music for the day … one country and one rap

Well.

 

Only here on enlightened conflict will you get a musical review of a country song and a rap song in the same post.

 

Here you go.

 

 

First.

The song Heart of Dixie <and I will connect it to one voice>

 

Finally.

I get to highlight a country song.

 

Heart of Dixie by a young 17 year old named Danielle Bradbery.

 

Oh.

She won The Voice <just another tv show I don’t watch>.

From Cypress, Texas she won NBC’s The Voice in 2013 becoming the youngest contestant to come in first place.

 

She has got a nice little country type voice delivering a nice little song.

 

It’s just a nice pretty little country song. And that’s okay.

 

Sometimes you shouldn’t overthink music.

Sometimes in simplicity you can find the beautiful.

 

 

She sounds young. She is young. And I think that also makes the song a little more thoughtful. While the song is about Life it has such a naïve innocent sounding vocal it makes it real.

 

 

Heart of Dixie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BylRObFjmaE

 

 

Ok.

Oddly … as I heard this song for the first time … I thought she sounded like Billy Gilman <who is a guy but most famous for his music as a boy>.

 

Listen and see if you heard what I heard.

 

 

Billy Gilman / Elisabeth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY1fQJPv_EA

 

Oh.

He is the kid who did this spectacular song almost a decade ago.

 

 

one voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NlT-ELVWk0

 

 

I apologize to Danielle for thinking of a young boy singing when I heard her song but what the heck … her song, and her voice, could be compared to a significantly worse song.

 

Next.

 

Second.

beware a woman with a broken heart

 

Well.

 

This is about a pretty cool rap/hip hop song called Beware by Big Sean.

 

Now.

 

To be clear.

 

I have a love hate relationship with rap.

 

 

As a lover of words … when rap is done well … it is poetry put to music.

When done poorly it is just painful <and makes you wonder how anyone could mangle the language the way they do>.

 

And then somewhere in between is the rap song that is so very very close to being perfect.

 

What I mean by that is this is the rap song where you wish you could call someone up and say “hey … go back into the studio and rewrite some words … maybe ask someone to give you some new words to replace some in the current song.”

 

This is one of those songs.

 

 

It has a spectacular refrain/chorus. The chorus melodically bridges the rap story of the song. In fact … the song is almost worth it just for the chorus.

 

And most of the rap dialogue is smooth and flows and isn’t silly.

 

 

Unfortunately I just typed ‘most.’

 

But geez … just when you glide into the poetic groove … some incredibly silly and nonsensical rhymes appear … and jolt you out of the groove.

 

It’s really unfortunate because with a little word help this could have been an A+ song.

 

So why the heck did I invest the energy writing about it?

 

Whew.

 

That chorus.

That musical bridge.

Amazing.

Really really well done.

 

 

<beware: there are swear words in this>

 

 

Big Sean – Beware (Explicit) ft. Lil Wayne, Jhene Aiko: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-rQZ6IGhCM

 

 

Hope you enjoyed.