Dixie Chicks - Taking the Long Way
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Dixie ChicksBrand: Columbia
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2006-05-23
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- The Long Way Around
- Easy Silence
- Not Ready To Make Nice
- Everybody Knows
- Bitter End
- Lullaby
- Lubbock Or Leave It
- Silent House
- Favorite Year
- Voice Inside My Head
- I Like It
- Baby Hold On
- So Hard
- I Hope
Free Music Notes for Taking the Long Way
Free Music Review: If you ain't a Rebel, you ain't Sh*t!
Hit: 5 Stars
One thing's for sure: I think it's a safe bet to say the good ol' boys over at the White House won't be spinning the Chicks' latest minimum opus, "Taking the Long Way" anytime soon.
But it's all good: the girls---erm, "Chicks"---are back in black and ready for a throwdown, and like the Three Witches from Macbeth---you know, Three Witches, Three Chicks! Double, Double, Toil-and-Trouble!---they're full of spit, fury, a little vinegar, and a whole lotta down-home Good Times.
Now: the Chicks wanted to be Political, and Angry, and full of righteous rage, and so "Taking the Long Way" just won't---and can't---be divorced from its politics.
After all, these are the Chicks who battened down the hatches way back in 2003, before the Insurgency, and IEDs, and waves of suicide bombings---and came out against a war which, as singer Emily Robison then put it, "just warn't quite uh-right".
Oh, and they created a firestorm by saying they were ashamed that Bush was from Texas---their home state---severing the Hapless President by his bloody roots from the Great Pantheon of Texans the Chicks presumably *weren't* ashamed of, like Lyndon B. Johnson, UT Austin belltower sniper Charles Whitman, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, and of course Leatherface from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
Don't mess with Texas!
Anyhoo, let's take a breather and step away from the politics for a sec: does "Taking the Long Way" really take the long way? Can you give it a spin, and dance to it? Does it sound real good? Absolutely!
You could be a little caustic and say the Chicks are just using "The Long Way" as a savvy little springboard away from Country Music and into Pop: given that they've pretty much lost their entire Country fanbase, I'd say that's not so much caustic as realistic.
But "Long Way" is definitely pop: it's slick, it's airwave-friendly, and, Merciful God, it doesn't have a single reference to binge-drinking weekends with a bottle of JD, horses, cattle rustlers, dusty trails, cheating ex-wives, smoky honky tonks, mechanical bulls, or the million whiney twangy things you'd expect from the genre. That's gotta count for something, right?
It's Red-State music for the Blue-State crowd, nice, clean, crisply produced by superstar Rick Rubin, and totally sanitized for your protection.
In the end, though, Emily Robison and her gal-pals---erm, "Chick"-pals---want you to know three things: 1) they're angry, really angry 2) they're passionate; and 3) they're brave. Courageous, really. Oh, and in case you didn't know (and didn't pick it up from their hit single "Not Ready to Make Nice"), they're not ready to make nice.
I, for one, believe them. Look at how angry they are! It shows in their latest video, where things are blowing up, and dust is flying around, and they're all covered with black splotchy goo, calling to mind their magazine cover back in 2003 where they slathered their naked bodies with all the nasty names their close-minded former fans had called them.
But courage is courage, and anger is anger, right? Anyway, these Chicks are mad, hopping mad I tell you! I divide the Chick pantheon into three flavors: there is Horse-faced Chick, who sorta fades into the background and does her musical thang.
Then there is Violin Chick, who kinda looks like Horsey-Chick, only angrier, and in the video she pulls her bow across the strings of her violin, making no doubt what Charlie Daniels might call an "evil hiss", though---I mean, hot d*mned tamale, Charlie---she does so with such force that you expect to see the strings to snap. I'd think it wouldn't sound so much like an evil hiss as a "Yaaaark! Yaaarrk! Yaaaaark!", but what do I know?
Finally there is BigHeaded Chick, who is the angriest of all. Man does BigHeaded Chick emote: her eyes flash with anger, sadness, and torment. Her head is so wide and flat that she somewhat resembles Dick Tracy's old nemesis Flathead, who could launch spitfires off his aircraft carrier-sized head. Yeah. But she's angry, no doubt, in a kind of unhappy bovine way, suggesting a mortally wounded Bluebell the Cow, after Bluebell got a mouthful of some bad tickle-grass.
In the end, you've really gotta admire the Chicks. They're doing their Thang, keeping it real, and standing up alongside the thousands of American men and women who are risking life and limb and fortune to speak the truth and keep our Country free!
Am I talking about our brave boys and girls in the US military? Nah, silly! I'm talking about our brave actors and singers, who are taking it to the streets!---folks like Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, and, umm, Cheryl Crow.
Because it's good to have brave folks in these fearful times, brave folks who can use their art---like the Chicks---to stand up to brutal tyrants, monstrous despots who terrorize their own people, who wage brutal wars of aggression against the innocent and helpless.
What, you mean Saddam? No, no, silly, pay attention: I'm talking about---and the Chicks are singing about---George W. Bush, of course. Double Duh. Besides, make fun of George W. and you get on Leno; make fun of Saddam and you meet Pepe the Human Meat Grinder.
Speak Truth to Power, y'all! Giddyap!
JSG
Taking the Long Way Poster
With Taking The Long Way, one of the most anticipated albums in recent years, the Dixie Chicks are putting themselves out there like never before. For the first time, every one of the disc's fourteen songs are co-written by the Chicks themselves, exploring themes both deeply private and resoundingly political. Collaborating with legendary producer Rick Rubin (who has worked with everyone from Johnny Cash to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, from Run DMC to Neil Diamond), the biggest-selling female band in history has truly pushed themselves to new heights both as writers and as performers."Everything felt more personal this time," says Maines. "I go back to songs we've done in the past and there's just more maturity, depth, intelligence on these. They just feel more grown-up." Inspired by such classic rock artists as the Eagles, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and the Mamas and the Papas, Taking The Long Way adds a sweeping, Southern California vibe to the Chicks' down-home intimacy. That ambition is matched with lyrics addressing everything from small-town narrow-mindedness ("Lubbock or Leave It") to the psychology of celebrity ("Everybody Knows"). "This album was about finding a balance in the different aspects of our lives," says Emily Robison, "but there's something thematic there, too--it's really about being bold."
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Nothing changes folks like babies and war, and since the release of their last album, 2002's Home, the Dixie Chicks have been forever altered by both. If that album showcased the trio as precocious young adults, Taking the Long Way finds them sobered and matured, and in a grown-up state of mind. Produced by the celebrated Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers), who saw the Chicks as "a great rock act making a country album, not a country act making a rock album," their new record impresses both as beautiful sonic tapestry (peppered with myriad Beatlesque hallmarks) and forthright yet vulnerable portrait of three women shaken by the personal and political events of the past few years. As they make clear in the defiant "Not Ready to Make Nice," they still smart over the backlash from their 2003 Bushwhacking. But as they assert on the equally autobiographical "The Long Way Around," they could never "kiss all the asses that they told me to" and just follow others aimlessly--and silently--through life. This means that the Chicks are simultaneously prideful and scornful of celebrity ("Everybody Knows"), and that as new mothers they increasingly treasure the refuge they find in life with their families, out of the spotlight ("Easy Silence," "Lullaby," "Baby Hold On"). The push and pull of both passions drive this record, which also touches on the personal issues of infertility (with which sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison both dealt) and Alzheimer's (from which Natalie Maines's grandmother suffers). The trio crafted all 14 cuts with the help of such writers as Sheryl Crow, Gary Louris, Mike Campbell, and Keb' Mo', laying out their lives as honestly and intimately as they might in their diaries. For that reason, on first listen, Taking the Long Way seems too somber--in need of a bit of levity and more than a couple of uptempo songs (like the sexy, '60s-flavored "I Like It") to resonate for the long haul. It also seems to lack the writing quality that Darrell Scott, Patty Griffin, and Bruce Robison brought to Home. But on repeated plays, those concerns dissipate. By the last cut, the R&B/gospel offering "I Hope," the Chicks have chronicled their journey with as much spirituality as spunk, their pain deeply ingrained in their protests. --Alanna Nash
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