I
think as a listener I had more than one foot out the door of mainstream country
circa 2002. Probably sooner, really, but running down this year’s list I’m
seeing more of the songs and acts that had me thinking this maybe wasn’t for me
anymore. I was getting deeper into trying to be a songwriter myself but wasn’t
hearing much on country radio that made me wish I’d written it myself, aside
from the financial considerations. Aside from the Alan Jackson CD I don’t think
I owned any of the albums the 2002 songs came from; I was pretty deep into the
alt-country and independent Texas/Oklahoma regional artists, plus digging back
into the catalogs of Willie Nelson and John Prine and Bob Dylan and whoever
else I thought might spur me on to better directions as a writer. If I was
listening to country it was passive listening, mostly at the day job. Most of
the stuff I liked wasn’t on the radio and I couldn’t really get away with hard
rock or hip-hop at work. And some of this stuff could make work seem
like a chore.
But
most of it’s not that bad. No point in being a grouch. Alan Jackson’s “Where
Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” remains an admirable example of
combining introspection with empathy, bringing an audience in on your own
thoughts and feelings, a plainspoken “we’re all in this together” with vulnerability
and faith. Songs with this sort of gravity often make an odd choice for radio
singles – usually a couple of listens to a tear-jerking message song is plenty,
you get the point and move on – but I feel like people needed to hear this at
the time.
They
probably could’ve done without Steve Holy and “Good Morning Beautiful,” but
tough shit I guess. On his first single “Don’t Make Me Beg,” Holy seemed like
he might’ve been a rockabilly-tinged throwback, but nah. “GMB” is as generic,
saccharine and pillowy-soft as it gets. His voice wasn’t actively irritating
but it was as forgettable as Ty Herndon and Mark Wills and Chad Brock and
whoever else had gotten a handful of interchangeable hits without leaving any
discernible impression. One can be trained to sing well, of course, but having
a distinctive voice with some personality to it is hard, and probably sometimes
discouraged by labels and producers to the detriment of the artist. Jo Dee
Messina didn’t have a ton of distinction to her voice either I guess, but she
had a good enough one to blend with the more-distinctive voice of her buddy Tim
McGraw on the lovely, resilient “Bring on the Rain.” Despite the twangy add-on,
this one managed to crack the Adult Contemporary top ten as well.
Tim
McGraw solo was up next with “The Cowboy in Me.” It’s a bit self-serious, but
cowboy mythology and ethos is a big business and perhaps the big-budget sonic
aesthetic is as sincere a way as any to honor it. Brooks & Dunn’s “The Long
Goodbye” was similarly grandiose but much more heartache-y in sentiment, a
masterclass of vocal empathy from Ronnie Dunn, covering a number by rootsy
Irish singer-songwriter Paul Brady. The specter of 9/11 hung so heavy over
everything it’s hard to not read into songs about resilience or mourning,
adding subtext after the fact to songs that were almost undoubtedly written
before it all went down. Was Martina McBride’s “Blessed” just another fluffy,
cheerful bit of throw-pillow country-pop or gratitude in the face of tragedy,
served with a stiff upper lip? Was newcomer Chris Cagle’s heartsick “I Breathe
In, I Breathe Out” just another post-breakup wallow or a self-healing mantra in
the aftermath of trauma and loss? Even the easygoing ramble of Toby Keith’s “My
List,” ostensibly about an overworked dad reassessing his priorities, took on a
little extra life-is-short weight in context.
Singing
about your kids was getting more and more pervasive; it was like they were
trying to follow the teens and young adults the Class of ’89 brought aboard
milestone for milestone instead of putting much focus on drawing in a new
mini-generation of young fans. Alan Jackson had led the previous charge and
remained on board with the content trend, even if he was stauncher than most at
sticking to more traditional sounds. “Drive (For Daddy Gene)” was a pleasantly
earnest bit about everyday lessons passed from generation to generation,
wrapped up tidily in metaphors about cars and boats. George Strait didn’t get
into parenting this time around with “Living and Living Well,” but the message
was that getting happily settled down was a better way to go than a carefree
(read: selfish) solo existence. Brad Paisley, one of the few newbies that felt
like someone who could be a successor to the Straits and Jacksons of the world,
sort of bucked the family-friendly trend with “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’
Song).” An extended riff on an old novelty t-shirt joke, it’s a folksy
singalong about a guy who responds to his wife’s ultimatum about his incessant
fishing by going fishing. At least he didn’t snag her purse and force her to
dance with him in hopes of getting it back.
But
so much for lighthearted humor for awhile. Toby Keith’s big statement song
“Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” might’ve had some
dark humor in the lyrics but, thematically, it was somewhere between a
chest-beating call to arms and a threatening scowl across the ocean. In the
wake of 9/11, you didn’t need to be a conservative firebrand to feel righteous anger
at terrorists; vengeful justice was a pretty common shared wish. Sometimes that
sort of un-nuanced contempt spilled over to whole races or regions or religions
and that’s not right, of course. And of course some pundits took the tack of
painting Keith as an opportunistic bigmouth, but there was little reason to
think his patriotism was insincere; he was one of the most enthusiastic
entertainers when it came to visiting and performing for American troops
overseas when he could’ve been richer and safer back home. None of that makes
this an especially good song though, and this sort of vague rally-cry stuff
probably went past troops feeling appreciated to swaying the public towards
giving the U.S. government a free pass on any questionable moves going forward.
But, much of a cultural lightning rod as he was suddenly willing to be, this is
all a much bigger discussion than Toby Keith.
Sort
of surprisingly, that was only #1 for a week anyway, succeeded by the much more
peaceful “The Good Stuff” by Kenny Chesney. Chesney had already established
himself as a specialist in lightweight breeziness but here he dove into the
hard-country tradition of songs about hard-earned barroom wisdom; he may have
been no Vern Gosdin vocally, but he did well enough with a tale about a
discouraged young husband given perspective by a widower bartender to hang at
#1 for a full seven weeks. It’s a little weird that him and the bartender end
up drinking milk (wtf, right?) but otherwise the story rings true enough and
Chesney’s lightweight delivery makes sense if he’s casting himself as the
youngster in the tale. When Tim McGraw finally broke the streak with “Unbroken”
it was a considerably poorer fit of artist and material; maybe the glossy
arena-rock thing sounded good live on tour, but on record the track sounded
clunky and the singer sounded overwhelmed. It sounds like something from
late-era Bon Jovi, and not in a good way, but at least Jon Bon’s vocals
would’ve fit the bill.
Newcomer
Darryl Worley, in contrast, seemed unlikely to tread into arena-rock waters
anytime soon. He was already a couple top-20 hits into his career and scored
his first #1 with the spare, ruminative “I Miss My Friend.” It was a modest,
well-crafted bit of twilit twang from a guy who seemed like he might fit
alongside Brad Paisley in a mini-boom of artists stripping things back down to
relative basics. Not really retro, just kind of a course-correction … it didn’t
change the business, but at least it kept some room at the table for the
likeminded. Diamond Rio had some built-in rootsiness with their bluegrass-inspired
harmonies, but “Beautiful Mess” was suburban country all the way, This kind of
flexibility probably helped them stick around as long as they did, but the
forgettable love song pretty much evaporated the moment it left the charts.
When
you’re only looking at lists of #1s, Tracy Byrd in 2002 probably seems like a
typo. He hadn’t hit #1 since around his debut in 1993, but he never really went
away or even stumbled much. He was a fairly regular visitor to the top ten or
thereabouts, not unlike other folks like Sammy Kershaw or Trisha Yearwood or
whoever that came out around the same time. It was just a crowded field and –
though this might be hard to believe, considering some of the middling junk
that did break through – it was pretty damn hard to climb all the way to the
top. But the good-time drinking song “Ten Rounds With Jose Cuervo” did the
trick for him. He might’ve had to make a gradual lean into bigger production
and gimmicky songs, but he was hanging in there. It would’ve been hard to argue
at this point, though, that he had much of a shelf life left with guys like
Keith Urban busting through. The male model-esque Aussie landed an absolute
smash with “Somebody Like You,” which somehow managed to sound like a total pop
crossover number even though the video is mostly Urban photogenically picking a
banjo, which also figures prominently into the song’s mix. I recall getting
tired of it at the time, but really it’s not bad. It actually sounds pretty
invigorating when you only hear it once or twice a year instead of several
times a day during its six-week run at #1.
And
anyway it was practically George Strait next to those Rascall Flatts guys that
I guess we always knew we’d end up having to talk about. If we’re just talking
their first #1 “These Days” then I probably sound like a premature grouch, it’s
not my cup of tea but it’s not actively irritating. One did certainly get the
feeling though that with their trebly harmonies, big-production genrelessness
and youthfully crafted images that they were mainstream country’s non-subtle
attempt to reflect the boy-band craze going around in mainstream pop. Granted, the
likes of Backstreet Boys and N’Sync had been around for a few years at this
point, but Nashville’s used to being a few steps behind any given pop trend.
So
it was nice to have a couple of relatively grown-ass folks closing out the
year. Toby Keith sat aside the patriotic bravado for the easygoing charm of
“Who’s Your Daddy?,” which was way more cheerful and less cocky than the title
suggests. Dude was having a moment, obviously, although like most things it was
a blip next to chart warhorse for the ages George Strait. Strait’s “She’ll
Leave You With a Smile” was a sad little wink of a song, an ode to a woman who’d
break your heart but was such a fun fling it’d be worth it. It was Strait’s 38th
#1 hit on the Billboard charts and, oddly, got as high as #23 on the all-genre
Hot 100 despite not being notably retooled towards anything pop. Unlike other
lifers who’d had to resort to gimmicks or major tweaks to their approach or
image, Strait being Strait remained enough to be relevant in a shifting
less-country country music landscape. A lot of stuff was popping up that wasn’t
to the taste of listeners like me. Just like it was in the early ‘80s when he
sprung up as a vibrantly traditional voice amidst the encroaching schmaltz,
Strait’s presence among the success stories seemed like a sign that maybe
things weren’t so bad. But unlike those earlier days, by 2002 you had to worry
just how long guys like him could hold down the fort.
THE
TREND?
Maybe
I’m leaning too hard on the 9/11 aftermath stuff here (at least in the
country-music-chart context). Toby Keith’s “Angry American” tune was a bigger
cultural talking point than it was a hit, and aside from that and the Alan
Jackson song everything else that met the moment sort of did so accidentally. The
more pedestrian observation here would be that things seemed to be taking an
inexorable turn towards the corny and schmaltzy, with chucklehead semi-novelty
numbers and florid love songs taking up quite a bit of space. The stuff that
wasn’t about the cultural upheaval of the day didn’t feel like it’d be relevant
for much longer than the material that was. Maybe the industry figured people
just needed a lightweight distraction in between the grim news updates. But
then again, this trend towards material that’s somehow both lazy and overdone had
been in motion for a while.
THE RANKING
- Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) – Alan Jackson
- The Long Goodbye – Brooks & Dunn
- Bring on the Rain – Jo Dee Messina with Tim McGraw
- I Miss My Friend – Darryl Worley
- She’ll Leave You With a Smile – George Strait
- Drive (For Daddy Gene) – Alan Jackson
- Living and Living Well – George Strait
- The Cowboy in Me – Tim McGraw
- Who’s Your Daddy – Toby Keith
- The Good Stuff – Kenny Chesney
- Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) – Toby Keith
- I Breathe In, I Breathe Out – Chris Cagle
- Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo – Tracy Byrd
- Somebody Like You – Keith Urban
- I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song) – Brad Paisley
- My List – Toby Keith
- Blessed – Martina McBride
- These Days – Rascall Flatts
- Beautiful Mess – Diamond Rio
- Unbroken – Tim McGraw
- Good Morning Beautiful - Steve Holy
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