Love and Theft

These recent Today Show performers aren't doing much for me.

Other than some CMT approval and some occasional mandolin, these guys are on a Fray/Third Eye Blind/Vanessa Carlton tip. I'm all about rock crossover (hello, Darius), but this track sounds like the work of a marketing team, not the type of homegrown crossover that Kenny Chesney works up on anthemic fist-pumpers like "Young."



Point being, fuck this. The breakdown in the middle, the reverse-video plot, I can't hang. There are small Nashville-style details, such as violin plucks and some high-end banjo sparkle, but tracks like "Don't Wake Me" feel like a label's attempt to salvage what would have been a mall-punk band, if focus groups still showed mall-punk bands sold records. I guarantee you, Love and Theft sounded exactly like Simple Plan until 2008.

This is part of the bigger trend of pop and rock stars like Jessica Simpson and Kid Rock looking to sell some albums by country-ing it up -- and in the case of Love and Theft, there's a huge glossy sincerity that can only be the result of a team of producers turning up the schmaltz knob.

Mostly, I can't get behind any band whose career aims are to be as big as Daughtry.

Fuck this.
Love, BFMH.

Friday Throwback

Damn, how didn't we see Reba's acting chops would lead to a middle-of-the-road sitcom later in her career?

Reba brings it big in this Dolly Parton-meets-CSI video for "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia." Does anyone else get an Angela Lansbury circa "Murder She Wrote" vibe from the production job on this video?

Big Timing In A Small Town, 1991 - 2009

Peanut butter and jelly.
Baseball and hot dogs.
Cold beers and Friday nights.
BROOKS and motherfucking DUNN.

Sadly, one great American pairing decided to part ways over the last few months, and BFMH can't help but comment on the passing of a great contemporary country duo.

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn could be counted on for badass videos and nostalgia-filled slow jams, often paired with Reba McEntire, as on the showstopper "Cowgirls Don't Cry." Formed in the first contemporary country Golden Era of 1991, the duo managed to snag a CMT Vocal Duo of the Year for 4 years running from 1992 to 2006, except for the fluke year when Montgomery Gentry took it in 2000 -- and let's face it, they're no B&D.

Alongside a giant single-handed contribution to the world of line dancing with "Boot Scootin' Boogie," B&D could be counted on for beer-raisin' jams from the start, like the classic "Hard Working Man" from 1992, complete with slow-mo rodeo shots. (Subquestion: is this early video of a working man trying to hold on to the metaphoric bull analagous to the entire career of working men Brooks and Dunn????)

"I'm all business from 9 til 5"


Brooks & Dunn - Hard Workin' Man (Official Music Video) - For more amazing video clips, click here

Also, let's note Dunn's killer flame-decorated shirt. Eat that shit, Billy Ray Cyrus.


More recently, B&D have broken down the mind of the country man with songs like "Hillbilly Deluxe," which pairs monster trucks and small-town images with a stronger pop flavor; B&D both got more country and more pop at the same time, like some sort of two-headed CMA-devouring American flag-waving no-shit-taking Top 40 leviathan. Brooks lists off the shit he likes over a country-rock-pop pastiche track (note the banjo), and has no problem getting real stoked on name-checking motherfucking Tastee Freeze.

"Put on a smell good, put on some Skynyrd"



The pop sheen on this track is balanced by a higher percentage of monster truck shots and white girl T&A, a move that Brooks and Dunn may not have invented, but certainly perfected.

I really don't know how to end this post other than with one more B&D jam, the aptly titled "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone," featuring lead vocals from Ronnie Dunn. We certainly will, friends, we certainly will.