Alan Jackson - Drive (For Daddy Gene)

This offering from Alan Jackson is a bit different than most of the ones I've focused on so far. The song itself is not so awful, especially when compared to other singles Alan Jackson released from the same album, for example. No, "Drive (For Daddy Gene)" is a relatively forgettable Contemporary Popular Country song focusing on that time-tested subject of motor vehicles.

(Although, I do have to note that I did grow up in a more rural area than the one where I currently live, and I do know of some parents who would allow their children to take the wheel on occasion because this is cute or something? To me, it seems more irresponsible and terrifying. But, that's just me.)

So if the song itself isn't what's so awful about this single, what can be the factor that is driving this song from bad to intolerable? The nonsense that was slapped together that is supposed to pass as a music video, that's what.



The concept here is pretty straight forward. Alan Jackson is recalling the instances where his father allowed him to operate a boat and a truck, and these memories are brought to life like literal pictures in a dusty old book springing to life. The problem is, that the "pictures" are animated incredibly cheaply and it's just awkward to watch. Just take a look at the young Alan Jackson in the Mario Andretti car at around 2:23 in the video. That's really the best they could scare up for one of CPC's top stars? I am willing to wager that, given a reasonable amount of time, I could have done better than that, and believe me when I tell you that an artist I am not. Seriously, though, that is just awful. And the boat at 1:17 isn't much better.

The thing is, this level of quality of computer animation could be forgiven if this had been released in, say, the early to mid 1990's. But it wasn't. "Drive (For Daddy Gene)" was released as a single in 2002. 2002. Computer animation had already been revolutionized by Toy Story in 1995. That means that the better part of a decade had elapsed since the world at large started taking serious notice of computer animation, and when this video was released. It would be unfair of me to expect a high-quality output from a team assembling a music video (which is hardly going to be as high-budget and quality-oriented as Pixar) if it had been the next year. But nearly a decade later? There is no excuse for this low quality.

And that is how it came to pass that an unremarkable song earned its place here amongst all the other royally crappy songs.

I would like to add, though, that it is really brave of Alan Jackson to continue sporting the mustache and mullet in 2002 in the face of good taste. That man has a story about his looks, and he's sticking to it. And I, for one, applaud him.

Brad Paisley - Camouflage

There is quite a bit of humor to be found in a piece of entertainment (be it a movie, a book, or a song) that has every serious intention, but fails. Whether discussing love, friendship, or finding meaning in every day life, when an artist completely misses the mark, it has the potential to be uproarious. I hope I've highlighted some examples of that here, with at least a modicum of success.

The same can not be said when the intention is to be funny. A failed attempt at humor is nothing short of incredibly awkward. Take, for example, every single movie that ever starred Rob Schneider. There isn't a single one of them that is funny (in the way it is supposed to be), and the viewer can't even hope to find them hilarious in an ironic way. They're simply terrible.

Brad Paisley's latest single, "Camouflage" is not unlike those aforementioned films. Now, I am not one of those types that is turned off by humor in music (as my They Might Be Giants and Dead Milkmen collections will attest). What I am turned off by is songs that attempt to be clever, cute, and/or cheeky and instead come off as annoying. "Camouflage" is just another lousy attempt by a Contemporary Popular Country artist to sell records by appealing to some piece of redneck culture.

I assume the desired reaction from a listener goes something like this: "Huh. I like to hunt, and when I do, I wear camouflage. In fact, a lot of my buddies also wear camouflage. Yeah, camouflage is pretty cool, huh? I think I'll buy this record, right after I finish my Budweiser." Unfortunately, after this song hit my east coast, city-dwelling, elitist ears, my reaction was: "Well, I guess I can't avoid writing about Brad Paisley on my blog anymore. His admittedly formidable guitar chops can't save him from this one."

Justin Moore - Bait A Hook

I'm running a bit behind this week, because the NFL Conference Championships were on this past weekend, but this one is sure worth the wait, let me tell you.

There are few topics a song can focus on that are more vapid, more insipid, more completely wasting of the listener's time than mindless bragging, or, conversely, pointless belittling. It's very unlikely that the listener is going to identify with your boastful statements, so any hopes of having universal appeal is rather narrow. The very best you can hope for is that the audience believes in your self-aggrandizing enough to idolize you. Which is an incredibly shallow goal to have as a songwriter.

Now, that isn't to say that the occasional ego-centric statement doesn't work on occasion. Many rap artists have turned bragadocious banter into an art form, which works because (in many cases) the claims are a calculated combination of incredible creativity and, often, a healthy dose of humor.

Such is not the case in any Contemporary Popular Country song I have ever heard. The claims always focus around the fact that the other guy is one of three things: Wimpy (which is subject to interpretation), not "country" enough, or doesn't have possession of trucks and/or tractors that match the size of the one doing the bragging. I've yet to ever hear a bragging song in the genre of CPC that doesn't focus on one of those three categories. Which is yet another example of the sheer lack of creativity in the world of Contemporary Popular Country.

This particular example of this uninteresting, uninspired, and unoriginal sub-genre is brought to us by Justin Moore. He is, of course, the talented song-spinner that brought us this classic that I posted about a while ago.

There is really only one thing worth mentioning about this particular song that isn't covered by talking about "country bragging songs" in general (because it is so incredibly unremarkable). I find it decidedly exasperating that in order to be a Real Man in the eyes of CPC songwriters, one has to be able to operate some sort of large motor vehicle, or participate in some sort of animal slaughter. ("He cain't even bait a hook! He cain't even skin a buck!" claims Moore in the unforgettable chorus of this timeless-classic-to-be.) I realize that I'm letting my elitist east coast city-dweller perspective show by saying so, but if I can't share it here, well, where can I?

Gretchen Wilson - Work Hard, Play Harder

One thing fans of contemporary pop country love is some sense of "working class roots" in the artists they love. No matter how unbelievably filthy rich they might be now, the fact that they once were not adds some seal of "authenticity" to them, for some reason. Never mind the fact that most recording artists were at some point not incredibly well-to-do (with the exception of people like Lady GaGa or the usually talentless children of other celebrities like Kelly Osbourne), and had to work their way up from the bottom. Gretchen Wilson fits this mold perfectly. According to her Wikipedia page, she grew up in relative poverty with her young, single mother. She dropped out of school at 15 to work in restaurants and began singing in some cover band by the age of 18, at which age she was overheard by some bar manager that booked her to sing cover songs. There is a giant gap between this part of her biography and her signing to a major label in the early 2000's, but who really cares? She was poor, and now she isn't! She made it! And if she can become a giant star because of her karaoke skills then so can you and I!!!

To me, an artist shows what they are worth not because of their upbringing (because that can't be helped), but what they do with their notoriety once they achieve it. Take the excellent example of Mike Watt. Watt also came from humble beginnings, but even though he has performed in many influential bands and appeared with many successful artists (including Sonic Youth), he has still maintained a hard work ethic in his current ventures, and has not allowed his (relative) fame get in the way of his art. Between playing in countless bands (including, recently, Iggy Pop and the Stooges) Mike Watt hosts a podcast that updates on a regular basis and has penned a book. His dedication to his craft is readily apparent, and his working class aesthetic is incredibly genuine because of it.

Such is not the case with Gretchen Wilson. As with basically all contemporary pop country stars, her music is intellectually lazy, catering to the lowest common denominator in order to sell more copies. ("I'm a redneck!", "I like to get drunk!", etc. You get the point.) This is compounded by the fact that she doesn't even write her own music, but rather has a team of songwriters that write for her. Her music videos are nothing more than shoots of parties that her record label is hosting, usually featuring one or more noted celebrities (once again, to sell more copies of the single), from Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. to Larry the Cable Guy and other famous people that make my east coast stomach turn just thinking about.

Of all her annoying, lazy songs, there are none that top "Work Hard, Play Harder".



The first thing that strikes me about this song is its inherent dishonesty. While she might have held some challenging jobs in her adolescent years, it has been at least the better part of a decade since Wilson relied on that type of work to pay her bills. I seriously doubt that she looks down at her hands and finds these callouses that she alleges to find there, aside from the ones on her fingertips from occasionally strumming her guitar. This song (once again not penned by her) is a blatant attempt by the songwriting team to appeal to working class folks in the midwest, and sadly, these people go for it. Gretchen Wilson doesn't actually work in a diner and bartend through out the course of her week, only to get dangerously inebriated on Friday nights. In fact, even when she was working in those types of places, she was far too young to be gathering her "rowdy" friends and going to these honky-tonk watering holes she speaks of, so any claims of this being some way of her paying homage to her roots would be patently false as well.

Secondly, there is the laziness of the video that serves as the promotional tool for this song. One would think that in a song about working really hard during the week and cutting loose on the weekend the video would feature Wilson dressed like a waitress "working hard for her money" or something. That would be the obvious choice, and since we have learned that Gretchen Wilson Inc. favors the lowest common denominator, that would be the way to go! Apparently, though, Wilson can't be seen in a music video not donning classic "redneck" attire, so we get nothing of the sort.

Instead, we get scenes of her riding around in a convertible, scenes of her "playing" with her band, and (the one that really gets me) Gretchen Wilson standing by the side of the road, lip-syncing the song while clips from her older videos play on the barn in the background. That's right. They couldn't even be bothered to record enough new footage to fill the three minutes of this song, so they instead recycled footage from older videos, especially the parts that featured the celebrities.

Lastly, if you are a relatively popular recording artist, and you are going to hire people to write your songs for you, you want to make sure that they are not plagiarizing the songs. (For comparison, the Black Crowes song they are alleging that GW Inc. stole is this one, and I have to say, they have a very valid argument.)

Taylor Swift - Mean

Honestly, Taylor Swift barely counts as a country performer. The music that she performs is nothing but bubblegum pop music that is occasionally accented with typical "country" instruments. Her music owes more to Juice Newton's early works than it does to Dolly Parton (how interesting that Juice Newton eventually dragged herself over to country music later in her career).

I don't care for any of Swift's music, but that isn't really surprising. As a 30-year old male, I'm hardly the demographic that the people who market her are attempting to woo. Most of her singles come and go without me even being aware that anything happened, and as far as I am concerned, it's best for everyone that way.

I became aware of the song "Mean" several months ago, when it was up for an MTV Video Music Award for "Best Song With A Message", for which it was up against (among others) Rise Against's fantastic anti-homophobia/bullying song "Make It Stop (September's Children)", a song that I like very much and was quite affected by the video.

Since I was floored that a band that I enjoyed was up for a VMA, I became curious what the competition was like, and I looked into the other songs, one of which was Taylor Swift's own song against bullying, "Mean".

The intention of the song is admirable enough. Taylor Swift is attempting to use her influence to shed light on how bad bullying is, and how it can effect people. The well-intended goal of this song is almost (not completely, but almost) enough to make up for the fact that Taylor Swift clearly has no idea how to play the banjo, since she is strumming it like a guitar in the video (and pretending to play power chords that wouldn't work at all on a banjo because of the way it is strung) and the overall crappiness of the song. Or even the fact that she claims to not be able to wait until she is "living in a big 'ol city" even though she is from a suburb less than half an hour outside of Philadelphia.

The biggest problem I have with the song is the hypocrisy. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "bully" has several definitions, depending on whether it is being used as a noun, an adjective, or a verb. Under the verb category, the word is defined like this: "to affect by means of force or coercion". I would expand this definition for clarification by adding that the person doing the bullying does so from a position of power, be it physical, mental, or access to influence.

It is because Taylor Swift, as an incredibly popular singer, has a venue to air her opinions that most people don't have, that lines like, "All you are is mean, and a liar, and pathetic, and alone in life" come across as decidedly bully-ish. She is belittling the subject of the song by means of coercion, from her position of power as a popular singer.

There are so many other ways that Swift could express herself and her distaste for the (Real? Imagined?) bully from her past without acting like a bully herself. Her awful means nearly negate any positivity that the song might have had. If your goal is to highlight actions from others that you feel are wrong, it should be understood that you make sure not to participate in the exact same behavior.

Perhaps Swift should leave topical songs to those with a touch more songwriting prowess, and continue focusing on the pop music her fans revere her for.

Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup

I realize I haven't updated here in quite a while, and I apologize for that. My situation at work changed, and I was no longer exposed to the local country station every day. Because of this, I did not know about any of the new songs coming out, nor was I listening to the older songs (that were new to me) anymore, and my hatred for contemporary popular country cooled to a mild simmer.

Of course, every once in a while a song would come across my path that would stoke the flames a bit, and I thought about coming here to post, but the fullness of my schedule made it hard to find the time to devote to writing an entry here.

Well, a song has finally crossed into my radar of awareness that is so detestable, so lazy and awful, that I simply couldn't hold back anymore, and a post became inevitable. Toby Keith is one of those "artists" that I had a serious dislike for before I really knew much of his catalog. His positioning of himself politically as a "conservative Democrat" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) and "speaking out" as a flag-wearing patriot, etc. has generally left a bad taste in my mouth. After reading about all this, and before I could easily recognize any of his songs, my dislike of him was very strong. Then I found out that I was actually familiar with one of his earlier songs. When I was sixteen, I worked for a major fast food chain, and they played the local country station back in the kitchen, so some of the songs from that time period (the late 1990's) I was aware of. One of which is "How Do You Like Me Now?", a song that celebrates the misfortunes of Keith's former flames, and assumes that they could not possibly be happy with anyone but him. Which is obviously true.

As the years have gone by, I've become more aware of Keith's work, and I can honestly say that my initial inclination to not like him was dead on. The man's songs are simply awful. They range from insipid, to mildly offensive, to downright annoying.

All of his past works, however, could not prepare the world for the wretched offering that is, "Red Solo Cup".

It would be terribly easy to point out the fact that there is hardly any actual singing in this song, but as a fan of opera, I have respect for the occasional use of sprechgesang, and although I doubt that Keith is even aware of that technique, I can let that slide. It would be just as easy to complain about the relative simplicity of the composition, but the Beach Boys and some other bands have based their career on catchy, simple songs with a lot of heart and soul, and although Keith lacks any trace of heart and soul (at least in this case) it would be wrong to condemn him simply for that fact.

No, what makes "Red Solo Cup" an awful song rests in two things. First, there is the glaring brand placement. Nothing makes a song more plastic (for lack of a better term) than to use a brand name in it, and to use that brand name as the central theme of the song makes it nothing more than a commercial jingle.

Secondly, and more importantly, this song was written with the express purpose of being played at every drunken frat party, tailgate, etc. everywhere for years to come. There was no sincerity in the composition of this ditty, only an overt ploy to entrench Keith's financial security in America's drinking culture, something that is not likely to diminish any time soon. It is with this marketing in mind that Keith made the song so simple. Not because that minimalism was what Keith was inspired by, but because it is that much easier for drunken crowds to sing. Just look at the string of celebrities that make an appearance towards the end of the video (another cheap marketing ploy) singing along.

This is not a song that attempts to be quality in any way, instead it is a faux-drunken abomination that is created with the sole purpose of hoping the video goes viral (which is the other reason for all the celebrities at the end). The worst part is, this is the first single from Keith's latest album. This wasn't released as an afterthought, or some kind of web-exclusive, this is designed as the entryway into his latest offering, and that speaks volumes about both the state of country music and Keith's (the richest, and unfortunately, most powerful man in the genre) perception of its audience.

The least we can hope for is that this song's decomposition time is faster than that of it's subject.