A Decade In Country: Heat #1

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

"Hello poptimists!

Yes, it's me, 51-year-old yoga fan Madonna! You may remember me from such videos as 'Don't Tell Me', via which I managed to make cowboy hats, spurred boots and treadmills popular in suburban UK towns for five glorious minutes in 2000! Well, at least it took off better than my Morticia cape from 'Frozen' that turned into a flock of crows.

ANYWAY as the only available ambassador between the not-so-foreign lands of POP and COUNTRY (Taylor Swift was busy shopping for dresses or something) I have been asked to introduce the first Poptimists Country Poll! A crack team of experts have been tirelessly working behind the scenes to sort the country wheat from the dance/indie/hiphop/RnB chaff and bring you the finest selection of hoedowns and heartbreak from 2000-2005 (i.e. stuff YOU LOT nominated for the decade polls).

Don't worry if you've not heard the majority of these - this is the perfect opportunity to dive headfirst into the best country tracks of the decade. There's a Spotify playlist here to start you off, and Youtube embeds in the comments are very welcome. Who knows? You might find something that knocks you for six. Happy ticking!"

Thanks for that, Madge. The rules are simple: two heats, tick as many as you like! Poll closes next Tuesday so you've got plenty of time to check out the tracks. The top five from each heat will go through into a final top ten ticky.


[Poll #1545006]


Remember there's loads more orgafun afoot! Angry Women Songs and the Pop World Cup both need your contributions too!

Comments

Tracks that only had karaoke versions on Spotify:

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Toby Keith - As Good As I Once Was
Toby Keith - I Wanna Talk About Me
Tim McGraw - Drugs Or Jesus
Tim McGraw - Grown Men Don't Cry
Ty Herndon - Heather's Wall
Erika Jo - I Break Things
Lee Ann Womack - I May Hate Myself In The Morning
Rebecca Lynn Howard - I Need A Vacation

Re: Tracks that only had karaoke versions on Spotify:

[koganbot]

Erika Jo "I Break Things"

Lee Ann Womack "I May Hate Myself In The Morning"

Toby Keith "As Good As I Once Was"

Toby Keith "I Wanna Talk About Me"

(Found those all on Dailymotion. They should play in Britain, but I don't know for sure.)

And definitely...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

...thanks again to Chuck, Frank, Dave and Greg for their help with this!

Alcohol

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I've ever heard a song sung from the perspective of BOOZE ITSELF before! I like the idea that booze has 'lived' in such places as Milwaukee, Bordeaux and Lynchburg, but at some point got bored and LEFT.

Re: Alcohol

[koganbot]

I ticked 26 on my first pass through, but will probably tick more as I relisten.

Phuture's "Your Only Friend," a virulent acid house track from 1987, is narrated by cocaine. Not as benign in the story it tells.

Vote Toby (but not politically, that would be bad)

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forwards to hearing some of these… I Love This Bar, of course, is impossibly great.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Solomon Burke is a country singer now?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

No, but this particular song is quite country. It was one of the borderline ones!

[koganbot]

The album is an all-over-the-place prestige project with famous songwriters (Dylan, Costello, Dan Penn, Nick Lowe, Waits & Brennan, Brian Wilson, etc.), think it gets to be tangentially country because it did well with an Americana audience (that's a guess, actually, that it did well with that audience, but it's probably a safe one). I argued against including this song, but did point out that if a white singer like T. Graham Brown had sung it and it sounded substantially the same it would have been considered country, and Chuck was in favor of including it, so we've got it. Here's a soulful live version that kicks harder than the studio.

Just saw this on one of his MySpace pages:

I like most music - right now, I am into De Dijk, Ben Harper, Rev. James Cleveland, Alicia Keyes, india.arie, Gavin DeGraw, Kanye West, Adele, and some old Marion Anderson stuff. Anything with a good message and a good beat is going to be something I like.

[koganbot]

The album was produced by Joe Henry, who's been associated with alt country, also blues and jazz.

I had that old book of pictures of Madonna naked, and I was checking it out

[koganbot]

Surprised that Gary Allan is doing so poorly. Has what I call a "chewy" voice that reminds me of John Anderson's, can veer trad but also has a penchant for rock 'n' roll ballads, which he delivers with a light touch, but he can really rock when he wants to (was big among the L.A. cowpunks in his early years). My favorite is "Can't Do It Today," which goes poignant and tough at the same time. Could only find it streamed on LaLa; here's an ebullient version of Todd Snider's "Alright Guy" on YouTube.

[koganbot]

Alecia Elliott "I'm Diggin' It." Best country bubblegum since Skeeter Davis? Actual promo vid has her dancing by the high-school lockers, but that's not embeddable, so here she is illustrated by anime.

[meserach.livejournal.com]

Now I'm done with my angry women for the moment I'm giving as many of these as I can a listen.