Zack: Wikipedia says this album was probably inspired
by the Louvin Brothers, but I promise I didn’t hold that against them. Gilded
Palace was a pretty good country album, a genre I have slowly begun to embrace
more fully. While listening, I thought back to a conversation I had recently
with a friend. She told me that she doesn’t like country music, and I told her
I could probably get her to give it a chance. So throughout this album, I kept
listening for songs that would be well-suited for a Beginner’s Guide to Country
Music playlist. Sure enough, two stuck out at me. Dark End of the Street is an
R&B song that they repurpose, which I thought showed the ability of
country music to adapt and infuse with its own unique character. Hot Burrito #1
manages to be a sad country song while eschewing all that crappy twang that
usually gets bottled up with it. Those two songs were definitely the most
accessible, and generally the highlights for me.
Favorite Tracks: Dark End of the Street; Hot Burrito #1;
Wheels
Emily: Also according to Wikipedia, this album is a major influence on the alt-country movement in the '80s and '90s, especially for bands like Whiskeytown and Wilco. Now, I enjoyed both of those bands tremendously, but apparently not for their '60s country-rock influences. I thought Gilded Palace of Sin was just okay. Some of it harkened back to the heavily twangy '50s country sound that I completely disliked, while other tracks went in a new direction with rock, R&B, and psychedelic influences. Those tracks, in my opinion, were the most interesting and most successful. I especially enjoyed the pair of Hot Burrito songs. While they had nothing to do with the Taco Bell delicacy, each track incorporated country emotion and connection with the sounds of the time, modernizing country music up to 1969. Perhaps that's where the influence on alt-country comes in - taking the old-school country genre, adding modern twists and turns, and coming up with something at once classic and original.
Favorite Tracks: Hot Burrito #1; Hot Burrito #2; Dark End of the Street
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