Taylor Hicks – “Seven Mile Breakdown”

why anybody likes Taylor Hicks is beyond me… he wasn’t good on AI and he for sure isn’t good off the AI stage!

Country Music Radio… please don’t punish country fans by playing this God-awful song!

But in all seriousness, I really like Taylor. His voice is superb, and this track isn’t bad.

I love it!

Hell no is Taylor Hicks better than Carrie Underwood

Carrie Underwood can sing on stage without looking like she’s having a seizure

The song on Idol wouldn’t have been as bad without the world’s most annoying fiddle playing. That aside, it cemented my opinion that Taylor Hicks is a pretty good bar singer. It’s not a bad thing, but he’s not a chart-topping superstar by any means.

I love the album version of this song, but also like the “country” version. I am glad that I am not tied to one genre and can just enjoy a song.I love the guitar and keyboards especially. Even Ray Charles went country at one point in his career. As for the lyrics…….I think its not so difficult to figure out what the writer is talking about. The opening lines are “Sometimes I get lonely”….just a guy driving down a lonely highway thinking about his love and his life. At least thats good enough for me.

I agree with the review. I saw Taylor perform this last week and thought..Is he trying too hard? What exactly is he saying anyway? But I will give him points for keeping it together and making it seem like a great country song. But, I thought…can the guy really make it in country? Is this his last great hope?

The last thing mainstream country music needs these days is more poseurs from American Idol…

By nature Michael Mcdonald is broken, Stormy, and no we do not need another one.

Not a bad song but it ain’t country. You’ve got Clapton’s producer, bass player and slide guitarist along with McCartney’s drummer…..sounds an awful lot like that Bad Company CD from years back that was recorded in Nashville…..again, not bad but not country.

“…. the track pounds too hard, too fast and too loud.”

Sounds like my parents, circa 1973, Deep Purple on the phono….

I’ve been reading all the Michael McDonald comments in here, and I just have one thing to say.

Say whatever you wish about him, but if he released a country covers album, I’d buy it.

This song? Not so much.

I agree with Katie…people get so hung up on genres and who’s singing what. If it’s a good song, it’s a good song. I don’t care who’s singing it. This is a good song — and fun. I think it’s more southern country rock, but country is the one genre that’s usually more accepting of all different kinds of flavors. Nice job, Taylor.

There no soul in this song.as the one poster said.

The first time, not so much. The second time, I turned it up and was moving to it. No clue what the song is about but it sounds good loud and I see myself cleaning the house to it LOL. It may not be country, but its not bad. Then again, the majority of the stuff on the radio isn’t country either.

Okie,
I didn’t mean this song necessarily when I said accepting

Ie from another posters comement “but country is the one genre that’s usually more accepting of all different kinds of flavors”.

The suits will welcome anything that will line their pockets

I actually kind of liked the song. I think the lyrics seem convoluted or disjointed to reflect the feeling you would get driving across the Delta and seeing nothing but those green mile marker signs passing by – kind of makes sense to me. And besides that, it’s just fun – does every song have to make sense, or can’t it just be fun?

Define “real country?” Anyway country rock, southern rock, it’s in Hicks’ blood. He was doing this genre WAY before Idol, so nope it isn’t a last resort. He’s just FINALLY being marketed in possibly the right area. It’s a good song. If you haven’t listened, give a shot instead of blowing it off because the media has bashed him. This song made my sister a fan.

So many artists playing on country today are not straight up country. If everyone sounded the same, it would become real boring real fast. I like this sound from this guy. The video is a fun, lighthearted one to go along with the song. What’s next Taylor? I like you enough to want to hear more…come on country…we’re waiting/

Not bad. Maybe it’s not “country” in the sense of Garth Brooke’s but its no less “country” than Rascal Flatts. And please don’t mention Carrie Underwood – she makes me want to stick a gun in my mouth.

I like this guys voice. This song would a perfect to hear on the jukebox downing a couple beers shooting some pool. What else can you ask for?

If you think this sounds “country,” then you probably think anything with a fiddle sounds “country.”

“If you think this sounds “country,” then you probably think anything with a fiddle sounds “country.””

So, ah, Jim, what are the characteristics of this record that make it sound “not country” to you? Which missing characteristics would have to be present to make it sound “country” to you?

Kelly, I’m not the one advancing an argument about whether it’s country or not, or whether it sounds country or not. Jim implies that it doesn’t “sound country,” and I’d like to know why. If you don’t think that it does, you’re free to take a crack at explaining why, too.

I am somewhat in agreement about the lyrics, but there is that “driving delirium” that most folks have experienced that this song reflects.
I personally like the beat and the rawness of the music and voice.
This music belongs in country as much as Rascal Flats.
I give it thumbs up, taken as a whole.

Jon – I didnt claim you made any such argument, but you obviously asked that question for a reason, and I thought I’d see what you thought of the song?

Korn once recorded in the Oildale studio formerly owned by Buck Owens where he recorded many of his own hits…

I cant stand his voice, or this song. Horrible, i hope it stays far away from country radio. Then again i hope half of the current “country” artists stay far away from country radio….

Jim,

I guess I should take the plug for sending Jon to Roughstock as some sort of compliment but it just smacks of an insult. oh well.

Kelly, it’s presented and accepted as country by the country music industry – including this blog, which as far as I know hasn’t reviewed much from Korn – so put very succinctly, the default view is that it’s country. And so the burden of showing otherwise falls on those who allege that it’s being falsely presented as something it’s not, especially if the argument is based on how it sounds – since, as you doubtless know, country music has included a wide variety of sounds since its earliest days.

Why get hypothetical, Jim? I would think that the history of country music past and present offers plenty of actual, real-life cases on which to draw in making arguments. Musical genres are forged and altered in the marketplace – and this is unmistakably the case with country – and the arguments about what is and isn’t country don’t revolve around stuff like Korn or hypothetical Prince & Michael Jackson collaborations hypothetically marketed as country, they revolve precisely around actual entries into the country marketplace. Like this one.

So, there are two questions of interest to me here. The first, already asked, is what is specifically present in this particular record that makes it “not sound country” to you, and/or what is specifically absent that must be present in order for it to “sound country” to you? The second, which is related, is why a record must meet your “sounds country” criterion in order to be considered country? Isn’t the history of country music replete with instances of records that some – and sometimes many – people thought didn’t “sound country?”

Thanks Jon – Good to know that as long as someone else tells you that a record is country, you go ahead and believe it without giving it any further examination. You can play your game of semantic hair-splitting and tell me that you arent the one that needs to truly answer the question, but that misses the point entirely, and I am certain that you are quite aware of that.

Give Death Cab for Cutie a listen, trust me, they are so country…

“Thanks Jon – Good to know that as long as someone else tells you that a record is country, you go ahead and believe it without giving it any further examination.”

Well, if that’s all you got out of my answer, it makes sense that you would want to follow Jim down the hypothetical path. But what I wrote was both directly responsive to your question and, I think, pretty clear, so claiming that I missed the point, split hairs, etc., simply shows that you either didn’t understand what I wrote or that you’d rather avoid dealing with informed disagreement. My money’s on the latter, but I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong about that.

No, Kelly, that’s the starting point: it’s marketed as country, a genre construct and name which itself – as I’m sure you know – has its roots in music marketing from the 1920s forward. Now, maybe it’s wrongly marketed, and it’s “really” not country – but if so, you ought to be able to come up with a better reason for why that’s so than “because I say it’s not.” And if you’re going to offer how it sounds as that reason, you ought to be able to dish up some specifics. What’s it missing that it needs to have, or what’s it have that it shouldn’t in order to, in your view, be called country?

Those who present the music aren’t engaged in a debate.

great big THUMBS UP from me.
Hicks is as country as Ray Charles, way more country than Swift.
I don’t understand what the problem with the lyrics , I understand it, maybe you have to be a little more country.
All this song needs is a chance. It way more country than most of the stuff I hear on my country station.

If he was gonna release one to country radio I dont know why he didnt choose “Nineteen”. It would be a perfect fit on today’s country radio.