Album Spotlight: Sunny Sweeney: Provoked

For my 2.5 readers, sorry I've been away for a while. But I'm back with a strong recommendation.

Sunny Sweeney's latest album Provoked is nothing short of brilliant. I tweeted earlier "Smart, witty, poignantly funny at times." That's the short version. And that could be the entire version and be accurate.

Let's get this out of the way early, Sunny Sweeney does not possess the soaring vocal capabilities of Carrie Underwood or Ann Wilson or Lzzy Hale. But she does have the ability to convey plenty of emotion in the songs that she wrote. And what a fantastic songwriter she is.

Heartache, heart break, the other woman, the flawed partner, the bad girl, the snark, sarcasm and playfulness. And a lot of real life. It all comes together seamlessly.

We are almost to September, and this is in my top two records this year.

I don't know if this is my favorite track on the record, or just my favorite lyrics. But either way, I like "Second Guessing".





This next song is on the record, but it's just more fun in any live setting. There are plenty of youtube videos of it as she has been doing it for over three years, that I know of, maybe longer. I like this one.




Sunny Sweeney on Amazon.

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Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and Genre Bending

If you read this blog at all, you know I don't really deal in negativity. Especially when it comes to my music posts. I like to feature good stuff that I've found. But what happened at the Billboard Music Awards Sunday night bears comment.

I'm talking about the Carrie Underwood/Miranda Lambert 70's Aerosmith/bad anthem mashup. It was, quite frankly, poor execution of a less-than-mediocre song. "Something Bad", it was. Don't believe me? Here's some video proof. Judge for yourself.



Don't get me wrong. I like both Carrie and Miranda. I'm just disappointed that this is what they came up with in collaboration. It's beneath both of them.

But that brings me to a bigger subject. This is a rock song. At least what I grew up knowing as rock. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that. In fact 70's, 80's and 90's style rock and pop has been co-opted by country music. For me that's a good thing. I like that kind of music.

But on the flip side, there seems to be no room for what is considered traditional country. And that's a shame. I was watching the top 20 on GAC or CMT (can't remember which) this past weekend, and there was not one song that even resembled traditional country. Most of the songs would be in heavy rotation on MTV or VH1 a few years ago.

Right now, there's no room for rock in pop, and no room for traditional country in country. I don't know where it goes from here, but some think that there may be a split in country music, which makes sense to me.

Eric Church is taking hard rock Grammy winners Halestorm out on tour with him for a few dates. That pairing makes more sense to me the than Dwight Yoakam, who will be on the whole tour. Since we're talking about Halestorm and Carrie Underwood, a couple of songs they recorded are practically interchangeable.

Are We Moving Towards One Macro-Genre of Music?

Update: We have recently become aware of a website that we really enjoy reading. As a bonus this article was a little over 2 years ahead of us coming to this conclusion, though through different means.

Here in the Cheap Seats, we are fans of good music.  Or at least our definition of good music.  You know the premise, we can't explain it, but know it when we hear it.

With the exception of rap, we are generally not opposed to any type of music, so long as it appeals to us.

Country? Check.
Pop? Check.
Rock? Check.
And on and on.

Which brings us to this.  Why are we still putting music into a specific genre?  That only limits the audience.  If you take a look at the music you like, surely there is some common vein that runs through all of it.  Even if your tastes are eclectic.

Let us explain.

We are going to post two songs below.  One belongs to a current country music darling, one to a an up-and-coming hard rock/heavy metal act.  With a few tweaks in production and instrumentation without changing the integrity of either song, just changing the artists name would move the song from one genre to the other.

To get the full effect of what we are talking about, we'll give you a step-by-step on how we arrived at our conclusion.  First listen to the Carrie Underwood song "Good Girl".  Preferably with you eyes closed.  Just concentrate on the music. Ignore the video.

Now that you have that song on your brain, which is in fact a rock song, listen to the following Halestorm song "I Miss the Misery", again just listening, the images tend to convolute the mind.

While listening, imagine Carrie Underwood singing.  The guitars pulled back in the mix. Some keyboard layers.  A thinner drum mix.  And we can hear places where a banjo would be apropos.

Now go back and listen to the Carrie Underwood song while thinking about more up front guitars, a heavier drum sound and more bottom end.

We think slight adjustments in the instrumentation and production could make the songs practically interchangeable.  Put "I Miss the Misery" on a Carrie Underwood album and suddenly it's a country song.  Let Halestorm record "Good Girl" and it's a hard rock song.