Vehicular Homicide

Smash Hits! 

Don't cheat on Carrie Underwood, dude

Carrie Underwood has an interesting relationship with cars. Generally speaking, if there’s  car in a song of hers, it’s getting wrecked, bad, and someone is getting hurt. Bad.

In her first post-Idol hit, Jesus had to take the wheel when the car hit a path of ice, saving the mother and child inside.

She teaches a cheating boyfriend a thing or two about bitch-ass crazy by taking a Louisville Slugger to both headlights etc. etc. in “Before He Cheats.” And that’s before he cheats, apparently.

What makes her appreciate how small she is in the world at large? According to her video for “So Small,” it’s walking back a suicidal car crash which is shot in exquisite slow-motion, like rubberneck porn.

And in her most recent single, Two Black Cadillacs are evidently used to squash a cheating husband to death, driven by his homicidal wife and mistress. Huh? Again, the car’s body is shown un-crumpling as if the deed had never been done. What does the mistress leave on his coffin? The car keys.

Traditionally speaking, cars appear in American music as tropes for freedom, escape, the great open road. They are literally vehicles for moving from one life to another. In Underwood’s song “Don’t Forget To Remember Me,” she uses a car to drive off into adulthood.

Now, when you hear that Underwood has a new “smash hit,” you know what this means.

Big and Rich: That’s Why We Listen

It's The Song

Here’s some songs you might have heard:

Jason Aldean’s “Hicktown,” "Amarillo Sky,” and “Johnny Cash.”

Faith Hill’s “Mississippi Girl,” and “Like We Never Loved At All.”

Tim McGraw’s “Last Dollar (Fly Away).”

Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.”

They were all co-written by John Rich, one half of the duo Big and Rich. Big Kenny Alphin is the big tall guy in a top hat. Rich is the smaller guy in a suit and a cowboy hat with an anachronistic moustache.

You may have heard their 2007 song “Lost In This Moment,” which is played ubiquitously at weddings.

Or you may have smirked at their other song, “Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy).”

If you listen to country radio, chances are your ears have caught a song written by a posse of talented writes (such as Sarah Buxton), “That’s Why I Pray.”

The reason The Inky Jukebox likes Big and Rich is not because of their politics, which are, like many of the artists The Inky Jukebox champions, not exactly the same as The Inky Jukebox’s. We like them because every now and then, two people come along and sing together and make a glorious noise. Their two voices are lovely apart, but gorgeous together. Big Kenny provide the dark velvet undertones, while John Rich claims the earnest upper register.

If you were the captain of a band which had to write and perform songs, Big and Rich would likely be your first picks. (Fine, Mac McAnally might be in there too.)

Music is about sound. Pleasant, awesome, brilliant sound is what songs are made of. Big and Rich deliver both Bigness and Richness to music. It’s as simple as that.

Aaron Lewis: Out On The Road

Homebody's Lament

These are the things that Aaron Lewis would like you to know he loves most, in order:

His children

His wife

His home

His hometown

Massachusetts

His Granddaddy’s gun

Hunting

America

Hanging out with his wife and kids, at home, 

in Massachusetts, hunting, preferably with a gun of some kind.

It’s a pretty nice, old-fashioned list. It is not the list, one might think, of a rocker who spends a great deal of time playing music out on the road.

This is the crux of Aaron Lewis’s creative output as a bona fide country singer: he’s a conservative homebody who resents anything that takes him away from the things he loves — including music, which is what he does for a living. It seems that he might therefore be a bit morose, but his music doesn’t come across that way; though filled with songs about regret, they are nonetheless upbeat and celebratory, even as they bemoan large chunks of life that are missed.

His latest album, The Road, is a collection of songs that sound like country songs, not least because they feature steel guitar and instrumentation that one hears in more traditional Nashville offerings. It’s a challenge to anyone who might still hold the idea that rock singers can’t be country acts — something that the new crop of young Turks makes clear is woefully out of date. You’re more likely to hear heavy guitar riffs on the country charts than anywhere else these days. And yet Lewis doesn’t shred up the studio on his records; it’s his songwriting and most of all his voice that carries the day.

The album consists of ten tracks, none of which are fillers. If you want twang, you have “75” and “Party In Hell,” which give the album a solid country base. And if you want radio-ready hits, there’s the single “Forever,” and “Granddaddy’s Gun.”

The deluxe version (which The Inky Jukebox highly recommends) offers five additional bonus tracks, all live versions of his best songs, and a surprising but profoundly competent cover of Rascal Flatts’ “What Hurts the Most,” proving that a song’s a song’s a song.

Go to 3:40

Lewis’s previous EP, Town Line, was fleshed out with multiple versions of the hit “Country Boy,” the best of which was always and clearly the one with George Jones playing the part of the Devil, accompanied by Charlie Daniels on fiddle. How can you go wrong? But the real gems on that short record were the four songs which never made it onto the radio, ballads with real heart and soul and melody.

The Inky Jukebox would love for him to come to town and play, but would feel awfully guilty for dragging him away from the things he loves to do so.  If you like country music, you’ll like this new record. You should buy it now.

Wish List

Top Ten Things The Inky Jukebox Would Like To See 

(And Hear) In 2013

In No Particular Order

Gary LeVox duets with Grace Potter.

We don’t care what they sing. Just that they have a fierce and dazzling vocal battle in which everyone is a winner.

Justin Moore headlines his own tour and sings “Outlaws Like Me.”

Hey — he’s bringing out a new album; he needs to tour that baby. And with two hours or so to fill, he’d have time to sing all our favorites.

Eric Chuch sings “Springsteen,” and Bruce actually joins him on stage for it.

C’mon: surely his people and his people can make it happen. How hard can it be? The cheering alone would seriously deafen people. Happily.

Brantley Gilbert plays at The Inky Jukebox’s wedding.

Look: If he’ll agree to it, a wedding can be arranged.

Kenny Chesney busts out all The Inky Jukebox’s favorite Kenny Chesney songs at his show.

Wait; he’ll do that already. Never mind.

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill film their Vegas show so we can all see it.

Sure, it’ll be staged within an inch of its life, but wouldn’t you want to go? They have to sing “Jackson,” though.

Ashton Shepherd releases her own record and sells a bazillion copies; is offered new record contract.

Ashton Shepherd was hit with horrible timing: her second record was over-produced, and she was too busy makin’ babies to tour it. She’s too big a talent to be entertaining her loyal fans with her homey facebook posts about domestic life.

Brad Paisley and Blake Shelton actually come to Pittsburgh.

They were scheduled to perform last year, and never showed up. It’s been a LONG time, fellas. Stop on by, whydon’tcha?

Blonde Ambition Competition Show.

It would feature all the blondes who have appeared on TV singing competitions: Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Kellie Pickler. They would be supported by all the guys: Philip Philips, Casey James, Scotty McCreery, etc.

Jennifer Nettles sings with Kimberly Schlapman and Charles Kelley.

The official video features them recording the track live in the studio with plenty of practice and warm-up out-takes. Sing the phone book; whatev.

#11: Brooks and Dunn decide to get back together.

Carrie Underwood and Hunter Hayes Come To Pittsburgh

Storm Warning: Prepare to be Blown Away!

Pittsburgh, November 27, 2012

Shorts are a good option if the stage is transparent and you are above people's heads

You know those intimidating-looking consoles that sound engineers sit in front of in recording studios, with a zillion dials and buttons and knobs? One presumes that many of them balance the general sound of all the input streams (vocal, guitars, drums, etc.) so that the layers ride in synch with one another to make the auditory experience pleasurable for the listener.

A criticism of contemporary recordings is that they’ve been “brickwalled” in this way, compressed so that very little dynamic range remains to give a record depth.

With Carrie Underwood, The Inky Jukebox has always secretly suspected that the engineers behind her records have turned everything up to eleven and gone out for beers. Every single element sounds like it has been pushed to the limit, sort of like standing in a kindergarten room at tired-time. Sure, Carrie’s voice sounds amazing — but can a real human voice really rise above all that sound? Do real human voices really sound like that at all? Listen to “So Small”: could a person make that sound if it weren’t for a lot of electronics?

Thus is was with a somewhat technical curiosity The Inky Jukebox attended Carrie Underwood’s Blown Away tour stop in Pittsburgh. If you’re going to name your tour “Blown Away,” it better do just that.

Carrie Underwood on the floating stage

The Inky Jukebox confoundedly reports that Carrie Underwood sounds pretty much the same live as she does on a CD. In person, a few less perfect notes break through, reassuringly, but her voice still reaches those places mortals tend not to go. One might wonder if this is because the sound mixer had her band turned up extra high, causing her to have to ride above it (and not always succeeding). At times, it can appear that Carrie is competing with the guitars for attention, when there should only be one diva on the stage.

The Inky Jukebox was delighted when the floating stage came out and stopped right where she was sitting giving her a front-row seat. Now that this bit of mechanics is here, it looks like everyone has to do some kind of crowd-immersion maneuver. 

The Inky Jukebox recorded this footage

This is mercifully tempered at the very end of the concert, when opening the encore, Carrie sits and sings, with only subtle accompaniment, with such force that you finally feel she could literally blow you away. It’s astonishing that she could produce such vocal fireworks two hours into a show.

Anything Taylor Swift, I can do better! 

Now that we’ve dispensed with the actual singing, we need to move on to the costumes. Carrie Underwood is known for two things: her blonde locks and her long legs. Both were being played for all their worth. The trouble with Carrie’s costumes is that they scream Oklahoma girl in a frock! They are clearly stage costumes and not real clothes, and even the most humble of outfits — cut-off jeans and a tank-top — is gussied up with dangly accessories galore. Carrie is sexiest when prowling a stage in a pair of black leather pants and thigh-high boots. Alas, the ruffled blue mini-dress confection with ankle booties has the opposite effect.

The screen says it all, clever marketing move

One person The Inky Jukebox will definitely see when he comes to town again is Hunter Hayes, who lives up to all the hype. He is clearly a natural on the stage and in front of a crowd, which ought to be expected since he’s been doing this professionally since he was six. The only thing that wasn’t as awesome as the talent he brings is the shortness of the set he has to deliver as an opening act, and the way this causes him to rush songs which deserve more breathing room. This is especially so when circumstances cause him to drop “Rainy Season” from the set — a longer song that needs time to develop, and perhaps a more intimate setting or invested crowd.

Hunter Hayes, go see him while he's still young

Taylor Swift: Genius?

Let's Get Together

Some people decry Taylor Swift as merely an opportunistic ingénue who shoves out girly-pop under the guise of being an actual country music star. Some people relish her wholesome, talent and professionalism, citing her immense popularity with her core demographic. As she releases her new album Red, this week, it is time for The Inky Jukebox to pick sides.

Let’s use a single from this album as a point of focus: the irrepressible “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”

Once you’ve heard this devastatingly catchy song once, you already know it. Its chorus is hook-city. It is jarringly up-tempo for a break-up song. It acknowledges the DRAMA of teenage dating into the fluff it is. It’s a pop song. There’s nothing explicitly country about it — something you can say about most of Swift’s work since her MySpace success with “Tim McGraw,” which is only country in that it references Tim McGraw. Swift claims she wrote it specifically to annoy the guy the song references, being everything he said he hates in music. The Inky Jukebox is not sure how well this maneuver is going to continue to work before people get pissed off about being dragged into Swift’s dating troubles. The fabric is already wearing thin.

But today, I walked into the lounge at a girl’s high school, and they were playing it and all singing heartily along, completely unconcerned about any of these things. This seems to trump all of the criticism being tossed back and forth at the end of the day. These girls are living through Swift vicariously, looking forward to the day they too can tell a guy goodbye without sounding so damn sad and broke-up about it. 

The Inky Jukebox will review Red later....

Hunter Hayes: The Youngest Old Pro You’ve Never Heard Of

He's Wanted

Every now and then along comes a musical prodigy who astonishes everyone with their remarkable facility with an instrument. For some unknown reason they are able to play songs perfectly by ear, or pick up the intricacies of the instrument as if by magic. Parents post videos of such things on YouTube and we all gasp. As often as not, however, childhood promise does not materialize into adult talent, and what seemed incredible at 4 years of age becomes ordinary at 24 years of age. Perhaps the little genius grows tired of being the center of attention or develops just as big a love for video games, say, or cocaine, or even just attention, things one’s parents do not advertize on YouTube.

One such child star was Hunter Hayes (see above). Only in his case, he actually grew up to develop that early gift, and is now a bona fide adult star. I say grown up, but what I mean is 21. Dude is still only 21, yet he has released five independent albums and one self-titled debut on a major label, as well as having written songs for acts like Rascal Flatts.

Although known as a guitar / accordion prodigy, Hayes’s skills reach deep: he also plays mandolin, keyboards, bass guitar, piano and drums along with having a voice lesser sings would kill for. Not only that, but he played every instrument that appears on his album. Oh, and he co-writes and co-produced every song on his record too. Plus he looks good.

I know, BOOOORING, right?

No.

Here he is singing “Rainy Season” at a little club the day before he turned 20 last year. Check out his guitar chops.

And here is the future Grand Ole Opry member showing off his piano chops on his hit “Wanted.”

And something a little up tempo — his hit “Storm Warning,” where he demonstrates his mastery of the acoustic guitar.

While Hayes had, it must be admitted, a touch of the performing seal about him when 4 years old, he looks like he thoroughly enjoys himself on stage now. To wit: “Billy Jean.”

Hayes is currently opening for Carrie Underwood on tour. The Inky Jukebox will be seeing them both in November, and will report back on how insanely awesome it was. Buy his album Hunter Hayes now.

…And here’s a wee bit more.