Rhinestones

This is a review. But this is not really a review. It's about three albums that aren't Country, but maybe they are. Or they may be Americana, but possibly only because they're made in America, except one isn't. It's about Lambchop, Richard Buckner, and Will Oldham. And maybe it's about Rhinestone Cowboy.

Three albums, then, that have intrigued me over the last month, brand new and still sparkly underneath, though I'm doing my best to wear them thin. Great songs, great songwriters who deliver minutae with warbles, whispers, twangs,occasional yelps, and nary a bucket to fit a pitch. My kind of singers.

"Damaged." "Meadow". "The Letting Go."

All three of these albums are pretty much what you'd expect from these three distinctive men(I say "men" as Lambchop, while blessed with a slightly obscene amount of musicians playing very quietly, is most viewed through the lens of Kurt Wagner). If you're a regular fan of artists featured here, or in similar venues, you probably own at least a copy on one or all of their albums, and none of these new ones vary too far from established territory, or territory that has been slowly mined and transformed.

In Oldham's case, on "The Letting Go",continuing his Bonnie Prince Billy personae, his move from lo fi, banjo plunking, backwoods preacher to pastoral Nick Drake afficionado seems to be complete. It's a pretty album, low-key and full of musical nuance, but still provides the kind of dense, small, confusing observation of all his previous albums. The affected twang is all but erased, and Oldham attempts to sing rather than yodel. Musically, it's almost baroque, spare but without the sounds of passing trucks and crickets by the back porch. The wallpaper has been changed, but you know you're in the same room.

On "Meadow", his best effort since "Devotion+Doubt", Richard Buckner brings the noise. It's, of course, nothing like "Devotion+Doubt", and even further from his debut, "Bloomed." A rickety album, featuring Guided By Voices alumni and a WACO Brother so you don't forget his Insurgent Country roots, it transmits short bursts of songs, sonically jagged shards of observation. The lyrics are inscrutable as ever, and beneath the din, Buckner's voice still goes down like a "goodbye rye", woozy and trembling.

Lambchop's "Damaged" is my favorite of the three, and features some of Kurt Wagner's finest moments. It's a personal sounding album, something Wagner has avoided most of his career. The lyrics tease directness, or at least suggest that if you looked long and hard enough, you might find something true. Musically its a melange of the Country-inspired weirdness of "I Hope You're Sitting Down" and the Nashville soul of "What Another Man Spills." The tempos and volume haven't changed, but an urgency exists as an undercurrent.

All three of these artists have had, at some point or another, been tagged with the alt-country tag. It's hard to imagine these albums picked out by a campfire or given the back porch acoustic treatment. It's hard to imagine the songs contained therein making a connection on a "popular" level. The concept of Country music has certainly altered in some circles, and I can't help the suspicion that skullduggery has been afoot in recent times, that something has been stolen from the masses, replaced with refried junk from Nashville or trended to ironic hipsterism. I'm not sure Hank would have done it this way, and if he did, would he have been Hank? But, the tendency of the rebellious and the insurgent is to shrink from or rend violently apart the traditional, to co-opt the prevailing truth or set of rules that govern.

Country Music was always the province of the popular. It was music of the people, by the people, and for the people, to steal from a writer(s) of note. It was a direct connection, utilizng themes universal for maximum effect and accessibility. Perhaps that last word "accessibility" is the key. There's no call for the tradition of Country as it once was known. One might ask, So what? Does it matter? Who gets to decide what's Country and what's not? Good questions.

On "The Decline of Country and Western Civilization", the most ballyhooed track from "Damaged", Wagner sings the lines "Now insurance of the past is gone away/and how we've overcome the weakness for the altered statements/and hey you know we're dressed like that/and hey, that's rather silly." It's the return of the Rhinestone Cowboy.

I don't think that the albums discussed above are Country, but I think they're very good records. I don't think the artists making the records were ever Country, their obsessions too removed. But I also happen to think The Magnetic Field's "The Charm Of The Highway Strip" is one of the greatest Country albums of the last 20 years, so, you know, where does leave us now?

To Be Continued.