rocking in sugarland
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Track:Better Man/Sex On Fire
I went to the Wal-Mart website, and ordered something. I had no choice. There is no Wal-Mart in Manhattan (or in any of the boroughs, as far as I know), and if I wanted to purchase a copy of Sugarland's 'Live On The Inside,' my only option was the store's online destination. I'm not going to editorialize about whether it's a good idea to make Wal-Mart the only place to buy 'Live On The Inside,' or whether I should've bugged someone down at Mercury Nashville for it. I just think Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles are totally rockin', and although I haven't slipped the DVD in the player yet, I've been digging the 10-song live CD, on which they do a few originals and seven covers. Songs by R.E.M., Beyonce, Kings of Leon, Edie Brickell, Pearl Jam, and the B-52's. For those of you who might not know, Sugarland are a country band. Maybe the biggest country band there is.
A weird thing is happening in countryworld. Artists such as Sugarland, Little Big Town, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Gloriana, are making some of the most exciting mainstream rock out there, marketed as country, with enough of a twang factor to get over, but enough of the basic elements of classic rock to give baby boomers a case of honkytonk nostalgia.
So because I really, really wanted to hear Jennifer sing 'Irreplaceable,' and thought that Sugarland doing Kings of Leon was a crazy-amazing idea, and liked the notion of them paying tribute to fellow Georgians The B-52's and R.E.M., I gave my credit card information to the Wal-Mart empire, and was excited when the CD/DVD combo pack came in the mail.
You've seen this Sugarland/Little Big Town/Jake Owen video of Dream Academy's 'Life In A Northern Town,' right?
Above are the Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon tracks. I know, I know: you would rather not spend your money at Wal-Mart. Do it anyway.
Comments (6)
I do respect most of artists you listed, but marketing and some influences aside, it isn't really country music any more than The Band, Jackson Browne, and Buffalo Springfield were country music. On the other hand, these folks brings more class and cred to the label than Trace Adkins or Big & Rich or Toby Keith or anyone named Cyrus...
Hey, Mike - cheer up. Brooks & Dunn just announced their hanging it up after 20 years of torture.
Mike - I completely agree with you. Except for some instrumentation and vocal inflection, these artists are rock acts. But I'm embracing the fact that they are allowed to thrive in country world. And listen to the audience on the Sugarland CD: when do you hear that kind of excitement and exuberance at 'rock' shows? Face it, if a band came along today that sounded like Creedence Clearwater Revival -- or maybe even Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers -- it's far more likely they'd be signed through Nashville and marketed as country than by a label's rock department. Rock has abandoned that entire wing, and so we have to go to country to discover it.
Dermahrk - Brooks & Dunn are very far from the worst the genre has to offer. Have you heard 'You Can't Take The Honky Tonk Out Of the Girl'? Pretty cool.
Yeesh! Brooks & Dunn. (Okay, emscee. I'll bow to a couple of their tunes.) Meanwhile, you are sadly correct about the way the industry would react today to CCR, Petty or the Eagles. Wait a minute. If I'm not mistaken, every third male-fronted new-country act is ripping off the Eagles. Day-am!
The move of the successors of the 60s and 70s artists from rock to country has been happening for about 20 years. Someone will eventually write a book (hopefully a good one) that at least tries to explain it (is it some form of reverse ism? is it backlash against a twang in one's voice? is it just part of the diversification of the media? or is it just something that happened?). I just read Hotel California and all of those artists (rock and pop) would be in the country format today (and less than a handful would cross to pop).
However, the situation can also be looked at another way. When country artists are the biggest album sellers (starting with Garth and now with Taylor), should country be viewed as pop?
It just shows that times have changed!
I had the chance to see Sugarland (as the original trio w/ Kristen Hall) perform at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta before they were signed to Mercury Nashville. It was a fun, lively show and it was obvious that if they were eventually signed, they would achieve great fame. My sister went to college with Jennifer Nettles at Agnes Scott in the mid-90s and lived just down the hall from her one year. Even then, she performed in local clubs as a solo artist and also with the duo Soul Miner's Daughter, and later, The Jennifer Nettles Band.
Fans of Sugarland should check out her music from that era if you aren't already familiar with it.
http://www.myspace.com/jennifernettlesband
http://www.myspace.com/jnsoulminersdaughter