Dixie Chicks - Taking the Long Way
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Free Music Notes for Taking the Long Way
Free Music Review: Good Album from a Great Band.
Hit: 5 Stars
The Chicks Rule. Rock On Girls.
This is the first Dixie Chicks album I've ever bought. My friends and family collectively have everything they've put out since Natalie joined the group, though, so I've listened to them a lot over the years. I consider them old friends of mine.
The Chicks have - as others have remarked - been one of the more old school new country bands around. Rather bluegrassy and folky. Their choice of material is usually thematically interesting, too. Cheeky, you could say. So I really like their previous output, I've just never got around to buying one of their albums.
I decided that had to change. I just had to show the Chicks some love, finally. I've resolved to buy their entire back catalogue, too.
It comes down to this: I love this band, their music rocks, and though I don't necessarily agree with their politics, I am disgusted with the way they've been treated. All the numb nuts- putting it very kindly - who have dissed them for what they said about our fearless *ahem* leader ought to be ashamed.
So when I heard track 3 on this album "Not Ready to Make Nice" - the best track here by the way, i.m.h.o. - all I could say was d*mn straight. Exactly right. I am sick and tired of hissy fit hysteria and intolerance. This isn't a fascist state. Not yet. We have the right- sorry, the responsibility- to critique our leaders and their policies. Even celebrities can speak their minds. Toby Keith sure isn't afraid to.
We can't have needed national discussions if people behave like thugs. Smashing albums. Death threats. I mean really, now. Come on. People can be such cretins.
All that thuggery because she voiced her bloody opinion, and said something critical of a man who desperately needs criticism.. All in power need critique, no matter what ideological shade or party stripe they display. When patriotism, ideology, fear or nationalism make critical discourse unacceptable we've entered a very dangerous zone. The enemy should be marching on our flaming cities before we suppress such dissent. Until then we ought to welcome, even demand it. Free speech and dialogue are what this country is all about, or it's about nothing at all. I say this as a vet who would willingly take the oath again if I had to.
Anyhow, this album is not their best. I prefer their old bluegrassy stuff. Still, there are several pleasant songs here, and as I say, "Not Ready to Make Nice" is great. I would normally give this four stars. I add a fifth for fighting. Sock it to 'em girls.
Free Music Review: The Dixie Chicks and Jabanoski Are The Most Corageous Acts Ever Recorded
Hit: 5 Stars
First, this CD is a nothing short, and I mean nothing short, of an absolute masterpiece. Fourteen perfect songs which range from political to love-torn to, most importantly, defiant at the redneck audience that abandanded their three precious "little girls" as soon as they grew up and started speaking for themselves.
Second, this is the most corageous stand I've ever seen ANY group or individual performer take EVER. Though they knew that they were risking their entire audience, the Chicks never backed down from Natalie's absolutely correct comments about the patheticness of George W. Bush and the misery and slaughter of our troops, not to mention everyone who got caught in the crossfire, this "leader" has caused. Yes, Bob Dylan and a hundred others have written great protest songs against the things in the world they saw as unjust. But they were preaching to the choir. Their audience was a protest audience. As for the Chicks, they put their careers and easy millions in continuous record sales on the line when they refused to "make nice" or "Back down" from their brave stance when their main audience are people who still believe we're "winning the war in Iraq" (934 of our soldiers died there last week. The war has been going on for almost three years now with no end in sight. Osama Bin Laden, five years after 9/11 is still free as a bird. Some "Victory", huh?)
The ONLY other performer I can compare to the Chicks in this bravery is Bill Jabanoski, whose main audience is also redneck Jimmy Buffett fans, but who nonetheless recorded "A Special Place In Hell-Four Years Under The Bootheal of George W. Bush" in September 2004 and not only risked his whole audience, but also gave ALL of his proceeds from that CD to the Kerry campaign to get Bush and Cheney and Rumsfield out of office. As a lot of people have written before me, we should have listened harder to his 2002 CD "Florence Martus" in which he basically predicted everything that Bush and company were going to do in Iraq and what a disaster it was going to be.
So it comes as no surprise that Jabanoski, who toured with the Chicks on the campaign trail in 2004, has a song on his new CD "Chase The Night Into The Dawn" called "F..K You Rednecks, I Love The Dixie Chicks" and also rips apart "Clear Channel Radio" on another track for banning the Chicks from all their country stations across America.
KEEP FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT, NATALIE, MARTIE, AND EMILY!!! There are millions of us who are your side. Because of artists like you this world just become a better place. "I HOPE"
Free Music Review: Every song on this CD pleases my ears !!!
Hit: 5 Stars
The Dixie Chicks don't wait very long to remind us of the dustup surrounding their Bush-bashing remark of three years ago. On ''The Long Way Around,'' the opening salvo from Taking the Long Way, Natalie Maines recalls the time she ''fought with a stranger'' (Toby Keith?) and admits, ''I could have made it easier on myself.'' The next tune, ''Easy Silence,'' finds her searching for refuge in a world where ''anger plays on every station.'' If you wonder whether they have regrets about the Incident, ''Not Ready to Make Nice'' makes it clear they don't. When Maines gets to the part about all the death threats, her voice rises and the strings well up; it's a true pop-money-shot moment.
Those first songs also demonstrate the Chicks aren't terribly interested in reconciling with red-state country fans. (On ''The Long Way Around,'' Maines cattily sings that her teen friends married their school beaus and now reside ''in the same ZIP codes where their parents live.'' Take that, CMT viewers!) But it's also apparent that the Chicks are thinking outside the Nashville box in more ways than writing defensive lyrics. The album, produced by the ubiquitous Rick Rubin, is a little bit country, a little bit rock & roll -- but also a little bit power balladry, alt-country, and roadhouse boogie. Along with the comments that got them into their recent mess, it's the least wimpy thing the group's ever done.
For that, you can also thank a guest roster that makes the album feel like a support-the-Chicks rally. With Neil Finn, they come up with ''Silent House,'' a lovely downer that brings out the best in the trio's layered harmonies; Gary Louris' input gives ''Everybody Knows'' the rainy-day jangle of a song by his band the Jayhawks. The Chicks are unabashedly, gloriously pop on ''Voice Inside My Head,'' penned with unlikely collaborators Dan Wilson (Semisonic) and Linda Perry (Christina Aguilera). Everyone from Bonnie Raitt to John Mayer also pops up, yet the record rarely sounds like an overcrowded party. With Maines projecting more passionately than ever, Taking the Long Way remains intimate and personal; perhaps she should tick people off more often.
The album also rectifies something that's long been confounding about the Dixie Chicks. For all their feistiness and rebel-yell image, their records have been comparatively meek -- the work of coffeehouse folkies rather than outlaw-country bad girls. On Taking the Long Way, most of that dichotomy vanishes along with quaint mandolin solos. Finally, they put their music where their opinionated mouths are.
Free Music Review: Radical, but in a different way
Hit: 5 Stars
It's interesting to me, as a fan of music that's never even seen the inside of the Billboard top 100, how much emphasis has been placed on whether or not the Chicks have made an album filled with hits. Guess that's not unusual for Nashville, where "records" (i.e., singles) rule the roost, and an album is only as good as the sum of its commercial parts (and yes, I know that's not just Nashville).
Although much of the talk here has centered on red state, blue state, blah, blah, blah...the fact is the Dixie Chicks have done something far more radical than start a political slap fight. Musically, artistically, they've decided that they want out of the genre straitjacket, that making music of personal importance matters more to them than guaranteeing their next quadrillion-seller. Which is exactly what thousands of others, who have essentially no shot at the mainstream music gravy, do every day. They make music because they're called to do so, impelled by something inside of them that simply won't shut up, whatever their financial prospects.
What's the radical part? The biggest selling group of women in music history, who previously skated by on the merest hint of sass and defiance, have had to decide which way the spirit lies, on a national stage, with millions upon millions of people watching. It's as if Elvis, back on the day he made his deal with the devil, decided to tell Col. Tom Parker exactly where he could put his Hollywood contract, thank you very much, he'd rather go sling hash in a Memphis juke joint than kiss another puckered posterior.
In case you're wondering, yes, I've listened to the album, repeatedly for days, and I love it. Like I said, my taste leans generally far from the mainstream (Iris DeMent or Mission of Burma, anyone?), but instinct told me to give this one a spin. And what I found was three women in their thirties, all with babies at home, struggling valiantly (and beautifully) with the moral and spiritual pitfalls of the life process, with an honesty and directness that no amount of country-clever Nashville sheen could ever embody, or even consider.
I think the Chicks put their unwitting feet in their mouths a few years back, not because they're dangerous political radicals (I mean, come on, I've said worse things in Sunday school), but because they wanted to be artists, and on some unconscious level they needed to screw up bad enough to have the freedom to become exactly that. And on all levels, I think they've succeeded.
Free Music Review: An album of angst for saying what they believe...
Hit: 5 Stars
First, let's get politics out of the way. Freedom of speech -- need I say more? What Natalie Maines said three years ago, 68% of the country now feels. Natalie just had the guts to say it first -- and the Dixie Chicks paid a very dear price for speaking out. What a shame. I thought this country was based on certain foundational freedoms. I am sorry for what the Dixie Chicks endured. Through them, for some inexplicable reason, we had to learn all over again our rights as free-thinking citizens. It's not like celebrities have never spoken out, people. Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Marlon Brando, Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Fonda....on and on. The Dixie Chicks paid a price for saying what many famous people have been saying for years -- what they believe in! What a pile of utter nonsense.
Now for the music -- because that's what it's really all about -- or should be all about. I have never purchased a Dixie Chicks album and know nothing of their past music. I purchased this album because I heard the song, "Not Ready to Make Nice" on the web and thought it was incredibly written and performed. You feel the pain, anger, doubt in every word. This is not country music, folks. This is adult contemporary music that is grade A. The first 6 songs are all absolute winners...then a few okay songs...then the CD finishes strong with 3 very excellent songs.
There is a lot to be learned from listening to these songs -- about how our actions, once taken, cannot be reversed. That we need to stand behind ourselves and our beliefs no matter what happens (in the case of the Dixie Chicks -- death threats, boycotts, vilification in the press and by the radio stations and fickle fans who abandoned them). The songs are about believing in yourself, leaning on your loved ones, learning about what is really important through the birth of a child, finding out who your friends really are (and aren't), and finding, in the pitch black darkness, the strength to come back against great odds.
The Grammy awards were well-deserved for the MUSIC and the power of these songs. If you know nothing about the Dixie Chicks and what they have endured, the songs will be an inspiration about overcoming extreme obstacles and surviving life's hardest blows. These are universal messages that anyone can learn from, regardless of personal political convictions.
Thank you Dixie Chicks for the great MUSIC -- for getting back to what you do best.