Daily Listen by Brian Brock

Shania Twain - Come On Over (hear some crazy Canadian mash-up)

When did I start listening to country music? It was definitely sometime after I was over the first flush of Fleetwood Mac fever. (A student of mine once claimed Fleetwood Mac was a country music singer, actually.)  I would sit in the car outside the gym at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, waiting for my girlfriend, who is an exerciser.  I was flipping stations between U2, NPR, Missy Elliott, Lynyrd, country, and this music they have in New Mexico which I think is called Norteño, although I prefer the Taos station that plays it.  My country music moment hit me while listening to the song “My Front Porch Looking In” by Lonestar.  To be precise, it was the line “There’s a carrot top who can barely walk / With a sippy cup of milk.”  (The singer has been travelling all around, but he loves most the view he sees looking in from his front porch; for example, a “sippy cup.”)

I had long enjoyed the extended cliche-sequences and articulated normalcy of country music lyrics.  “My baby left me holding the bag, the bag of cats, cats cryin’ in the night, as I howl at the moon, I’m gonna open that bag, that baaag oooof caaats… I let the cat!… outta the bag.”  (“Bag Of Cats” © B. Brock)  But here was a man singing about sippy cups. 

It’s the G.W.Bush effect, or to be precise, the Sarah Palin effect: the difference is eradicated between the master of the universe and a humble householder, or at least that is the story told by the one and believed by the other.

I began listening to country radio with more interest, and soon discovered Shania Twain.  Actually, of course I was aware of her music in 1998 when she was busy selling 40 million or so copies of Come On Over.  But if you listen to country radio, Shania Twain songs stick out like a half-Labrador Retriever in a litter of German Shepherds.  She and “Mutt” Lange took the standard country formula and applied the intensely crafted style Lange perfected on Def Leppard albums.

There’s a lot more to say.  About Shania’s use of folksy-isms, about moments of precision, about the Mutt “hey heys” that could almost be cut and pasted from Def Lep songs.  I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about the song “That Don’t Impress me Much”.

audio from:

amandalynferri:

CV dream-tern, Chris Han made this really good mash-up of Canadian bands.

Barenaked Ladies - one week
Avril Lavigne - complicated
Sum 41 - fat lip
Nickelback - photograph

Tegan and Sara - the con
The Stills - of montreal
Simple Plan - i’d do anything

Neil Young - heart of gold
MSTRKRFT - work on you
Celine Dion - all coming back to me now

Shania Twain - man i feel like a woman
Broken Social Scene - stars and sons
Nelly Furtado - i am like a bird

Alanis Morissette - ironic
Chromeo - Momma’s Boy
Hot Hot Heat - goodnight goodnight

Arcade Fire - wake up
The Band - The Weight
Sarah McLachlan - i will remember you

Oh Canada
Metric - Monster Hospital
Billy Talent - This Suffering

Saw Horse - Raised By Robots (track starts quiet/noisy)

I still like this album.  It’s a little episodic, and for that reason it works best knowing the story: a radio becomes sentient, and when it realizes it is trapped in a metal chassis it has words to say.  In that context, the episodes are like the radio flipping itself through the stations, falling back into the static, dropping in and out of the middle of different sounds.

This account did occur to me while I was making it, but not as a directive.  I have to admit, the process of making and putting together was dominant, and various stories arose as necessary.  But the stories work.

I’m really grateful to Emily Brock, Linda Kelen, and Lea Brock for sending me their thoughts about this album.

Many musicians say that they do or don’t listen to their own works.  I listen to mine, and not just narcissistically, and not just because I enjoy them.  Often, I can’t believe that they work, so I’ll see if I was justified in leaving them in whatever state.