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Laura Bell Bundy - Achin' & Shakin'

post #1 of 5
4/17/10 at 2:17pm
Thread Starter 
It's probably a long shot, but has anyone here actually purchased this cd? It's gotten some favorable reviews:

Quote:
At first blush, it seems that the last thing Nashville needs at the moment is another young blond starlet competing for face time in a crowded market. But Laura Bell Bundy's Achin' and Shakin' puts nearly all of her contemporaries on notice. Showing infinitely more personality, ambition, and genre know-how in any given 10 seconds of her debut than some current country stars have shown in their entire careers, Bundy demands attention and develops a persona built on equal parts theatricality and a love-me-or-hate-me abandon.
http://slantmagazine.com/music/revie...nd-shakin/2063
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post #2 of 5
4/17/10 at 3:32pm
I've listened to it a few times on Rhapsody (and reviewed it in last week's Special Edition):

Quote:
Macauley Culkin's childhood sweetheart is evidently a vinyl nostalgist, as she divides her new country CD into a "fast side" and a "slow side" (which I suppose might lead some listeners to try and play the thing upside down). I appreciate the fact that Bundy's a technically proficient Broadway singer with a taste for variety in her arrangements and accompaniment (a bit of soul, a taste of jazz, some down-home fiddle), which sets her apart from the interchangeable Victoria’s Secret models that produce much of today’s “country” music. Saying that she’s somewhat more interesting than today's average country bimbo may seem like damning with faint praise, and not all the writing here rises above the generic, but when one character is willing to deal with a broken heart by dousing her bed in gasoline and setting it on fire, you’re willing to forgive the pile-up of cheatin’ clichés elsewhere. If your enjoyment of country music stopped somewhere west of Shania Twain or Faith Hill, this one’s worth a listen.
I'd try to find it streaming and give it a listen before buying it: as I say, it's a cut above most of today's plastic country songbirds, but not THAT much above: Alison Krauss or Dolly Parton she ain't. Not yet, anyway.
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post #3 of 5
4/17/10 at 4:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeb View Post
Saying that she’s somewhat more interesting than today's average country bimbo may seem like damning with faint praise, and not all the writing here rises above the generic, but when one character is willing to deal with a broken heart by dousing her bed in gasoline and setting it on fire, you’re willing to forgive the pile-up of cheatin’ clichés elsewhere.
Being not all that familiar with contemporary country music, maybe I'm ill-educated on this, but isn't the material-object-destruction-as-heartbreak-remedy trope becoming something of a cliche in female-fronted pop country, too? Underwood's "Before He Cheats," Lambert's "Kerosene," etc.

(Now, I'm picturing Greil Marcus doing a follow-up to Lipstick Traces that makes a case for this strain of pop country as a continuation of the potlatch theme he finds in the Situationists and the Sex Pistols.)
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post #4 of 5
4/17/10 at 4:35pm
You may well be right-- I get exposed to that stuff through my aged father in law sitting mesmerized in front of the GAC country music video channel for hours at a time, and it all sounds the same to me. IF anyone else is out there burning up beds in their lyrics, they did it to music that didn't prompt me to listen more closely.
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post #5 of 5
4/18/10 at 12:20pm
Thread Starter 
I think the difference is that Bundy's song is more about getting rid of a symbol of a relationship, not getting revenge.
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