Music Blogs

With Turkey Day upon us, it's VITAL to our standing here at List Of The Day to discuss the ten musical acts that when offered the chance to sing about women and love and money decide to sing about America instead. It often makes for duller music. When you're comparing per capita incomes and the influence of farm-based subsidies on an economy, you're likely to lose a few listeners in the process. It may be the only reason Larry Kudlow has yet to embark on a music career. He doesn't have the songs!

10) Lucinda Williams: Listening to a Lucinda Williams album is often like rifling through a Rand-McNally atlas with all her geographical mentions. Natchitoches? That's in East Texas, not far from the border! Lake Charles? Louisiana, honey! Rosedale? Mississippi! I can't wait till she travels north and starts naming towns in New Jersey! Singac? Berkeley Heights? Westfield? You're on stand-by.

9) David Ackles: If this blog serves a purpose it's to make the general reading public more aware of David Ackles. American Gothic and The Road To Cairo were silly albums in their own way, conceptually ambitious where no concept need apply. But if you've even wondered where Eddie Vedder got that voice. Try Doug Ingle of Iron Butterfly and then stop by and visit with David Ackles. Jeremy really did speak in class TODAY!

8) Steve Earle: In his earliest days, Steve Earle was a ramblin' cowhand playing tough country for an audience who were waiting for him to settle down. Except something happened to him on the road to drug recovery. He found politics and he decided to sing about his concerns. While it isn't like he's setting The Nation to music, he's not letting us off without a few pie charts explaining economic disparity and the need to shine on your brother. And his son, Justin Townes Earle, is making the rounds. This is going to be a family business.

7) The Long Ryders: These poor guys got such a bum deal the first time around that I'm willing to help them out anyway I can. I mean, it was the mid-1980s and these guys were posing on album covers looking like they were on the set of Bonanza and they sang songs like "Looking For Lewis And Clark," "WDIA" and "You Just Can't Ride The Boxcars Anymore." I don't remember there being much of a disgruntled boxcar riding constituency out there, but then there are a lot of nuts out there that I'm not aware of.

6) Gillian Welch: Yes, ol' Gillian "sensible shoe" Welch sings about all kind of miners and toothless family members sleeping on the back porches of America. I always wonder what happens to these people when they see that their management has cellphones? Do they feel betrayed?

5) Toby Keith: I'm not real excited by modern country music. While lots of it is patriotic as hell and flag waving is rote, the music itself often sounds like bad hard rock with a fiddle. But Toby Keith has proven to be a bit more amusing than the average cowboy. That "Beer For My Horses" song nearly gives me a stroke but there's something funny about his "average guy" routine that tells me he ain't average but I wouldn't argue with him about the "guy" part.

4) John Mellencamp: Whether he was singing about "Jack And Diane," "Pink Houses," "Rain On The Scarecrow," this guy decided to turn his career into one long public service announcement. And he did so without turning his music into music that sounds like the government made it. And he apparently voted enough in Indiana to turn it into a blue state. That takes a lot of voting.

3) Bruce Springsteen: Everyone knew Bruce would be on this list. C'mon, he put the flag on the cover of his 1984 album and that was during a Presidential Election year. And he recorded The Rising which featured a bunch of songs about 9-11 and its effect on the American psyche. And now I've read that he's planning an album to be released around the time of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration! I'm sure he's got plenty of words that rhyme with Obama up his sleeve.

2) Billy Bragg And Wilco: You don't have to be American to be American. We're a melting pot of cultures and some of our best, most active citizens are people who either don't live here or weren't born here. Billy Bragg may speak and sing in a heavy British accent, but he loves Woody Guthrie and the idea of this country's democracy as much as he loves his own country. And this is a guy who wouldn't mind being called socialist. Far more listenable than Pete Seeger (oh, if I had a hammer!), Bragg teamed up with the estate of Woody Guthrie and the great mid-western group Wilco to make two albums that are--dare I say it?--more American than Apple Pie.

1) The Band: In the late 1960s, these guys must've looked pretty weird. I mean, "back to the land"?  What drugs are they are? And that name. The Band? Why not just call the album: The Album. And the songs: The Songs. Or maybe "Song 1," "Song 2." Instead they had stuff like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "Across The Great Divide." And only one of the guys was American. The rest were Canadian! Where's "Bound For Winnipeg"? "On Nova Scotia Time"? "Saskatschewan Woman"? I guess the grass always looks greener. Except in this case, American grass is greener. It's not all covered with snow!