#246: Drive-By Truckers - Southern Rock Opera (2001)

Zack: I was mildly interested in listening to this up until the time I saw it was a double album. Country and Southern rock have been so hit-or-miss for us that I was terrified of investing more than 90 minutes into something I might come to loathe. I pushed it back a few days. Finally, I figured, I was going to have to listen to it eventually and I might as well try and enjoy it. I’m glad I made it a point to go in with an open mind, because this album is a really impressive feat of musical ingenuity. Southern Rock Opera is, as the name suggests, a southern rock (with some alternative country and even a dash of cowpunk here or there)-styled rock opera that aims to deconstruct the Deep South mythology. If it wasn’t for the three-guitar based assault that’s constantly whirring about, it would practically be academic. Drive-By Truckers have no interest in glorifying the South and its larger-than-life figures, a la Lynyrd Skynyrd, or even condemning its – ahem – checkered past like Neil Young famously does in Southern Man and (the fabulous track from Harvest) Alabama – a well-known dispute touched upon on SRO in the second track, Ronnie and Neil. Instead, they want to focus on the grey that lies between those two extremes. Or, as it’s put in a few songs, breaking down “the duality of the ‘Southern Thing.’” And when their attention is clearly devoted to that goal, SRO is magical. I think things tend to get a bit hazy when they jump into the secondary theme of exploring things from Skynyrd’s point of view, and the insistence on doing so adds quite a few unnecessary tracks, especially on the album’s shaky back end. But when Drive-By Truckers are trucking along in their investigation of southern dichotomy, they take both the southern rock and alternative country genres to a level of intelligence and sophistication I haven’t seen elsewhere.

Favorite Tracks: Birmingham; Wallace; The Southern Thing

Emily: True to its name, Southern Rock Opera tells quite an operatic story of the South. By personifying the different experiences and elements of the "Southern thing" through icons such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, George Wallace, and Neil Young as well as other unnamed Southerners and members of the Drive-By Truckers themselves, Southern Rock Opera creates a nuanced image of the South in the 1970s and beyond. The first half of the album is especially successful. Southern rock and country provide a backdrop to the story, which could effectively work as a staged musical. Well, maybe not one with a cohesive story, but perhaps a series of vignettes that all tie together as elements of the band's Southern thing. This idea really came to mind while hearing The Three Great Alabama Icons. The rock of this song is more subdued to make way for a spoken-word story of the narrator, a young Southerner, and his interpretation of the great looming figures of his home state - Ronnie van Zant (of Lynyrd Skynyrd), Bear Bryant (Alabama's head football coach in a football-loving state), and George Wallace (the infamous Alabama governor who became the face against the civil rights movement in the '60s). The storytelling was so vivid that I could envision the scenes being acted out as the narrator spoke, and it continued into the next song, Wallace, which describes George Wallace's entrance into hell - from the perspective of the devil. Unfortunately, the second half of this double album wasn't nearly as unique or successful. But the first half? It presents the South in music from an original, honest, and realistic perspective, a perspective that seems to be lacking in most other country and Southern rock music.

Favorite Tracks: The Three Great Alabama Icons; The Southern Thing; Birmingham

#192: Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session (1988)

Zack: This is a tale of two albums. On one hand, when I first listened to it, it almost sent my sickly body into a coma. It was so boring. It has hints of folk and blues and alternative country, all things that I am on the record saying I enjoy to various degrees. But it was all done in such a lo-fi, dull way. It was so hard to even notice it. Overall, I really didn’t like it. But then I read the Wikipedia page. This album was done using only one microphone. They had to do the vocals over a PA system because they were in a church and you wouldn’t have been able to hear anything over the few electric instruments without it. That…is actually kind of cool.  Accounting for the method of production, I came around about an eight of a click. I didn’t do a 180 and start loving this album, but I at least understand why it sounded so boring. I’ll probably never relisten to it, but at least I know that I listened to something kind of innovative like that.

Favorite Tracks: Postcard Blues; Sweet Jane; I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry

Emily: With a name like Cowboy Junkies, I was expecting a whole lotta yee-haw from this album. Traditional rip-roaring, drunk-ass country music. Needless to say, I was surprised when the first track was a slow acoustic guitar accompanied by an ethereal female voice. And so was the next, and the one after that. That's when I finally checked out the Wikipedia page and found out the Cowboy Junkies are nowhere close to yee-haw. They're Canadian, for one, and this albums is considered to be more on the folk end of country. Now that made sense. The lead singer's beautiful voice is well-suited to the sound, folk and country tinged with the slow swing of jazz. The jazz-influenced tracks were my favorites of the album. They rose above the beauty and lightness of the rest of the album with more complex musical heft behind the instrumentation and vocals. I'll take that over yee-haw any day.

Favorite Tracks: Working on a Building; I Don't Get It; Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)

#172: Silver Jews - Bright Flight (2001)

Emily: I wanted to listen to this album simply because I liked the name of the band. I knew nothing of their sound or story, but Silver Jews just sounded like they would be awesome. Luckily, I was not disappointed – even though they’re categorized under country! The Silver Jews were founded by the people from Pavement, an indie band whom I’ve briefly encountered after a friend gave me one of their albums. I’m not a big Pavement fan, but I really like how their indie aesthetic transferred to country music. The album is centered on contemplative and introspective lyrics, both a nod to and departure from traditional country music. Some tracks add a rock edge to the strumming guitar and slight country twang, which I suppose is what makes it indie-country. What I’ve said doesn’t really do the album justice, however. The emotion the Silver Jews evoke with simple guitar and vocals is personally affecting, so I highly recommend listening to this one for yourselves.

Favorite Tracks: Room Games and Diamond Rain; Transylvania Blues; Time Will Break the World

Zack: We’ve created a lot of subplots to this blog. There’s the one where I cook food while listening toalbums, the one where I try and get Emily to appreciate rap, the one where Ibitch and moan about the hip-hop album snubs I perceive, and the one where we listen to legendary albums and try to contextualize their significance to modern music (too many examples to pick just one). But one subplot that I think we often overlook is also the simplest: that there is stuff on this list that neither of us would have ever, not even in a million years, have listened to. I scoured Silver Jews Wikipedia page to try and find some series of events, however unlikely, that would have led me to discover them had we never started this blog. The best I could come up with is that I somehow would have become obsessed with Pavement (incredibly unlikely) to the point where I would have been intrigued by an alternative country side project that two members had briefly been affiliated with, although neither play on this album.  Outlook=bleak. I’ve never been a country music enthusiast, and still try and avoid it to some extent, so there’s no way I would have willingly listened to this on my own accord. But there I was, listening to Silver Jews, and really enjoying it. It was kind of laid back but deep. Like easy listening country that makes you think. And yet it wasn’t anywhere near as boring as that description sounds. It was a really pleasant experience, and one that I never would have had (barring me being crippled with Pavement-fandom). So thank you, list. You endowed unto me knowledge that I never would have had without you. Although you still don’t know anything about hip-hop.

Favorite Tracks: I Remember Me; Tennessee; Room Games and Diamond Rain

#125: Ryan Adams - Gold

Zack: I didn’t really know what to expect out of Ryan Adams. The only thing I really knew about him was that he played in Whiskeytown. And I only knew that because of friend of mine had told me that his band was heavily influenced by Whiskeytown (although I later learned that the extent of the influence was pretty much that Whiskeytown played songs about loving whiskey and his band liked to listen to said songs while drinking whiskey.) So I went into this album with very low expectations. Those expectations were exceeded by the first song, then shattered throughout. Gold is a really good album. It contains an overarching country feel but skips out on the tacky twang in favor of a more modernized sound. I can’t emphasize enough how much I appreciated that. Gold is considered a staple of alternative country. Now sometimes I feel like people just assign the title “alternative” to anything that doesn’t quite fit the stereotypical sound of a genre, but calling Gold an alternative country album totally makes sense. Alternative music is a blending of several genres all together to create a varied and diverse sound. Gold has plenty of that. While country may be the main influence, some songs bear a striking resemblance to rock, punk, folk, blues, and even a little jazz. Now that’s pretty alternative. Overall, Ryan Adams reminded me of a more Southern version of Devendra Banhart, while I expected him to just be a younger Garth Brooks. That took me completely by surprise, but it was the best possible surprise I could get.

Favorite Tracks: Nobody Girl; New York, New York; Harder Now That It’s Over

Emily: The other night, I went out with some friends for some late-night noms at a bar near us. Once we got there, though, we were nearly ready to run out the door. Why, you ask? Three words: Country. Karaoke. Night. Our readers well know that I’m not exactly a fan of country music, and neither are my friends. We endured nearly an hour of two white-haired guys poorly rendering a bunch of twangy, yee-haw country songs, including one song called Honky Tonk Ba-donka-donk. Seriously. With that in mind, I wasn’t exactly excited to be listening to more country music. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Ryan Adams. As an alt-country artist, his sound is a lot less twang and a lot more blues and roots, with a bit of rock thrown in for good measure. The most country thing about him is actually what I find the most appealing about country music – the storytelling. Songs like Nobody Girl and Sylvia Plath are full of detail and emotion that tell great stories, a more modern interpretation of a traditional country trope. And luckily for me, there were no honky tonk ba-donka-donks to be found.

Favorite Tracks: La Cienega Just Smiled; Nobody Girl; When the Stars Go Blue