music.  I just like good well written music with well crafted lyrics (without a boatload of false rhymes or forced rhymes).

Well.  All that said.  I did hear several really nice songs I hadn’t heard before.

Kenny Chesney salvages a mediocre song by incorporating Grace Potter as a duet partner (and I love Grace’s voice).

Kenny does crank out a nice little easy listening song called “somewhere with you.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n56hFE9Aquc

Zac Brown Band uses Jimmy Buffett perfectly to make an okay song really good (maybe because it actually would have been better as a Jimmy B song than a Zac Brown song):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJbG7256ZLY&feature=related

Some guy named Eric Church sings a really really good song called “Homeboy”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiWNs3BsJCY

it is the kind of song Keith Urban should have recorded but it is really good.

Speaking of good ole Keith. First.  One of the most underrated guitar players in the music business. Plays a really good guitar.  Clean and distinctive and great mix of chord & nonchord playing. Second. He is married to Nicole Kidman who I have had a crush on since Days of Thunder. Third. He just sings a damn good ballad. “With You” is his latest example” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3TWpWf798s

And then there is Lady Antebellum’s newest single, Just a Kiss, off their upcoming September cd represents the best of what Lady A is all about …  a sweeping ballad and duet between male & female voices:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_yTphvyiPU

lastly.

A catchy little song called “you lie” from a band I had never heard of before – The Band Perry.  Overall I would say it was the best radio driving song I heard.  The video is HORRIBLE.  But.  If you close your eyes (or just hear it on the radio) it is a sticky little song.

You Lie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCwLsXZnFl4

Beyond that?

Well. It was a very long trip of bad (or disappointing) country music. I think someone new has to step in and refresh and challenge what’s happening in the genre. They need a Dixie Chicks like challenge.  Even Tim McGraw kinda redefined some things when he came onto the scene. But hey, that’s me.