Miranda Lambert Introduces Her Own Private Label Wine
- Hallmark Gold Crown scored an exclusive Valentine album release from Reba McEntire. The singer said she’d love to do it, but didn’t have many love songs in her catalog. No problem though, she recorded four new songs exclusively for the release which will be available in January and February.
- Miranda Lambert has started her own brand of wine, Red 55 Winery. Unsurprisingly, there’s a variety named “Kerosene” and coming in 2008: Gunpowder & Lead Merlot and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Sweet White.
- Carrie Underwood now shares her Nashville home with a roomate because she didn’t feel safe living alone.
- Dolly Parton wants Scarlett Johansson to portray her in a biopic and she wants Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes to produce it. I can get behind the Johansson casting, but where/how/why does the Cruise/Holmes thing come into play?
- On the other hand, Dolly’s brother Randy Parton has been banned from performing at, get this…The Randy Parton Theater. According to the mayor of Roanoke Rapids, NC Parton violated terms of his contract that require him to “perform in a professional manner.” On top of that he’s being accused of failing to live up to promises of bringing in top acts, including his sister.
- Apparently Darryl Worley married his girlfriend, Kimberely Perkins, last Sunday. The ceremony was performed by his father, Rendy Lovelady–which has to be one of the coolest last names ever.
- NPR audio review of Gene Watson’s In A Perfect World, which means there’s song samples to be heard.
- Jason Michael Carroll shares the story behind his two Top 5 hits–”Alyssa Lies” and “Livin’ Our Love Song”.
I was dating this girl, and her parents found out that she was dating a Marine with earrings and long hair and didn’t like it. They said, ‘No, it’s not going to work out,’ so we split up.
“She went her way for seven years, and I went my way for seven years, and then she happened to walk into a nightclub one night where I was playing. . . . I walked up to her and we started talking, and it was like we never missed a day. We’ve been together since.”
- Eric Church will head into the recording studio his week to record material for his sophomore album.
- Certified gold: Gary Allan’s Greatest Hits.
- Nine Bullets has mp3 links to “Elvira” as performed by Kenny Rogers, Rodney Crowell, and the Oak Ridge Boys.
- One of our readers sent in this video of Toby Keith singing “Please Come Home For Christmas” on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
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Current Discussion
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December 10, 2007 at 9:44 am Permalink
Should we go ahead and begin the “anatomically correct” joke series in regards to the casting for the Dolly Parton movie? Let me know, I am working on some “big” jokes…
December 10, 2007 at 9:48 am Permalink
I have a feeling the movie will be a big success.
December 10, 2007 at 11:12 am Permalink
“Alyssa Lies” – to me – was one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard, playing up the tragedy of child abuse and ratcheting up the melodrama with the abused kid dying, only to then come to a sanctimonious final chorus that seems so forced.
Here’s the initial two choruses…
“Alyssa Lies
To the classroom
Alyssa lies
Everyday at school
Alyssa lies
To the teacher
As she tries to cover every bruise”
… and then the final chorus…
“She doesn’t lie
In the classroom
She doesn’t lie
Anymore at school
Alyssa lies
With Jesus
Because there’s nothing anyone would do”
Just revisiting the track again turns my stomach. Talk about a heavy-handed lyrical sledgehammer. There are some song topics where you just can’t out-Luka Suzanne Vega.
December 10, 2007 at 11:14 am Permalink
Peter–I agree 1000% about that song, and, to be frank, JMC has a lot to prove, in my book. I don’t have much respect for a person who gallivants around on his radio tour talking about how he didn’t even really listen to country music until he joined a country band in his late teens.
December 10, 2007 at 12:32 pm Permalink
Yesterday I heard a radio interview with JMC in which he expressed amazement that people are thinking of him in the same way that they think of country stars like Brad Paisley. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think JMC and Brad should even be mentioned in the same conversation, let alone the same breath!!!!
December 10, 2007 at 1:41 pm Permalink
JMC looks like a swamp creature. I’m pretty sure he blinks horizontally.
December 10, 2007 at 1:50 pm Permalink
Jim – I am not saying anything about the rest of his music per se, and I personally don’t care if an artist is Willie Nelson’s long-lost son or some guy who discovered the music after a lifetime of being a Goth, or what have you. Heck, how many songwriters and artists have discovered what they want to do only after years of selling insurance or working at an ad agency or being someone’s secretary or being their local karaoke star? Bona fides or lineage don’t mean a thing to me if the artist isn’t particularly compelling.
Just because JMC isn’t my cup of tea doesn’t mean I think he ought to pack it in and go home. If he’s got an audience that wants to hear him play, then it’s not my place to prevent him from serving that audience.
December 10, 2007 at 1:52 pm Permalink
I have never been a fan of songs that use the easy, predictable and sad device of child abuse to gain listeners sympathy and elicit goosebumps. They feel like gimmick songs to me. They’re always sad, and recent examples mention how Jesus is taking care of the child and blah blah. This song showcases manufactured, formulaic song choosing and production. We cry at songs about soldiers and abused children, we laugh at songs about rednecks, we hoot and holler to songs about “beer thirty on friday nights”. If you are gonna make me sad, please be innovative and use a new template.
December 10, 2007 at 2:23 pm Permalink
There’s no easier way to elicit easy tears than to create a child character and then kill him/her off. That’s the only reason these songs exist.
December 10, 2007 at 2:28 pm Permalink
I definitely agree with everything that’s been said here, but to be fair, classic artists aren’t immune to this either. Dolly Parton comes to mind as someone who has used the “dying little girl” device a few times.
December 10, 2007 at 3:01 pm Permalink
Dolly’s written more than 3,000 songs, so I’m assuming she’s used pretty much every lyrical device at least a few times.
December 10, 2007 at 3:30 pm Permalink
I was apathetic towards “Alyssa Lies,” but I thought John Michael Montgomery’s “The Little Girl” was good, although it wasn’t necessarily about child abuse. What are the Dolly songs you’re thinking of, Ben?
————
They should have called Miranda’s merlot: My Ex-Boyfriend’s Cyanide-Thinned Blood Merlot. I just don’t understand how her name is going to lend any credibility to a wine or to what the news article on her site says are “the very values that we honor.”
December 10, 2007 at 4:11 pm Permalink
The announcement about the wine label was actually made by Miranda’s parents and they said that they were doing it in her name. I get the impression that this is something they’ve wanted to do for a while and simply thought that their daughter’s celebrity presented an opportunity.
Every songwriter who’s written significantly panders with horrible cliche narrative devices at some point. It doesn’t necessarily make them a bad songwriter, but it may make for a bad song.
December 10, 2007 at 4:27 pm Permalink
I see you plan on making me do some research eh?
p.s.- strangely enough, the first time I heard the first song was at a tribute show to Dolly starring two 300 pound drunken drag queens. it was really something.
Me and Little Andy
Two Little Orphans
Malena
Letter to heaven (where the girl is hit by a truck on the way to the mailbox where she was sending her mommy a letter in heaven, damn Dolly!)
and that was just from a cursory google search, so there must be some more hanging around.
Although I don’t think any of them revolve completely around a little girl being beaten to death.
December 11, 2007 at 12:18 pm Permalink
I don’t like “Alyssa Lies” but I love the rest of “Waitin’ in the Country”. It’s one of those cd’s that get’s in to my player and doesn’t come out because I just keep listening to it over and over. “No Good in Goodbye” is one of my favourites on the cd.
December 11, 2007 at 4:48 pm Permalink
3 things:
1. does anyone know if carrie underwood’s roommate is male or female? the story has been removed;
2. please GOD don’t let dolly parton fall victim to scientology. let us pray together, friends;
3. a marine with long hair and an earring? really? they allow that now? cool!!
December 11, 2007 at 5:08 pm Permalink
Underwood’s roommate is a female. A friend from college if I remember correctly. The Tennessean seems to remove a lot of articles for some reason. I wonder why that is?
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