stevo "cd" review: "the outsiders" by eric church

Happy Sunday, peoples and peepettes! 

Sorry this one took so long.

Stevo “CD” Review.

“The Outsiders” by Eric Church.

12 tracks, 51 minutes (approximate).

Let’s begin.

Track 1: “The Outsiders”.  Uum, wow.  This is certainly an interesting track to open the “cd” with.  I’m not saying that it’s bad; it’s just not what you’d expect.  The song opens up for the first forty seconds or slow as a slow, drawn out, haunting song, and then at the forty second mark, BAM!, the switch gets flipped, and we go up tempo big time into a type of rock that sounds like something Hank Williams would have put out.  Then at the midpoint, it slows right back down for a moment, before it just explodes with energy, emotion, and a really damned good sounding, uuh, sound.  You even wind up with a few “raise the lighters and wave ‘em side to side in the air” moments taking this thing to the finish.  The last minute?  Is one of those guitar / drum riffs that you’d expect in a live show to buy time at the end of a track for a stage reset or something, not in the opening track to a “cd”.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“We’re the bad news, we’re the young guns.

We’re the ones they told you to run from.

Yeah, a player’s gonna play, a hater’s gonna hate;

And a regulator’s born to regulate.

When it hits the fan, and it all goes down,

And the gloves come off?

You’re gonna find out …

Just who we are!

We do our talking!

Walk that walk!

Wide open rocking!

That’s how we roll!

Our backs to the wall!

A band of brothers –

Together, alone!

The Outsiders!”

Grade: A-.  A very ambitious start.  And I happen to like ambition.

Track 2: “A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young”.  And after a very up-tempo start, we definitely slow and strip things down.  If the first track is more a Southern rock style you’d expect from a Hank Williams or a Lynyrd Skynyrd, this is much more like … you know what it kind of reminds me of, is “Whiskey Lullaby” by Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley.  It’s a song that you the sound and pacing, makes you think is about a tragedy, or about something unpleasant.  Then you listen to the lyrics, and you realize, it’s anything but.  It’s about a dude who lived life to the fullest, only now he looks back, and can’t understand why he risked it like he did, when what he truly wanted, was there all along.  Let’s just say, this song and me?  We could be friends.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“What the hell made you love

A man, who was gonna die young?”

Grade: B+.  A pretty solid effort.

Track 3: “Cold One”.  And now we get a more traditional country sound.  And like the first two tracks, I like how this sounds.  The extended riff at the from the 1:50 mark to about the 2:50 mark, a solid minute, was phenomenal.  As for the song itself?  Eeh.  Outside of the riff, I didn’t really care for it.  Still, if this is the worst effort on this “cd”, I’m going to be a happy man.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“I still like to drink a beer,

But a long neck I won’t do.

‘Cause every time I see one sweating,

Man I break out in one too.”

Grade: C.  It’s there.  It’s not memorable, it’s not horrendous.  It’s just there.

Track 4: “Roller Coaster Ride”.  And on track four, we finally get a song that, at least initially, sounds like you’d expect an Eric Church song to sound.  And kids?  It’s good.  It’s a phenomenally good song.  In the interest of full disclosure, my five favorite efforts by Mr. Church would be:

5. “Over When It’s Over” (off “Chief”).

4. “What I Almost Was” (off “Sinners Like Me”).

3. “Hell On The Heart” (off “Carolina”).

2. “Love Your Love The Most” (off “Carolina).

1. “Sinners Like Me” (off “Sinners Like Me” – hey, it is one of the two official anthems of my life, after all (along with Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Wanna Be”).

This song?  Slides somewhere between “Hell on the Heart” and “What I Almost Was” on first listen … and might rise another spot, if I listen to it enough.  Just a phenomenal effort from start to finish (and the closing sounds, you don’t really see coming).  Just a phenomenal effort.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“Since you had to go?

I’ve been on a roller coaster ride!

Up and down I go, over you,

About to lose my mind!”

Grade: A.  Loved this effort.

Track 5: “Talladega”.  Oh Sweet Jesus.  Everything I just said about the track before this one?  Multiply by fifty.  This honestly might be my favorite effort he’s ever done.  Everything – and I mean everything – about this song, works.  The sound is great.  The lyrics are awesome.  

And the sentimental value of said lyrics, what the story this song is telling, totally hits the mood I’ve been in for the last few months or so – one of looking back at your favorite moments of life, your “greatest hits”, and realizing that no matter how things ultimately turned out?  

The journey to get here, was worth it.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“Like a storm?  Time rolls on.

You can’t hit pause, as we just did.

Most days in life?  Don’t stand out.

But life’s about those days that will. 

Like rocking rando, getting rowdy,

Shooting roman candles at

The man on the moon,

‘Til the Alabama sun was breaking …

Over Talladega!  Boys raise up,

Whiskey in your glass!

Here’s to turning up, slowing down,

And cars that go real fast!

We were laughing and living,

Drinking and wishing, and thinking

As that checkered flag was waving,

Sure would like to stay in Talladega …”

Grade: A+.  This is going in the work playlist like, now.

Track 6: “Broke Record”.  Southern rock sound to open, and throughout.  It’s not a bad song.  But after the last two efforts, this feels more like filler, than a potential single.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“Your lips?  Your hips?

When you touch ‘em to mine,

Each and every time,

I’m hypnotized!  I’ll admit it!

Your moves?  Your grooves?

It’s some heavy stuff,

I can’t get enough!

Girl your love’s a drug, I can’t quit it!”

Grade: B-.  I wouldn’t hit fast forward if this popped up on Pandora, but I wouldn’t be searching this track out either.

Track 7: “Like A Wrecking Ball”.  This is just a fun, laid back little tune, a romantic ballad, if you will.  It’s about love, and romance, and … (lee corso voice) aw, f*ck it! 

It’s a song about a dude screwing his girl so hard, that … well … seriously, you try not to laugh at the visuals, because I couldn’t. 

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“I’m gonna find out,

What this house is made of!

Been too many nights,

Since it felt us make love!

I wanna rock some sheetrock!

Knock some pictures off the wall!

(I wanna) love you baby,

Like a wrecking ball!”

And …

“That old house?

Is gonna be shaking!

I hope these bricks and boards

Can take it!

But I won’t be surprised,

If the whole damned place just falls!

I’m gonna rock you baby,

Like a wrecking ball!”

What’s that?  One more?  (fidelity ad guy voice) Why not!

“And that old house?

Is gonna be shaking!

Rafter rocking;

Foundation quaking!

Crash right through the front door,

Back you up against the wall!

Love you baby,

Take it right there baby!

Rock you baby,

Like a wrecking ball!”

Grade: A+.  Are we sure Jack Black didn’t write this one?

Track 8: “That’s Damn Rock and Roll”.  This one actually has an old school Rolling Stones feel and sound to it, and as someone who finds a way to work as many Stones classics into the Mixology list as I can get away with (I was up to six by season end!), I heartily approve.  This one kinda reminds me at times of “Gimme Shelter”, and that’s a good thing, since it’s either my third or fourth favorite Stones track*.  Give this one a listen.  I can’t envision it as a single, but it’s damned good.  Because it is damned rock and roll.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“It ain’t a middle finger on a t-shirt

The establishment’s trying to sell;

It’s a guy with the balls,

Who told the establishment to go to hell.

It ain’t about the money you make,

When a record gets sold;

It’s about doing it for nothing,

‘Cause it lives in your soul.

That’s?  Damned rock and roll!

That’s?  Damned rock and roll!”

Grade: A.  Really cool song.

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(*: come on, no post of mine is complete without at least one random sidebar rant.  My ten favorite Stones tracks: 10) “Jumpin Jack Flash”, 9) “Angie” 8) “Miss You”, 7) “Paint It Black”, 6) “Start Me Up”, 5) “Mother’s Little Helper”, 4) “Gimme Shelter”, 3) “Mixed Emotions”, 2) “Sympathy for the Devil, 1) “Get Off Of My Cloud”.  And now back to the regular portion of these poorly prepared remarks.)

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Track 9: “Dark Side”.  You build for forty seconds to the first lyric.  And the sound is kinda neat – it definitely hints at something big coming.  Only … the moment never arrives.  This song just didn’t work for me.  To me, this is the first dud on the “cd”.  And it’s a clunker.

Best / Favorite Lyric: honestly, there wasn’t one.

Grade: D.  Not a fan.

Track 10: “Devil, Devil (Prelude: Prince of Darkness)”.  I’m not a fan of the word “prelude”.  Only this prelude, works.  Quite honestly, the first four minutes of this song (the “prelude”), if you close your eyes, and just listen, you can picture Coach Taylor standing there in the Dillon or East Dillon locker room, giving his inspirational speech of the night.

The song itself also lives up to the hype the four minute prelude sets up.  I had my doubts seeing a nearly nine minute run time.  I never once found myself bored or waiting for this thing to wrap up.  That’s the mark of a good song.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“I’ll tell you a well-known secret,

Of a tiny place known far and wide.

The devil walks among us folks,

And Nashville is his bride.

Of all the chaos he has caused and done,

His greatest trick?

Is to every guitar-totin’ dreamer,

The devil don’t exist.

But me?  I shook his hand.

I know that he is real.

So devil?  You can screw yourself,

And then go straight to hell!”

Grade: A for the Prelude, B for the song itself, so I’ll split the difference and call it a B+.

Track 11: “Give Me Back My Hometown”.  If you’re a fan of Mr. Church, you’ve heard this song.  If you haven’t, you’ve missed out.  This is one of Mr. Church’s best efforts, in a career filled with tens of them at this point.  Great sound, love the story the lyrics tell, and you will too.

Best / Favorite Lyric:

“All the colors of my youth?

The red, the green?  The hope, the truth?

Are beating me black and blue,

‘Cause you’re in every scene.

My friends try to cheer me up;

Get together at the Pizza Hut.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them,

That was our place.

These sleepy streetlights on

Every sidewalk street,

Shed a light on everything

That used to be.

Give me back my hometown.

‘Cause this is my hometown!”

Grade: A.  Phenomenal first single choice.

Track 12: “The Joint”.  Uum, this is not how I would have closed out this “cd”.  I’d have flipped this and “Give Me Back My Hometown”.  To bastardize a quote from the great Dean Wormer: “slow, boring, and pointless is not a good final impression to a “cd”, son”.

Best / Favorite Lyrics: honestly, none.

Grade: F.  I despised this track.

Final verdict: Only one truly awful track, only two I didn’t care for, out of twelve.  Three A+’s, three more A’s / A-‘s, plus three B+’s / B’s (along with one C, one D, and one F). 

Spend the money on iTunes or Amazon or whatever your legal provider of choice is.  You won’t regret it.

Overall Grade (Theismann Scale): 12-4, Division Winner, Wildcard Round Bye, Conference Championship Game Participant.  A damned solid “season” for this “cd”.

cd review: eric church's "chief"

Tonight I will be at the Y’allapalooza concert at Sandstone (so if you’re reading this and will be there, look me up.)

Until then, another long overdue cd review, for tonight’s main act: Eric Church.

Artist: Eric Church
CD: “Chief”
11 songs, 41 minutes (approximately)

1. “Creepin”. Not the song I would have led the cd off with. It starts extremely slow and sounds kind of, well, creepy. Once you get through the opening 30, 45 seconds though, it starts to grow on you, and the chorus explodes with energy, to its credit. Still, this song won’t be on any regular playlist I put together.

Best line(s): “Since the day you left me baby, I can feel the lonely,
I can hear the crazy, just a creepin’ creepin’.”

Grade: C+. We’re not off to a great start here.

2. “Drink in my Hand”. I LOVE, and I mean LO-YUVE, this song. It sounds so much like Neal McCoy’s “Wink”, and damn if it don’t deliver. From the moment this song gets underway, it drags you in, and by the time you hit the chorus, you’re raising a beer and singing right along. Outstanding track. Outstanding.

Best line(s): “You make me wanna go ooh ooh ooh
When you dance like that,
You’ve got that little tattoo
Playing peeky boo on your back.
If you want to impress me,
Honey here’s my plan –
All you have to do is
Put a drink in my hand.

Fill it up, or throw it down,
When you drive me home, take the long way around.
You be my Lois Lane, honey I’ll be your Superman --
All you have to do is put a drink in my hand.”

Grade: A+. This might be my favorite song he’s ever done, and I am fully aware “Sinners Like Me” is my ringtone.

3. “Keep On”. Speaking of sounding like a legendary country song, this song definitely sounds like the music to “Fancy”. Which is cool – if you’re going to channel a song for inspiration, you can do a helluva lot worse than Reba McIntyre. I liked this track. A nice, quick little tune (the shortest track on the cd), and it moves along quite nicely.

Best line(s): the final verse:
“Yeah I love the way the sun’s coming through today
And bouncin’ off the small of your back.
Yeah I know if I call in sick today,
The boss’ll have a heart attack.
Yeah I knew it was over when she rolled over,
And said baby why don’t you stay.
And keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on,
Lookin’ at me that way”

Grade: A-. This is the track that I have a feeling is going to grow on me, much like “Two Pink Lines” off his previous cd did.

4. “Like Jesus Does”. Oh goodie. Well, let’s do this. It opens very slow and painfully, so at least it opens like a Mass. I gotta admit, at the halfway point, I don’t hate this song nearly as much as I thought I would based on the title and the opening. It’s a decent slow song. And thankfully, has little to nothing to do with a certain failed ideology.

Best line(s): “Always thought she’d give up on me one day,
Wash her hands of me, leave me staring down some runway,
But I thank God each night, and twice on Sunday,
That she loves me like Jesus does.”

Grade: B. Far better than I expected it to be.

5. “Hungover and Hard Up”. Hey, the anthem of my life! Just kidding*. Unlike the prior track, this one started out with promise, and its tanking fast. I don’t particularly care for the sound. I don’t particularly care for the pace. And the lyrics really don’t draw you in.

(*: seriously, I do not get hangovers. I could be pounding it until 2 in the morning, and be wide awake and ready to go by 7. It scares me too sometimes.)

Best line(s): “Yeah the bottle in my hand is loaded,
And I’m afraid to use it tonight”.

Grade: C. A perfectly mediocre effort that I will probably never listen to again.

6. “Homeboy”. This was the first release off this cd, and man, is this song good. I know I tend to favor more up-tempo, high-energy songs, but this song is a perfect slow paced, strung out effort. It also helps that I love the lyrics to this one too.

Here’s what Mr. Church had to say about this track, and damned if it isn’t pretty much exactly what I think about it: “This song is about a man urged to consider the phrase “home, boy”. What was really interesting about that was it was about a journey that started in one place, and ends in a totally different place. What tied the whole song together was the chorus. I love writing a song where you’re in the middle of it and say “what now?”

Best line(s): “You can’t hold back the hands of time,
Mama’s going grey and so is daddy’s mind.
I wish you’d come on back and make it alright,
Before they’re called home … boy.”

Grade: A+.

7. “Country Music Jesus”. Oh goodie, another one. Hopefully this one surprised me in a positive way like track four did. And you know what? It did. Anytime you can use religious imagery to make a completely non-religious point, I’m cool with that. I really liked this track once it got going. Really fun track.

Best line(s): “We need a second coming worse than bad.
Some long haired hippie priest,
Preaching from the book of Johnny Cash.
A sheep among the wolves there standing tall –
We need a country music Jesus
To come and save us all”.

Grade: A-. A really fun track once it gets going.

8. “Jack Daniels”. Ooh, now this, on the basis of the title, has potential! (Although it won’t be my favorite track based on title track potential. Hang in there, we’re almost there, and I can tell you, said hopeful favorite track did wind up being my favorite.)

At a little over 5 minutes, this is by far and away the longest track on the cd. And you know what? When a song is this fun to listen to, I’m perfectly good with that. The lyrics are sweet. The music goes at just the right pace. This is a fun little track to sit around with a bottle of Jack and the title track to song 10 and have a fun night on the deck.

Best line(s): “Yeah, every Superman has got his kryptonite,
And Jack Daniels kicked my ass again last night.”

Grade: A+.

9. “Springsteen”. Well, let’s see where this goes. For the record, I like Springsteen, but I am not some die-hard, listening to his channel on XM 24/7 type of fan. Oh, and for the record, “Tunnel of Love” is one of the most criminitely underrated cd’s of the last 30 years. Anyways, back to this effort by Eric Church.

I love the opening sound, it totally sounds like the opening to a Springsteen track. And while I think the first verse was better than the second, this song is really good from start to finish. Really good. This actually might be the song that I wind up replaying twenty times before I even realize it, it’s that easy to listen to.

Best line(s): “I was singing to you, you were singing to me.
I was so alive, never been more free.
Fired up my daddy’s lighter, we sang oh whoa whoa,
Stayed out there ‘til they forced us out.
Took the long way to your house,
I can still hear the sound of you sayin’ don’t go.

When I think about you, I think about seventeen.
I think about my old Jeep, I think about the stars in the sky.
Funny how the melody sounds like a memory,
Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night.
Springsteen.”

Grade: A+. He’s knocking this thing out of the park at this point.

10. “I’m Getting Stoned”. Oh sweet Jesus. Here’s the thing – one reason why I love music from the late 60s / early 70s so much, is because the artists had to be more creative back then to get their point across. Case in point – “Mr. Tamborine Man”. Everyone knows it’s about a junkie needing a fix from his dealer, but you couldn’t just say that back then, so you had to get cute and creative with the wording. This song hearkens back to those days. I absolutely loved this song. It’s incredibly good. Incredibly good.

Best line(s): “Here’s to happy ever after,
And here’s to balls and chains.
And here’s to all us haters,
Of old lovers’ new last names.
And here’s to holding up
And getting right where I belong –
Cause she got a rock,
And I’m getting stoned.”

Grade: A+. I swear, I’m not grading on a liberal curve here, these tracks really are this good.

11. “Over When Its Over”. A fitting title, since it’s the last track on the cd. And this song comes out of nowhere to win you over. It starts extremely slow paced, and then he starts to sing, and it totally draws you in. This is the sleeper track on this cd – he could have a massive hit if he releases this. If not, it’ll wind up like “Love Hurts” off “Light Grenades” by Incubus, the great “could have been”.

Best line(s): “Now it’s over when it’s over,
Ain’t it baby, ain’t it.
Rips you like a dagger,
Can it baby, can it.
Wish we could do it over,
Dammit baby, dammit.
We had it in the air,
But we just couldn’t land it.

It’s the white flag, it’s a stop sign.
It’s the last long drag on a Marlboro Light.
It’s a long night, beating up the past,
Now when the first lie is gonna hit you back,
This ain’t no gone for drill,
Or no goodbye for tomorrow. It’s over.”

Grade: A+.

Final thought(s): as much as I loved Matt Nathanson’s new cd, and I really dug Ben Harper’s (still to be reviewed) … this one has emerged as the frontrunner for my favorite download of the year. The last six songs all earned their A’s, and 8 of the 11 tracks I gave an A to. No effort earned worse than a C. The worst song on this cd is better than the best on many cd’s I own.

Final verdict: download and enjoy as soon as f*cking possible, the highest designation I can give a musical effort. Preferably on the back deck on a nice summer evening, with an adult beverage, a couple friends, and some green. You won’t regret the 40 minutes spent that way with this cd.