Category: Country

Steve Grand – Stay

“It’s nice to see songs that will annoy the less progressive parts of American society.”

Tim: Steve Grand made a slight wave in America back in July when he brought out his first track, All-American Boy, with its video portraying the tale of a gay guy with a crush on his straight best mate, and was hailed as the country’s first openly gay country music star.

Tom: It’s worth looking on Wikipedia for some of the dissenting opinions there, but yes: it’s nice to see songs that are, let’s be honest, going to annoy the less progressive parts of American society.

Tim: This, his second single, doesn’t bother with any unrequitedness.

Tim: On one hand, I am not a country music fan. As far as I’m concerned, you can keep your dungarees, checked shirts and hay bales far away from me, and you can stick your banjo right where the sun don’t shine.

Tom: I’ll let that line just sit there, shall I?

Tim: If you like. On the other hand, I love a good summery party track, which this definitely is, and that is the side I’m falling down on for this track. It’s great, and even at five minutes it’s not outstaying its welcome even slightly. It’s brilliant.

Tom: It did go on a bit for me: I reckon it’s an excellent three-minute track stretched a bit too far. And while it won’t be making it onto my regular playlist, I’m glad it exists.

Avicii feat. Aloe Blacc – Wake Me Up

“Country music?”

Tim: Last time we reviewed an Avicii track you said his style was starting to sound a bit stale. I don’t think you’ll say that this time.

Tom: “Save tonight, and fight the break of dawn” … just me?

Tim: Couldn’t find a ridiculous cover version for that one, I presume?

Tom: No, but I did find a useless cover version.

Tim: Blimey, Danny Saucedo’s come a long way since then. But I think we’ve got a bit distracted. What was I going to say? Ah, yes. You’ll need a fairly substantial remix before this’ll get played out in any big clubs, I’d imagine, because for the most part this is, well, country music?

Tom: The presence of an acoustic guitar doesn’t make it country music.

Tim: True, but merge that with the vocal stylings and you’re not far off.

Tom: And admittedly I did expect a much bigger bass drop after that build* — this isn’t a club floorfiller, but it is something I very much want to add to my playlist. This is music for radio play, for listening to, for putting on the inevitable ‘chilled dance’ compilation at the end of the year — and there’ll be a big banging remix for the clubs.

* Have you ever seen how those are made? 5m36 into this video explains it all.

Tim: The chorus is fine, and the vocal could work well on top of a dance beat, but let be honest you’d have a difficult time dancing feet off the ground, hands in the air to that guitar business.

Tom: Speak for yourself: this gets filed under ‘euphoric’ for me, and it’ll work very nicely indeed with a remix.

Tim: Oh, a remix, absolutely. Guitar on its own, as it is – not so much.

Tom: I very, very much like this.

Tim: Oh, it’s certainly not a bad track – it just doesn’t really blend at all so I’m not sure what to make of it. Could be a huge hit, but then it could also flop disastrously. Hope it’s not the latter.

First Aid Kit – Emmylou

“More country and western than I expected.”

Tim: First Aid Kit. That is what this group, about to release their second album, The Lion’s Roar, actually chose to call themselves.

Tom: They’ll go well with The Vaccines, then.

Tom: Well, that’s a lot more country and western than I expected. That name does make them rather ungooglable, though – so when I managed to track them down online, I was surprised to find out they’re Swedish; those American accents, and all the style and pageantry that goes with them, are utterly convincing.

Tim: In their words, it’s “about the power of singing together with someone you love” which is just lovely, isn’t it. Well, unless you don’t have anyone to love and that thought, combined with the opening lyrics about bitter winds and missing the summer and the vaguely funereal scene towards the end of the video, might leave you feeling a little bit down. BUT ANYWAY, let’s pretend that thought never occurred to me and we’ll move on.

Tom: It’s surprising how often we have to do that.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, it really is, isn’t it? Hmm. Actually, this isn’t really the place to psychoanalyse me, so if you don’t mind we’ll go back to the music.

It’s a gentle tune with shout-outs to various country musicians, and while there is a slight melancholiness about the tune and voice, the lyrics are quite sweet – they’ve had a bit of an argument, she’s lied to him about something or other, but she just wants only the beginnings of forgiveness: “I’m not asking much of you, just sing little darling, sing with me.”

Tom: It’s all rather lovely. It’s not exactly the straight-out pop we normally feature here – but I really like it.