The three best new Country albums of the year so far are all by women. The fabulous Kacey Musgraves, “Hippie Annie” Ashley Monroe, and now this one. The album is so fine, so great it just blows me away. Here are just the first two that I’d put on the air: I Feel A Sin Comin’ On is the lead track and it is the best blues record I’ve heard in years. I’m talkin’ Delta Blues here now…by WHITE CHICKS! Starts acapella, backed with nothin’ more than finger-snappin’. Each Annie sings a line, then they join together in harmony as close as the Andrews Sisters (spotify ‘em, kids) with that slide guitar kickin’ in. A bit of that and then it just explodes with sexual energy. Damn Thing Now I come from an age where it was drilled into us that one accidental dirty word spoken with the mic opened might lose the station’s license. A record that said “damn” over and over would never have gotten on the air. In the prior age, this joyful Bluegrass-boogie commentary on modern life (“can’t do a damn thing about it”) would’ve gotten outraged calls from members of every congregation in town. That’s what I’d have expected until, oh say, anytime up to about the last day of the Clinton administration. We now inhabit a strange, surreal time in which a song titled “Fuck You” is not only played on mainstream stations but goes to #1. Yes, there were edited versions, but the big F got on the air. Parents who had to live through that one (and all the similar offensive tripe that permeates today’s “kids” music) well, those parents should just laugh out loud when they hear this song. Then they’ll wanna hear it again and again. I doubt they’ll even have a second thought that it ought not be used in good company. ‘Damn’ is used in the proper context here. The song works because it is true. Damn has become tame. Interesting.
