Little richer tastes...

Ah, pop and punk. Thirty years ago it would've seemed anathema to cross these two, but as The Clash showed us, they're perfect together. On this one - A Hangover You Don't Deserve by Bowling for Soup - we get a continuing exploration of that intersection, musical land that Blink 182 and Sum 41 have mined pretty thoroughly 'round here. Luckily, Bowling for Soup do a nice job of bringing a heavy dose of fun to this album, because it's familiar territory at this point. The cd is long, juvenile, vulgar, and fun. It won't be making the rotation at school, but after a couple of listens, I'm enjoying the songs - particularly "Almost", "Ohio", and "Smoothie King".

The Best of Bluegrass is a sampler that I picked up to get a good copy of "The Wabash Cannonball" for my recent train compilation which leaves me in an odd place because the concept of making a mix tape seems to be going away as does even the idea of a compilation cd of songs of a genre. Now it's a playlist, an empemerial, mutable thing if ever there was one - but that's a topic for another blog. This disc is a single-disc snapshot - by its nature too short - of an entire genre. Imagine trying to put a single-disc collection of the Best of Rock or Best of Country or any other genre that's been around for fifty or a hundred years. It's almost not possible, and yet this cd does a good job of skimming the surface, throwing in variety from Alison Krauss, Harry McLintock, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ricky Skaggs. The only weak tune is the Hot Tuna selection which seems a little more a poor jam band noodle than a bluegrass to me, but if you've been intrigued by the soundtrack to O Brother, I'd point you in this direction next so you could get a taste of the variety of the genre.

Clearly I didn't get Oh, Inverted World. I'd heard the Garden State soundtrack and dug their songs on there - even getting some of the references in their video for "New Slang" - and that song is admittedly really nice, but the rest of the album just leaves me cold. It's pleasant enough music, but it didn't grab me. Good background music for hanging out on an afternoon, sure. Great album, not on my first couple of listens. It faded away to me into nothingness.

I just can't get past Del McCoury's voice. I know it's the perfect high, lonesome sound, but it grates on me. So, too, do a lot of Bill Monroe's songs. I love the music. I love the words. I love the sentiments and purity and gospel crossings, but the voices drive me nuts. It's true on Del and the Boys by the Del McCoury Band, and it's still a good album to me. The cover of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is a knockout, and the rest of the album is a modern bluegrass classic, but it's a little sharp, so if you're of my mind and don't like it when the male lead voice sounds higher than the highest female voice you can think of, you might want to avoid this entire genre.

Taking the same band - the Del McCoury Band - from the previous album and adding in a deeper voice that I find a lot more pleasant, we get Steve Earle's The Mountain. The high lonesome sound is replaced with Earle's rich voice. The politics of Earle's typical album are set aside, and he aims straight for the heart of bluegrass. The album is different enough from most bluegrass albums that staunch purists probably won't like it, and it's got the same problem when compared to most Steve Earle albums - there's no fire and brimstone as with many of his other rebelious discs, but this is a quality disc. It's the sound of a great writer and artist paying tribute to one of his strong influences that isn't always at the forefront of most of his music.

But I Feel Alright is a purer Steve Earle album. He'd gotten clean, and he'd cleaned out some of the rockin' guitars that he'd thrown on the couple of albums just before this one. And here Earle makes one of his best albums with an incredible streak of songs including "CCKMP", "Valentine's Day", "South Nashville Blues", "More Than I Can Do", and "Hard-Core Troubadour". This one's a knockout of an album crossing the streams of folk and country with enough variety to keep interest throughout.