We’re definitely hitting a spot here where a lot of these songs are a vague memory to me and the context is a bit fuzzier because, in the moment, I was largely tuning out on mainstream country. Well into the internet age where it gets a little easier to find stuff that speaks to you. By this time I was checking out community radio, figuring out how to download tracks, had a nice collection of CDs (remember those?) that leaned heavily towards alt-country, Americana, Texas/Red Dirt, etc. that I felt either echoed the sort of country music I grew up on or at least took it in more interesting and satisfying directions than the vast majority of the contemporary guard of radio country.
Even
George Strait was in a bit of a doldrums, although it was nice to see him
hanging in there. When I was a kid in the early ‘80s he was one of the only
young guys you heard on the radio, nudging his way in amidst the Kenny Rogers
and Conway Twitty hits; as a young adult in the mid 2000’s, he was the only
(relatively) old guy on the radio. “She Let Herself Go” is a charming enough
narrative, a you-go-girl tale that probably made a lot of longtime female fans
who’d aged with him feel seen. But it also had that whiff of suburban blandness
to it that was permeating the whole scene.
Carrie
Underwood made one of the bigger splashes the genre had seen for awhile with
“Jesus, Take the Wheel.” A college cheerleader-pretty blonde riding the red-hot
crest of a season four American Idol victory, she was about as safe as a
bet gets in modern country-pop. Huge expressive voice, telegenic nice-gal vibe,
and a debut song that spoke to all the good suburban Christian gals who’d had
anything resembling a rough time with something. I know I wasn’t the target
audience for it but it’s impossible not to see why it worked, to the tune of
six weeks at #1 and launching one of the few careers on this year’s list that’s
still going nearly as strong today.
The
thread of earnest piety continued with Brad Paisley and no less a special-guest
luminary than Dolly Parton pouring their hearts into the tender inspirational
ballad “When I Get Where I’m Going.” By this time – this was his 14th
#1 – Paisley had pretty well positioned himself as the nice-guy avatar of
something resembling real-deal traditional country, and goosing radio to get a
legend like Parton back in the mix was very on-brand for him (I don’t mean that
as cynical as it might sound, and don’t doubt he was thrilled to collaborate
with Dolly). Lyrically, the song pretty much sticks to the
contemporary-Christian playbook, but it’s elevated by performance, with
Paisley’s warm humility giving Parton’s distinct emotive twang a base to soar
off of. Even if you never tuned into a country station in your life, you’ve
probably heard this one at at least a couple of funerals by now.
Josh
Turner was also getting some credit for keeping something resembling
traditional country in the mainstream mix – 2003’s “Long Black Train” was a
modest hit with some well-earned acclaim – but he had the sort of deep, rounded
baritone that could make just about anything sound at least palatable. “Your
Man” was warm, sincere, and playfully affectionate, the sort of thing George
Strait would’ve happily tackled if he got to it first (fun fact: future
headliner Chris Stapleton was among the co-writers). Kenny Chesney continued to
be on a roll despite having one of – at least these ears – the least
distinctive voices in country music history. It doesn’t grate, even if his
material sometimes did, but it’d be tough to pick out of a lineup of
straightforward Music Row demo singers. “Living in Fast Forward,” which I’d
either never heard or totally forgotten, actually does have some rock &
roll bite to it; it sounds a lot like a Georgia Satellites song with some
fiddle thrown in. It was co-written by then-recent hitmaker David Lee Murphy,
and if it’s not quite as good as his best stuff, it’s a nice enough groove.
Rascal
Flatts remained typically groove-averse on “What Hurts the Most,” which ladled
on Gary LeVox’s big gravelly tenor like syrup. I’m still not exactly who these
guys were supposed to be for; sometimes it seems they were vaguely presented as
country music’s answer to the pop boy-band craze, but were teen girls really
digging this sort of thing en masse? Every guy I knew back then found them
pretty off-putting, and a lot of people with more hard-country tastes
considered their proliferation on country radio to be sort of the last straw.
Still, they were an arena-level act by this time, and this song spent a solid
month at #1. That can’t all just be music-marketing fuckery, can it? If you
wanted bland pop-rock, Bon Jovi was way better at it and guess what: they’re up
next! Yep, the onetime poodle-haired multiplatinum stadium rockers continued
their trajectory from something like pop-metal to earthier pop-rock to, at
least for one track, mid-2000s radio country. Apparently “Who Says You Can’t Go
Home” was originally supposed to be a collaboration with Keith Urban, but lead
singer Jon Bon Jovi decided they sounded too much like each other (I’ve never
noticed, but I guess I don’t listen to either very much) and recruited
Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles instead. Not a bad song, really … Bon Jovi’s
goodhearted gusto packed stadiums for decades for a reason, and their
crowd-pleasing approach to arena rock was arguably a pretty big influence on
the aesthetics of 2000s big-production country-pop. Having them in the mix long
enough to hit #1 might have seemed jarring if you were looking into the future
from 1988 or so, but in 2006 they fit like a glove, for better or worse.
Jack
Ingram, a personal favorite of mine, had a decidedly different path to #1. He’d
been toiling in the bar-band trenches since the mid ‘90s, a young Texas
singer-songwriter steeped in the outlaw classics of Willie Nelson and Jerry
Jeff Walker, part of a scene of largely like-minded folks such as Pat Green,
Cory Morrow, and Charlie Robison who correctly asserted that increasingly bland
modern mainstream country could use a rowdier, scrappier alternative. But
unlike some of the others who leaned hard into the whole “Nashville sucks”
catchphrase for at least a while, Ingram (and Robison, RIP) were stubbornly
optimistic that they could enforce some change from the inside. A good-looking
dude with notable laconic charm, Ingram’s previous singles caught on more with
country video channels than radio, but after years of not even cracking the Top
40 he finally notched his first and (to date) only radio #1 with “Wherever You
Are.” It was more Keith Urban than Jerry
Jeff, but Ingram’s gritty vocal panache injected enough personality to make it
stick. He wouldn’t crack the Top 10 again, but he’d hang around the Top 20 for
a few more years before getting back to indie basics.
Indie
basics weren’t a concern for newcomer Jason Aldean, a onetime Georgia baseball
prospect who was swinging for the fences from the get-go. “Why” makes a good
enough case for him as a generic balladeer in the tradition of Mark Wills or
early Kenny Chesney or whatever; it’s not great but it’s not bad, a sincere
enough slab of self-recrimination without getting all weepy or unmanly about
it. Down the line, of course, he’d cultivate a tough-guy image with unsubtle
chunks of hip-hop, hard rock, and country-boy belligerence turned up heavy in
the mix as he arguably co-created the whole “bro country” thing that’d be all
the rage a few years down the line. So even if I wasn’t really paying attention
at the time I’m still oddly nostalgic for him singing sensitive numbers about
his own screw-ups.
Dierks
Bentley continued to play to his considerable strengths as a vocalist; “Settle
for a Slowdown” hews pretty close to the “Come a Little Closer” blueprint,
recast as a plea for romantic reconciliation instead of just a solid come-on. A
nice hearty ballad with Bentley’s formidable baritone keeping the saccharine at
bay. Kenny Chesney was also sticking with what works; it doesn’t take a
marketing genius to put out “Summertime” in early June, and by now he’d
established himself as both somewhat of a beach-bum persona and also a
stadium-worthy live act. I’ve never been to a Chesney concert but I hear that
they draw well and everyone seems to have a blast. He seems like a nice dude
who’s made the absolute most out of his success; stuff like “Summertime” might
pander a bit but it’s not actively obnoxious even to a non-fan like myself. Songs
about simple pleasures can be simple pleasures themselves if you don’t go all
music-critic on them I guess.
Brad
Paisley had a similar mindset, albeit one considerably more interested in
hot-pickin’ traditional country as at least a component of his style. He was
easing into superstar range himself at this point and bighearted songs like
“The World” sure didn’t hurt. It’s easy to cynically dismiss it as too cute,
but the warmhearted, reassuring throughline of reminding someone of their
unique importance sounded sweet then and holds up nicely now. Newcomer Rodney
Atkins was in an encouraging mood too with “If You’re Going Through Hell
(Before the Devil Even Knows),” a barreling-along ode to perseverance that
threatened to give big-production country-rock a good name for a minute there. Atkins
had a hearty enough voice to elbow himself out a place in all that business and
was well-cast for the song’s tough-but-empathetic tone. Atkins is sort of
forgotten nowadays (unless you recall what I guess was a
never-be-photographed-without-a-ballcap gimmick) but he was a bit of a force
for a half-decade or so, although he never topped this one. “If you’re going
through hell, keep on going … you might get out, before the devil even knows
you’re there” might sound like motivational-poster filler on paper, but on
record it packed a punch.
It
wasn’t entirely impossible to get something a little more delicate to hit, even
though it was getting to a point where any female artist not named Carrie
Underwood was hard-pressed to score a #1. The Wreckers sounds like it could be
a name for some macho blues-rock band but it was actually pop singer-songwriter
Michelle Branch joining forces with her more country-ish pal Jessica Harp to more
or less make pretty pop-folk and just market it as country. Not too shabby, and
probably would’ve been a crossover hit back in the Lilith Fair days, but the
duo either got bored with it or kind of saw the writing on the wall … this was
their first and last big single and they were more or less done a year later. It
was sweet of them to move aside for Steve Holy’s dumbassed “Brand New
Girlfriend,” one of the most embarrassing couple of minutes of recorded music across
the history of genres. Two minutes of bouncily excruciating dipshittery with
Holy vocally hamming it up over lines about toilet seats and “shi tzu hounds.”
It makes Collin Raye’s “That’s My Story” look like “Amarillo By Morning” by
comparison. It’s the kind of crap that just sort of assures you that whatever
makes it to #1 probably has as much to do with wheeler-dealer Music Row grab-ass
as it does with quality or even crowd-pleasingness. Because who the hell in the
listening public asked for this? Holy hadn’t had a big hit since 2001’s more-gently-annoying
“Good Morning Beautiful” and he wouldn’t have another one.
George
Strait swung in mercifully with the appropriately despondent-sounding “Give it
Away,” a heavy-hearted ballad about a jilted lover who’d just as soon see his
life’s possessions hauled off to Goodwill or left with his embittered ex, all
value tainted by regret and impending loneliness. You know, a country song! For
functioning adults with real life problems! What a concept, right? It was one
of his best in awhile, and that’s really saying something. Then again, if the
guard did have to change, I guess we could do worse than Josh Turner and the
sort of genuine warmth and charm he managed to cook up on “Would You Go With
Me.” So vocally gifted that it’s almost cheating, Turner’s
humble-Christian-dude lifestyle and knack for balancing contemporary commercial
expectations with something resembling his own artistic personality was miles
ahead of most of his competition. I don’t know if he ever broke through to that
next-level stardom that guys like Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, et al enjoyed, but
he’d thankfully be a steady presence in the mainstream for years to come.
And
then there was Heartland, which sounds like what you might come up with if
someone gave you five seconds to come up with a name for a country band. The
most fleeting of pan flashes, they got a hold of a song called “I Loved Her
First” that sounds like what you might come up with if someone gave you ten
minutes to come up with a song for a daddy-daughter dance at a wedding. They
tugged a few heartstrings and faded as fast as they emerged. Dierks Bentley,
who probably got mixed up with Josh Turner sometimes because they were both
young guys with baritone voices who sounded like they actually gave a damn,
swung back in with “Every Mile a Memory.” It’s not a stone classic or anything
but it’s pleasant enough, going down smooth and sincere with a tasteful touch
of heartland-rock pulse.
Despite
the overall paucity of female singers on top at this point, 2006 was pretty
much Carrie Underwood’s year in country music. Not that she’d fade out anytime
soon (as of this writing she’s still pretty huge) but her 2006 breakthrough
hits are probably still her biggest, or maybe it just seems that way to me
because this was sort of my last gasp as even a semi-regular country radio
listener. But the semi-weathered piety of “Jesus Take the Wheel” (and an
in-between #2 hit called “Don’t Forget to Remember Me” that I’ve, uh,
forgotten) gave way to the you-go-girl swagger of “Before He Cheats.” It’s hardly
timeless but at least it’s tightly focused, a quick little vengeful vignette
about vandalizing some philandering jerk’s car while he’s in the bar trying to
bone some other gal who sings “some white trash version off Shania karaoke.” It
gave her a chance to swagger around in a music video looking vaguely edgy in
case her downhome cutie-pie thing wasn’t doing it for everybody; she was
playing the long game and it worked.
Then
again, so did Rascal Flatts in general, so that doesn’t say much for the era.
“My Wish” isn’t overly grating, it’s just staunchly generic and vaguely
positive, the sort of thing you’d play over a photo montage of a grade-school
class at the end of the year, or maybe at a high-school graduation while the
kids roll their eyes at the insipidness of it all. I hope you’re happy and you
do nice things, etc. etc. If you wished for a better song to wrap up the year,
then at least you got one with Sugarland and “Want To.” Sugarland had already
been knocking around the chart for a year or so, starting as a trio from the
Atlanta folk scene but fairly easily retooled as a country act. Lead singer
Jennifer Nettles hit #1 before her band did – she was the one who had a #1 hit
with Bon Jovi, of all things, earlier in the year – but “Want To” was the first
of several #1’s they’d score under the Sugarland banner. The group had already
been pared down early on with the departure of cofounder Kristen Hall (that’d
be a lawsuit, eventually), and remaining member Kristian Bush often seemed a
bit superfluous; sure, he was a well-trained multi-instrumental talent, but
Nettles’ big, warm, honeyed twang was always the real draw. Bush’s
slightly-dorky hipster image was one thing, and Hall’s whole middle-aged
openly-lesbian aesthetic might’ve been more (or less?) than the genre was ready
for at the time, but it’d be awhile before the conventionally-appealing Nettles
was pushed as a solo. Anyway, “Want To” was a nicely mature bit of longing that
made the most out of the now-duo’s talents, and it’s kind of too bad it didn’t
signal the direction this whole thing might be going.
THE
TREND?
So
here we are, about a decade and a half after the early ‘90s country boom, and
it sort of looks like the genre weathered the gratingly wholesome suburban cornballery
of the early oughts to have a little more youth appeal in the mix with the
likes of Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, and (much as I don’t like
acknowledging it) Rascal Flatts. But that’s a triumph of marketing, not music,
and much of what’s rising to the top at this point is pretty bland and
toothless. There’s no shortage of emoting but less and less of it sticks to the
ribs. The previous decade’s influx of young talent (Alan Jackson, Clint Black,
etc.) are mostly squeezed out of the upper reaches of the chart at this point
and most of that recognizably-country approach seems to have squeezed out with
them, making country seem less like a genre and more like a marketing category.
A white-bread branch of easy listening populated by eager-to-please gals and
(mostly) guys who were too twangy to go pop even if that’s where most of their
musical instincts seem to lie. As the top ten or so songs down there suggest, it’s
not some black hole of perpetual lousiness or anything, and it’s not like lightweight
pop passing itself off as country hadn’t been done on and off for decades at
this point. But to these ears, either quality control was getting out of whack
or the tastemakers wanted less and less country flavor, and nobody was stopping
them.
THE
RANKING
- When I Get Where I’m Going – Brad Paisley featuring Dolly Parton
- Give It Away – George Strait
- Settle For a Slowdown – Dierks Bentley
- Wherever You Are – Jack Ingram
- If You’re Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows) – Rodney Atkins
- Want To – Sugarland
- The World – Brad Paisley
- Would You Go With Me – Josh Turner
- She Let Herself Go – George Strait
- Jesus Take the Wheel – Carrie Underwood
- Your Man – Josh Turner
- Every Mile a Memory – Dierks Bentley
- Leave the Pieces – The Wreckers
- Living in Fast Forward – Kenny Chesney
- Who Says You Can’t Go Home – Bon Jovi with Jennifer Nettles
- Summertime – Kenny Chesney
- Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood
- My Wish – Rascal Flatts
- I Loved Her First - Heartland
- What Hurts the Most – Rascal Flatts
- Brand New Girlfriend – Steve Holy
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