Bit of a claim I know. But I’m ready to explain myself.
This is kind of review-ish so bear with me.
Following on from my last post on the decidedly dried-up feel to the country charts and more specifically country radio musically, I want to argue that Miranda Lambert is one of the only ones doing anything that sets herself apart, that is interesting, that is worthy of note.
If you only pay attention to the single Miranda releases, then you’ll probably have no idea what I mean. What’s so glorious about Miranda is that she can do all that chart stuff in her sleep – and do it better than half the other people there – while a fair few of her album tracks have more of a story to tell. She appears to deliberately toe the line between commercialism and creativity (before you shout at me, whether true creativity is evident in commercial music is a whole different argument so I’ll leave it there). I can’t remember where I read it, but a couple of months ago somebody on the internet said she was dipping into elements of progressive country. And that got me thinking.
When ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ came out, it definitely differed from ‘Kerosene’ sound-wise, in that I’m not sure whether Kerosene was totally commercial but it was certainly in line with everything else. CEG included tracks such as ‘Gunpowder And Lead’ and ‘Getting Ready’ which had a much rougher sound, and strayed away from typical country as many do in their Sophomore efforts. However, Miranda strayed in that she took on a far more country-rock approach, but not in a classic way. There were dirty guitars, straining vocals at times, sharp drums, yet somehow still retaining a country feel in my opinion. At the time I was listening to Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton, etc so I didn’t really appreciate what she was doing and simply decided her first album was better.
Then ‘Revolution’ came out, and I literally cringed at her cover of ‘That’s The Way The World Goes Round’ because it was so overdone with the roughness, the vocals and the guitars. ‘Maintain The Pain’ has regularly been fans’ least favourite on the album, probably because of the musical tastes of the majority of her fans. She seemed to explore far more on this album, with a fairly heavy ‘amateur-sounding’ take on country, with ‘Sin For A Sin’ ‘Somewhere Trouble Don’t Go’. In these efforts she also seemed to start messing around with production techniques a lot more, and although there are other songs on that album I like more, I admire what’s she done with the aforementioned. Yet still all she was releasing were your average emotional pretty numbers, The House That Built Me, Dead Flowers etc. Still great songs, but it’s starting to feel to me like she’s underselling herself. She’s got so much more to offer musically, but all she’s showing the rest of the country scene is following trends, with perhaps more of a focus on lyrical and emotional content. She even wrote with Lady Antebellum on that album, with Love Song… not that I’m criticising Lady A, but there’s a time and a place and a certain audience… and personally I’d rather Miranda distance herself from people such as Lady A because they offer a totally different country music experience.
Then at the end of last year Miranda released ‘Four The Record’ with a classic burning car in the background… oh I do love her imagery. On a side note here, I love that she’s countering the Taylor Swift generation by pushing the flames, the guns, the rebellion… this is rock ‘n’ roll in country music and I love it. She does it in style and I love how she can be glam, or country pretty, or a good ole farm girl in t shirt and jeans. She does it perfectly and she needs farrrr more exposure. On the other hand, looking at what happened to Miss Swift, that might ruin her.
So, FTR. Less ‘progressive’ tracks on this one in my opinion. Something I immediately noted was the lack of tracks Miranda herself wrote on this one. She wrote two herself and co-wrote 4. Out of 14. A few at least appear to be outright covers. I know we’re way past the need to have country artists to write their own songs and there’s nothing wrong with putting your stamp on someone else’s lyrics and melody, but Miranda is a great songwriter and this disappointed me somewhat. Despite the fact that I see right through it as a total construct, I believe an artist more if I feel like they’ve written it. Fail, I know. But I know most people feel that way.
Nobody’s Fool, it starts with a fairly traditional-sounding picking pattern that plays out for a bit, before bursting in with a fairly heavy and catchy guitar riff. Already two contrasting styles but it’s been done millions of times before. The melody and the way the song is structured could be viewed as poppy but Miranda’s voice is straining, almost shouty (not a bad thing) on the chorus and suddenly as soon as the solo (love the invasion of solos into country lately) kicks in, I don’t even know what that effect is called, but it’s heavy and I suggest you go listen to it. It totally confuses me as to how to categorise the song, and it shouldn’t work but it does.
Fastest Girl In Town and Mama’s Broken Heart are the rockier songs on the album but apart from Fine Tune it’s a disappointingly poppy album. I love Fine Tune because of the effect they put on her voice. I don’t know what it’s called, but it kind of dulls it and makes it sound slightly robotic, again, go listen. All the sounds, they’re just wonderfully different to what you hear on country radio, yet part of me would argue that it is still country. And I think this is what that person on the internet meant when they said Miranda was progressive country. To me, Miranda is totally pushing boundaries. I don’t know whether ‘progressive country’ is a thriving subgenre of its own that I have yet to discover, and this kind of stuff is done all the time, and Miranda is just cashing in on that.
But I think she’s clever either way. She’s keeping her label happy by continuing to churn out the cash cows, she’s still buddies with Nashville as she’s winning awards by the truckload, yet she’s doing things other people in country music aren’t, to me she’s pushing boundaries, she’s testing the limits, exploring her levels of creativity and I love that.
Anyone who’s willing to push the boat out in my opinion is a winner.
Correct me if I’m wrong, if there’s people doing this kind of stuff out there feel free to send some stuff my way, I’d be open for a listen.
But if not I rest my case.
