Today’s Country (Billy Strings, Ashley McBryde, Lainey Wilson)

Welcome to the album nerds podcast with your hosts, Andy, Don and Dude. Howdy y'all. We're back again for another square dance. Got dude here. Andy and Don are with me. How you fellas doing? Uh, doing good. Doing good. Just, uh, squeezing into my cowboy boots over here. You don't wear socks with cowboy boots. I didn't know that, but. Oh no. You got him. No, I couldn't do that. You wear socks. I do. Are they red cowboy boots? Sparkly. What are we talking about here? Spurs? They are snakeskin.

Snakeskin. You're a vegetarian. I didn't eat them. Don, uh, thankfully no one in the listening audience could see you, but I know you're just wearing chaps and nothing else, but, uh, how you doing? They're pleather. There you go. That sounds very comfortable. I just got done mixing up a pitcher, a sweet tea. There you go. All right. So this is the album nerds podcast and we love talking about albums. We have a great show for you.

We're going to talk about three albums and you may have guessed they are in a particular genre this week. We're going to be answering a question talking about what we learned, but this week it's all about today's country. Country music originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States with its earliest recordings coming in the 1920s. Country music is primarily focused on working class Americans and blue collar life.

Many sub genres have developed over the years, including bluegrass, outlaw and bro country. It is also fused with other genres, including pop rock, R and B and hip hop. Today's country charts include names like Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, and Kelsey Ballerini. So today each of us will present a country album released since 2020. Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, yeah. Here we are. Modern day country.

It's kind of tough cause I am a country fan, but I tend to dig on the independent country, the outlaw stuff, the Americana stuff. But I did experiment with more of a pop country world. So I listened, I started off with my normal stuff, the panhandlers that you know, Tyler Childers, Zach Brian, his American Heartbreak that came out last year, great album, but 33 songs. I just didn't know if we could, if there was any way we could discuss that. It's asking a lot. Yeah. On this show, boil it down.

Like, I don't know. It was a lot. So I'm happy with the path I took. I had some fun in the pop country area as well. So how'd you guys do? Well, you know, I'm a, I'm a country dabbler a little bit less than the new dude, but I do have the sub genres I enjoy. Oh, Oh, Andy, you should be a country artist and you should be Andy the country dabbler. That could be your whole thing. Just the dabblers. I like that. The dab, the dabblers. Andy and the dabblers. We got it. There were a handful.

Actually, there was a lot of interesting stuff I came across. I'll mention a couple here. The Sturgill Simpson record that came out in a couple of years ago, the ballad of Dude and Juanita. I'm all concerned with the spelling. D O O D. Maybe that's just, maybe that's just the property. It's just a proper name. I'm not sure. I think it's more of a phonetics spelling. Maybe dude, dude. Really good. I can outlaw country epic story there.

Or I could have been digging on from this year from an artist by the name of H C McIntyre, her album titled Every Acre kind of a singer songwriter, country folk record there. It's really good. Um, one of the artists I got to give a shout out to, I was very impressed by the uniqueness of the record is, uh, Adim the artist. It's a non-binary individual from North Carolina record is entitled white trash revelry.

It's very interesting perspective, just kind of growing up in that non-binary community in the South. Uh, I thought they did a really good job capturing that was something I had never really heard before. So, yeah, I listened to it too. And it sounded like kind of, you know, country folk type stuff, but the subject matter having dealt with being a pansexual and non-binary and then, you know, perhaps the acceptance levels might be different in different parts of the country.

So yeah, it was, it was an interesting lesson. It's tough to be pansexual and the panhandle. Oh God. That's Texas. Texas is a panhandle. I don't know. I think does Florida have one too? I don't know if North Carolina has one. Uh, North Carolina sort of, yeah, it's got a little handle. Born in North Carolina and apparently in Knoxville, Tennessee now. Oh my gosh.

Well, it would have been easy, I think, to, to do like a Chris Stapleton record or Jason Isbell or something, but I did want to, you know, kind of check out the stuff that's, that's on the charts right now. So I listened to Luke Combs getting old, you know, which was, which was fine. There's actually a cover of Tracy Chapman's fast car that you can hear on country radio these days and he does a good job with it, but it would be hard to butcher that song, I think.

Also listened to Al King, you know, she's another kind of one of those like outlaw ladies, uh, she had an album called, uh, come and get your wife. Also, you know, I've heard a lot about old dominion, uh, over the years. So I listened to there's, um, time tequila and therapy, which was a good title, but yeah, I didn't end up going with, with either of those three. I went in a different direction. All right. Well, why don't we head over yonder and check out what we picked.

You chew, chew, choose me.

My dad put so much love into that guitar. And you know, someday when he's dead and gone, I'll be able to pick up that guitar and talk to him. All right. For my today's country selection, we were talking about Mr. Billy strings and his 2022 record me and dad. Let's play a little bit from the opening cut. This is long journey home. And this guy would have been awesome on he hawk. Oh yeah. Oh dude, he would have wrecked. All right.

So Billy strings born William Lee, apostle from Lansing, Michigan, Lansing, Michigan, bluegrass in Lansing, Michigan. What kind of graphs do they have there? Uh, Maui, wowie. All right. So this record, me and dad is a collaboration with his stepfather, Terry barber, Terry is the individual who raised Billy and also taught him how to play guitar. The record is comprised primarily of traditional country and bluegrass standards. My three words to describe this record are string family rocks.

Can't imagine growing up in like such a talented musical family as this. I mean, these two guys are just so proficient on the acoustic guitar and other string instruments. Uh, I know they're not biological family, but they do have something in common here. That is pretty special. No, I can't imagine that. I mean, the only things I could have inherited are doing yard work and records administration. And I did not inherit those things. Well, you know, those are evable skills as well.

Not lucky to make you a country music star. There was not really any original material here. I think what makes this record stand out for me is the collaboration and kind of the give and take the back and forth between Billy and his, and his father here. It's a nice, you can tell they've been playing together for a long time, you know, probably decades. At this point, and they have a good rapport between the two of them.

Yeah. When we play another cut from the record, this is a bit of John Deere tractor. Deere tractor in a half acre field. I'm trying to power through. Lovely harmonies on that one. That track, John Deere tractor was written by Lawrence Allen Hammond, and that was originally recorded by the Judds in 1984. And then again in 1990, the three words I chose to describe the album are kick some grass.

Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, it's a, it's a celebration of, you know, blue grass and you know, sort of your old timey, you know, country Western sounds. And, you know, it's, it's easy for me to get behind that. I really enjoy that stuff. I was actually surprised by his voice when I actually saw what he looked like. I was quite shocked because I was picturing like a John Popper from Blues Traveler or something. Big old guy. Yeah. Not just this kind of baby faced, you know, little guy.

But yeah, so I, you know, I love his voice. There's a couple of tracks where his, where his stepfather sings that, that life to go track, which is actually a George Jones original. I think he did a really good job with that and their harmonies, you know, to together just really work well.

When I read that he was like a prodigy or a young, you know, young phenom or something, I, I kind of pictured that he played like banjo or something like that, because, you know, in bluegrass, a lot of times the guitar is just sort of there. You know, it's, it's providing the framework of the song, but it's not generally a place where you're showing off virtuosity.

But if you really do listen to some of these tracks and some of the solos, you know, you get it that, you know, that he's actually just a really good acoustic guitarist. Yeah. There's a couple instrumental tracks out here that I think the two of them back and forth is impressive. But I checked like frosty more and just like a three minute instrumental track towards the end of the record. It is crush it and just speed through it and make it incredibly fast, incredibly dexterity is playing there.

And it's impressive to hear. I'll probably end up saying this about all three of our records, but you know, it's a celebration of the past, you know, and I feel like the best country that's out there is always kind of looking backwards. And I'm not sure what there is moving forward, you know, for, for country. We'll talk more about that later. Why don't we play another cut as stonewalls and steel bars.

So stonewalls and steel bars was written by Ray Pennington and Roy Markham was first recorded and released by the Stanley brothers in 1963. But these old timey country songwriters, it seems like they saw prison as being like a real possibility. Oh, dude, you gave it away. I was going to get into like how this song is about prison because it's kind of, you know, it was really deep. Yeah, deep metaphor there. God, you done fucked it up, man. Whole thing is ruined.

Oops. Yeah. So, uh, gray haired ward in deep Frisco Bay, we're talking Alcatraz, we talk in San Quentin. I mean, it sounds like the guys on death row, um, San Quentin would have been the place for that, but, and, and I think in 63 Alcatraz closed. In prison, uh, trivia over here, man. Impressive. Yeah. Well, I dig deep, man. So the three words I used to describe this album, uh, generic grass joke. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

The three words I used to describe this is generic strings joke, uh, or, or list Billy's father's strings, you know, that, that little clip we played at the beginning with him talking about his dad's guitar and the history in it and how he'll always feel him there. That got me thinking about the, the, you know, the strings, the things that tie us together as a family. Whether we're blood related or not.

And then the, the, uh, Billy strings thing and just like his other worldly guitar playing talent and to see that it was sparked by this guy, you know, I'm going to ask you, Andy, Terry Barber, did he have a recording career or just, uh, played bluegrass with his buddies? I think he was well known, at least in the area as being a bluegrass guitarist. He was a very, very famous guitarist. I don't know if he had a recording career as far as I could find any information on.

That was kind of the feeling I got. So what was interesting to me was that although Billy has done plenty of bluegrass stuff and he'd done rock and roll covers, he's done all sorts of stuff. I love that they took traditional country songs and bluegrass eyes them. Bluegrass them up. Yeah. You normally think bluegrass is just a part of country and it's its own thing. Like I liked that. I liked that.

Yeah. Interesting tidbit, man. I don't know if you knew, but he used to be in a metal band or for a few years before he got into bluegrass. Yes. Which, uh, surprising when I've described Billy strings to people in the past, I have said it's like it's bluegrass music. If Metallica were playing it, he's a master of bluegrass. He's pulling your string. He's a master of bluegrass. He's pulling your string. He's playing your strings. He can do both.

The, you know, the guitar solos and the structures of them and how they, one thing leads into another thing and then back again, like, uh, but that's beside the point. But this album really, I think holds significance because it's showcasing his talents, but also preserving bluegrass, emphasizing family connections and kind of prioritizing people in relationships and your roots over popularity or trying to make a hit record type of thing. Cause that's not what this was.

This is a passion project. Yeah. Yeah, his previous record, uh, home won a Grammy for him in 2021. He has put out some original material since then, but I think this was kind of like a good opportunity to look back and maybe give his, give his father some, some of the spotlight as well and kind of highlight where he came from. So I think, uh, at least for that, it does a very good job of, of highlighting the past as, as they were saying, country music does so well. All right.

So the album is me and dad by Billy strings. It's available in all the usual places. Check it out. I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and dog gone at people like me. If you're enjoying the show and we hope you are, do us a solid and leave a review on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Maybe we made you laugh. Maybe we made you cry, or you discovered an album you enjoy leaving a review keeps the show going and helps other music fans find us.

I'm Ashley McBride and we probably shouldn't tell you this, but this one time

six of us locked ourselves in a house for a few days, eight bottles of tequila. And six people that are half out of their brain. So is that the real world Memphis? So the album from today's country that I chose is one from Ashley McBride. It's called Ashley McBride presents Lindyville. And we'll explain what that means in a second. But first let's hear the closing cut. This is called Lindyville. So this is the third major label release by Ashley McBride, born in Waldron, Arkansas in 1983.

This is not a traditional solo album. So basically, as I understand it, she and a group of her songwriting pals, which includes Brandi Clark, Benji Davis, Connie Harrington, Nicolette Hayford, and Aaron Reitier. I'm not sure if that's the correct pronunciation. Anyway, so they stayed in a cabin for seven days and wrote songs about characters in a fictional town called Lindyville.

And it's called Lindyville as a tribute to country songwriter, Dennis Lindy, who wrote the famous Elvis track Burning Love, also wrote that chick song Goodbye Earl. So, yeah, I guess one day Ashley McBride realized she had all these songs about characters. And I guess she said to herself or to someone else, what if all these characters lived in the same town? So this is basically a concept album. Each song is about a different character and they're all performed by different singers.

Hey, do you know if Lindyville is in Cornfield County? Because that's where he took place. I was actually thinking about who's the author. Oh, is it Faulkner or something who has like that fictional county, like where all his stories come from? Kind of reminded me of that. Also reminded me of Neil Young did Greendale. Do you guys remember that? Yeah, same idea. The three words I chose to describe the album are this American life.

So it is just sort of a slice of southern or Midwestern American life. Doesn't even have to be those things, right? If you drive around, you know, upstate New York, you know, it's pretty rural. But yeah, you know, but it's like a lot of good country music. You know, it is sort of telling that, you know, the stories of ordinary folk. Anyway, let's let's hear another song. This is Bonfire at Tina's.

So Bonfire at Tina's is towards the end of the album as well, where things get a little more serious on the album. I think some of the earlier songs are a little more comical in their sort of over the top. Jesus, Jenny. Yeah, to some degree, you know, how, you know, how country music has these sort of cliches like cliches, whiskey and blah, blah, blah. There's also the cliches of trailer park, white trash. And I feel like that's where this takes place.

It's kind of, you know, small town and yes, but in a way where there was little to like about the folks of Lindyville until towards the end of the album, like Bonfire at Tina's. I really like how it features this sort of this theme of all these women that don't get along in this town that we've seen earlier in the album.

But they set aside their conflicts and support each other when everything else around them is falling apart, that there's there's love for each other in this small town, you know, besides all the drama that goes on early on. So I really I liked that sentiment of it where it kind of tied things up a little bit. The three words I used to describe this album, Southern Songwriting Theater. It is theatrical. There's those commercials for local businesses that I do think I mean, I love this album.

I am mad at myself for ignoring it. I liked her first two. This came out, I played it and I got confused and thought it was a playlist or something because I was hearing other voices. So I just kind of ignored it. And when Don brought it up, I went back to it and then finally got a chance to understand what the hell was going on. So don't give up if you're listening to this because you do hear different voices. It's not a traditional third record.

It's odd that a major country label allowed this to come out with bad words in it and untraditional feel. But I love it. I love that this signifies a potential shift in the music industry. I mean, maybe there'll be more freedom to break away from traditional production norms for country artists and explore a little. It also reminded me of Pressure Machine by The Killers a little bit and Concept where they were talking about small town life in Utah.

This is more of a hee hawified version of it, but it still talks about small town life and has a theme and a concept and I dug that too. Yeah, I also want to mention that the album was produced by John Osborne of the Brothers Osborne. In fact, I guess the other Osborne brother, I think there's only two, TJ Osborne actually sings lead on that Playball song, which is about the groundskeeper Willie guy. Anyway, okay, well, let's hear another one. Here's Brenda, put your bra on.

Wow, Sporting Wood really got done there. The parlance of our times. I think that song nicely kind of sets the stage for what you expect in this town here. My three words to describe this record are this is America too. To some degree, I think maybe we overlook this side of American life a little bit more, at least in my daily life.

We don't think about what's life like living in a trailer park and this record really gets into all the nitty gritty and all the drama that is likely to ensue with the people living there. I really enjoyed it. It's got a good sense of humor. Really love the little commercials. There's a great one for the Dandelion Diner. It's high time for pod time at the Dandelion Diner. I thought that was hilarious. There's like half a dozen of those little sprinkled in throughout the record.

Yeah, I really, I liked it. I thought that was a pretty charming record. Not every track is a run for me, but I think the ones that work really well, like there's a song called The Miss Connection section where it's kind of like a classified newspaper sort of conversation happening in a grocery store sort of. It's weird. They're both married. Yeah, they're looking to have an affair and it's just very, it's very real.

People are consciously making mistakes, but just to kind of short term gaps in their life to fill in these shortcomings they have. And I think it works really well. You know, Bonfire Artinas I thought was also a really good kind of climax to the record and I think that worked really well. It's really one of the few moments where the music kind of comes through crescendo. The rest of the record feels kind of flat, but I think that's intentional.

So yeah, overall I really liked it and I hope there is some sort of future for this kind of collaborative, I don't even know what you would call this kind of style record, but it's unique and I think it's much more interesting to dig into than just your traditional collection of songs.

And I think the fact that it was done in a week or so, it touches that old way of making records back in the 60s and 70s where bands would turn around three or four albums a year sometimes and just catch that moment of creativity instead of years of development of the story of Lindyville. Can you imagine like how boring it would have been if they had had the time to like sanitize it and make it all perfect?

But I love how these 30 minutes go by where you have, it's like a little telenovela and it's just a really great listen. It does kind of feel a little bit like a soap opera, I guess, when you say telenovela. They're kind of like episode of trailer park days of our lives here. Oh yeah, apparently Bride was working on her next solo album while she was doing this and apparently she actually handed the record label both records and that one is, she's already released a couple of singles from it.

I heard that it's called The Devil I Know and should be coming out in September of 2023. So I'll have to look forward to that one. I can't imagine it being as interesting as this, but we'll see. We'll see. Okay, so that was Ashley McBride Presents Lindyville.

Excuse me, I'd like to ask you a few questions. First time for our most highly rated part of the show. So this is when we ask ourselves a question. So Marie Osmond famously said or saying, I'm a little bit country. Wait, was it her or was it Donnie? Who sings that line? It was her. Donnie would then jump in with, I'm a little bit rock and roll. Oh, that's right. Go back and forth. Okay, so are you guys a little bit country and how so?

I think calling me a little bit country might be a bit of a stretch. Not so much country in my life, though I do really love Southern food. I must say if I could have any type of food for the rest of my life, I probably would have some good Creole food to be my choice. So I guess that's country. Are you on any kind of cholesterol blockers? Yeah, sure. Not yet, but I'm sure if I keep going down this road, it's not far away. Hush puppies all day long. What are those potatoes?

What are hush puppies? They're deep fried something. It's dough. Oh, okay. Whatever it is, just fry it. Isn't there like a shoe called a hush puppy too or something? I believe there was a shoe brand called hush puppies. Not as tasty. They're not cowboy boots. Yeah, so I'm from the Midwest, like the suburban type areas, however, so I don't know how country I really am, but I do drive a giant Ford truck.

I wear Carhartt clothes and I guess the most country thing about me is that I wear giant interchangeable belt buckles like the Cowboys on Yellowstone. I started doing it a few years ago because I saw this belt buckle that was also a beer bottle opener and I thought it'd be cool to open bottles of beer at my belt region. So I got the belt. Now I have a collection of like, I don't know, 10 different buckles and I change them out and some of them are American flags. One of them says, dude.

So you like take one out for the day like, oh, I'm feeling a little more American-y today. I kind of stick with one most of the time and then every couple of weeks. Special occasions. But yeah, it's fun. It's just fun to change out your belt buckles. I don't know. I think that every one should switch. If you wear a belt, go get your Southern style belt, get a buckle. There's tons of them on Amazon. It's a lot of fun. I didn't even know you could take out the buckle.

I thought that was a one unit. There's snaps then so you can interchange them, they have these loops that you can hook the buckle to. That is pretty country, bro. The Album Nerds logo would be a good belt buckle. Yeah. There you go. Get it done. Diamond encrusted, please. Well, I mean, there are aspects of country life that I gravitate towards. I love driving in the middle of farmland and stuff like that. I just think that's a really cool and peaceful experience.

I like to drink, which is often celebrated in country music. One thing I thought of was Coca-Cola. I don't drink soda all that often because it's bad for me, but I just love a good Coke, right? Whether it's cold out of the can or off the tap. Off the spigot. Yeah, the spigot. I just picture Coca-Cola being sort of like a Southern thing. I think there's parts of the country that instead of saying soda or pop, they'll just refer to anything as Coke. That just feels old-timey country. A Coca-Cola.

Say hello to my little friend. Yeah, different kind of Coke. There's some country music about that too. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Well, what makes you a bit country? Let us know. Come to the socials. Also our Discord, AlbumNerds.com slash Discord.

Wild card, bitches. Yeah. So as I alluded to early in the show, I went with something a little more in the pop country realm. Going to talk about Laney Wilson and her fourth studio album, Bell Bottom Country, released October 28th, 2022. Why don't we start with the track Watermelon Moonshine? All right, so Watermelon Moonshine was written by Laney Wilson, Josh Keer, and Jordan Schmidt. It explores the theme of young and reckless love.

Wilson describes the song as embodying the essence of country music and creating a timeless story, but it's that nostalgia of first love, first time drunk, first time with some other stuff. I just love the Southern details in the song, like parking back by the kudzu vines and the taste of the watermelon moonshine and all that.

Kudzu vines, for those that don't know, is an invasive plant that originally was used for adornment and to keep soil erosion from happening, but it grows like a foot a day. It's overtaken a lot of the wilderness of Louisiana and Tennessee and all that. So I thought that was just a really nice little detail.

So Laney Wilson, Laney Denae Wilson, born May 19th, 1992, raised in Baskin, Louisiana, a town of like 200 people, farming father, school teacher, mother, been trying to be a musician her entire life, moved to Nashville in 2011. I guess she lived out of her car or van for a bit outside of a studio. She played parties where she would dress up as Hannah Montana at kids birthday parties.

She would do a set as herself, do some of her own songs and then introduce Hannah Montana just to try and make bank. Yeah, she does look like her a little bit. Her style blends pop, Southern rock, contemporary country and classic country. She's influenced by Dolly Parton and Leann Womack and has been really picking up steam with this fourth album. Joined the cast of Yellowstone in 2022 and her songs have been featured there. So she's really got ahead of steam going and I love to see it.

I think it's like she took the whiskey and all the typical bro country type tropes, trucks, daddy's boots, but she has made it her own and is women don't get played on country radio much. They're like 15% of what gets played. And I think artists like her are going to pave the way to change that. The three words I use to describe this album, promising, passionate country. Not since the emergence of Miranda Lambert have we seen a woman's surface in mainstream country with such promise.

And I am looking forward to seeing where this goes because I think she's going to be the Reba of her generation. Why don't we jump to the next track, Hold My Halo. Yeah, the words to describe this record are different, sounds familiar. I don't know, I feel like I've heard this record many times before, though not specifically this record. I guess I didn't dislike it overall. I just am not a big fan of this pop country thing.

And I feel like she's, she's still this brand of being like this country hippie sort of thing. It's hillbilly hippie as she says on the second track where she's combining elements of rock, a little bit rock, a little bit country, I guess. Right? I mean, that's kind of where she's coming at it. Her producers is known for that too. He does, Jay Joyce is known to kind of put a rock slant on at least some tracks on the country albums he produces. So kind of follows.

Yeah, I believe he produced Ashley McBride's albums as well. So is she not known as being sort of a, I mean, Bell Bottom Country, is that not her moniker? Or? Oh, her moniker for Bell Bottom Country is that it's, it's basically express yourself, be yourself kind of a idea, like adding some fun. Some flair. They flare out of Bell Bottom Country. Yeah, that's true. But that's kind of the idea is, is the fun that can be had of being yourself.

And, you know, she does have this sort of, I don't know, brand at this point, but. I felt like she, I felt like this record was trying to convince me of her brand. Like every track was kind of coming back to that, that idea for me of kind of being someone different in this space. Like I'm not like everybody else in this country pop space.

But I thought this record sounded very much like everything else I'd heard in the country pop space and didn't really open any new doors for me or say anything I hadn't heard said a thousand times before. I think for me, and I feel the same generally about pop country, I feel like this is digging a little deeper and it's baby steps, you know?

People like Chris Stapleton have made it okay for some of those rules to be broken, but he still follows a lot of them, you know, all about whiskey and all that. So I think it's a step forward in getting back to a place where we were. And I think Miranda Lambert helps with that as well, where it's pop country, but there's a little more substantive stuff and not all, some of the songs are just straight up get drunk type of stuff. Just want to have fun.

Yeah. But then songs like Watermelon Moonshine and Heart Like a Truck and Add a Girl and those boots make up for all of that in my mind. Cool. All right. Why don't we listen to another song? This one's called Weekend. Yeah, my favorite moments on this album are the sad ones, you know, kind of the quieter and sadder moments, which is again, shocking. On brand. On brand. Yep. You know what else is on brand, Don, is you're going to tell us the spelling of weekend. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, so it's Week, W-E-A-K. What I love about songs like this, and it kind of reminds me of like when we listen to the George Jones album, you know, there's just clever lyrics, clever turns of phrase and stuff like that. So, you know, she's singing about the weekend, but she's actually, you know, then talking about the weekend of a heartache. I don't know if it's something about her voice or something in these sadder songs. What's the other one? New Friends, which comes at the end.

Both of those songs really moved me when I listened to them. I also liked she said something about putting on what she called her lipstick, the still got it lipstick. You know, she's getting ready to go out on the town and make some bad decisions.

Yeah, the neon bad decisions, which neon comes into play a lot with country music when they talk about bars, but still a thoughtful recycling, which is kind of what we were talking about with Andy, where I feel like that's what the strength of this is, is taking all that and just leveling it up a little. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's an interesting album, you know, for me. Well, I'll give you my three words. I just said, you go girl. Never say that again.

So you know, as Andy said, you know, I mean, she's not the first kind of rebel in the country music scene, but I think she does it well. I think just the songs are good, particularly lyrically. And I'm not sure if all the lyrics are hers. I know she co-writes all of her songs, but yeah, I just love the lyrics, you know, to a lot of these songs. The thing that disappoints me, I think, is just sort of the packaging or the production of the album. You know, it's pop production.

I wish it sounded more like the Ashley McBride album. I mean, there's elements of it. The albums are similar in some way and I can't really articulate what the difference is, but it just, it does feel very packaged and maybe it just needs a little more dirt, a little dirt, sure, or some space. Yeah. I guess I'd like a treatment that was less modern and more kind of, you know, rootsy sounding. It was a bit long, so it lost me at times. I think it should end with Wildflowers and Wild Horses.

That was actually one of my favorite tracks. Actually, when it started, I thought it was going to be Ghost Riders in the Sky, but yeah, that was a good track. The cover of What's Up or What's Going On or whatever, I think she does a really good job with it, but I'm not sure that it was necessary for the album. Seems like a good one live, you know, that she could do. Yeah. She took a song that I've become bored with and made it much more interesting for me.

I like the, I like the, the country-fied version of it and you know. But I don't think she made it more interesting. I think she made it more boring. The original song is famously covered by everyone repeatedly for decades and this version would be, this is a second from the end of a throwaway album. Damn! Sorry, that was a little harsh. Oh Jesus. Man. Looks like he just doesn't get it guys. I have no idea what's going on. I said, Hey, I agree.

Don doesn't need to be on the record and obviously Andy agrees with that as well. Andy doesn't want any of the songs on the album. But it didn't offend, it didn't offend me in any way, but yeah, Wildflowers and Wild Horses would have been a nice closer. The album is about 56 minutes and I would have been fine with it being 45 at the most and I probably could have done without Me, You and Jesus personally.

That was the one song, like there were songs on here that I didn't love initially, but the more I listened, I found things to like about them and that one just didn't click for me. But otherwise I think it's a great pop country record and I wish Lainey great success and hope that she takes this popularity and ability to maybe do whatever she wants and come up with something interesting on the next record. So that was Lainey Wilson with Bell Bottom Country.

I think any country music fan will find something to love in this record. So I encourage you all to go check it out if you haven't heard it already.

Okay so we ventured down the road of today's country, the long dusty path or trail. Did you guys learn anything? We learned that Andy's a spiteful man and that he loves the Four Non-Blondes. Linda Perry is a great songwriter, I need to make sure and say that. She wrote beautiful in every single- Okay. Got a long time without Don singing in this episode. I don't know, I think country's in a good place. I love how it looks back to the past. I think it does that better than any other genre.

And I mean the pop sort of brand thing of what's going on in country music. What's going on? Because it's become so popular and such a mainstay of modern music. I think it maybe to some degree is overtaken hip hop as these are the more popular genres in America. So I think that's not unexpected and obviously there's some value to that and some good things in there to pick out. There might be a few in far between, but there and there. How about you, dude?

As I said earlier, I avoid pop country for the most part because it is so cookie cutter. But listening to this album last year, I heard it and really liked it. And I'm just glad that there are pop country albums I can find things to grab onto. Just because the tropes and cliches are there doesn't mean there isn't something great underneath it to enjoy. So I will continue to be a little more open minded about it and listen to more of those records instead of just immediately dismissing them.

And I'm not surprised that even the pop year album that dude chose, it still kind of has like a rootsy vibe to it. It is sort of a throwback. But yeah, so I think country music just has this great legacy and I'm glad that modern acts are embracing the past. But I do want to see where it can go. There's the fusion of hip hop and country, like that stupid Billy Ray Cyrus and Lil Nas X song, whoever that was. So I don't know if there's anything there.

But I just wonder where you can go next with country. And that's one to grow on. I'm your density. I mean your destiny. Next week on the show, we have something special for you. We're going to be looking back on a record that we reviewed about 100 episodes ago. Before Dawn, BD. The Dark Days Before Dawn was part of the show. So we'll be looking at Marvin Gaye's classic album What's Going On. So join us for that conversation next week. What's going on? Oh God. Can't escape. It's not that one.

Okay. What's your favorite modern country album? What else are you listening to? Let us know. Join fellow album nerds on discord at albumnerds.com slash discord. You can also email us at podcast at albumnerds.com or follow us on Facebook and Instagram at albumnerds. Please subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcast app. And if you'd like to support the show, you can do so via PayPal at albumnerds.com slash support. Thank you for joining us here on the album nerds podcast.

We'll catch you next time. We'll be talking what's going on. Don't do it. He's trying. I can feel it coming though. Thanks for listening everybody. We'll see you next week. We'll finally get to the bottom of just what exactly is going on. I'll come back now you hear and I said, Hey, that was good. It's not supposed to be done. And I get real high. And I Yeah,