It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

The CBC Radio 3 Blog community was home to a discussion of superfans recently.  Normally, I would find the rabid superfan a little off-putting.  They tend to be louder, pushier….a lot of things ending in -er, most of them unpleasant.

But at tonight’s rodeo/Reba concert I got to watch a superfan who actually made my own concert experience better.

About 5-6 rows ahead of me tonight, there was a girl, who looked about 11, and her Dad.  The kid was sporting her “All The Women I Am” Reba shirt and a lot of barely contained excitement.  You could tell in one look at the kid that she was stoked about this.  Dad appeared to be patient and mildly amused.  I think I noticed them because it reminded me so much of my first Reba concert when I was 11–Dad took me, and displayed the same amused patience.  Throughout the rodeo, she was watching, paying attention–Dad was pointing things out and clearly explaining things–but radiated a kind of tense anticipation.

When Reba finally took to the stage, the entire Sprint Center stood for the first two songs, but after the rest of us had settled back in our seats, that kid was still on her feet, clapping and singing along.  She stood the entire concert (her seat position and her height prevented this from annoying anyone behind her–and the volume meant that her singing along could in no way offend anyone around her).  At one point I saw her glancing down at her palms, clearly contemplating whether the sting of all that clapping was worth it.  I suppose it must have been, because she shrugged and kept going.  She even sang along with the medley of older stuff.  And when I say older, I’m not talking about “Fancy” or anything from the 90s.  I’m talking “Can’t Even Get the Blues”…from 1982.  Her Dad was probably still in school when that one came out.

I actually found myself wishing I was seated next to her.  As it was, other than my empty seat, and the PDA couple directly in front of me (side note: there was also a Radio 3 Blog discussion of concert PDA), I was surrounded by un-impressively passive people my parents’ ages.  They totally didn’t get into the concert, which was physically painful, because in the stripped down and truncated version of the performance (rodeo concerts tend to be less elaborate), there were maybe 4 slower songs (1 of which was “Because of You” in which Reba turned the mic on the audience for large chunks).

How much nicer would it have been to have been along side the kid, bopping along with her?  To catch a little of that enthusiasm and feel like it’s totally okay to keep clapping and enjoying the hell out of the moment?  Even at a distance, I feel like I  got something out of seeing this girl watch the show, and I guess that’s enough.

I hope she enjoyed the concert as much as I did–though I strongly suspect she may have enjoyed it even more.

As Kristy covered some time ago:  1983 was a year of some kind of musical magic.  Kristy’s original realization of the disproportionate amount of awesome that came out of pop/rock in 1983 led to me to look back at country since that’s the music I was being exposed to almost exclusively at that time.  I was pleasantly surprised–and slightly weirded out–to find that the statistically improbably percentage of musical gems was present in the country world just as in the pop/rock arena.  And, like Kristy, I found that the overwhelming majority of the songs listed were basically the soundtrack to some of my earliest memories.

Now, the nature of the country niche means that, unlike the songs Kristy identified before, not all the songs will have as wide a following.  But, part of the thing that amazed me in a look at just the Billboard country charts, were the number of songs that did break out of the genre.  The biggest example is “Islands In A Stream” (which was number one on 3 different US Billboard charts,  and several foreign charts including Austria’s…really?  Austria???).  Honestly, if you haven’t heard Kenny and Dolly on this at least once, I really don’t know what kind of intergalactic odyssey you’ve been on for the past 28 years.

But that wasn’t the only one that tends to get some love outside of country fans:  this was the year that Shelley West made sure we knew that “Jose Cuervo” was a friend of ours (oh, do I EVER beg to differ with that statement).   Anne Murray was just looking for “A Little Good News” (which has a nice, timeless message if you can overlook the whole part about “Bryant Gumble was talking about the fighting in Lebanon”) and at a time when everyone was worried about Japan taking over our jobs (yeah, remember when they were the global market threat?), the Oak Ridge Boys’ assured us their baby was “American Made.”  And somehow a very bizarre assortment of my friends who generally hate this genre learned that “Houston (Means That I’m One Day Closer To You)” from Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Bros.

For those more familiar with the country genre, there’s plenty that might not be known to the outside, but which that you should recognize as absolutely classic fare.  In 1983 not only were you getting the ascension of today’s mega stars like Reba McEntire (“Can’t Even Get The Blues” was the first number one of the year), and George Strait (“A Fire I Can’t Put Out” was #1 in September)  coming in with a neotraditionalist sound (which George has kept and Reba has mostly ditched), but the general epic fail of the country/pop crossover of the 70s had finally ripened into something awesome with the likes of Kenny, Dolly, Alabama (“The Closer You Get” although, it’s arguable that Alabama had some neotraditionalist tendencies because you also have “Dixieland Delight” the same year), Janie Fricke (“He’s a Heartache Looking For a Place to Happen”) and even Charley Pride’s “Why Baby Why” (because, yes, kids, there have been black country singers well before Darius Rucker).  You were also still getting the outlaw country, in particular the absolutely classic musical epic of “Pancho and Lefty” from Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson (I still remember the music video for that one–it was much higher quality than many videos of that time).  Even songs that didn’t make number one were awesome (honestly, until now I never knew that George Strait’s signature song “Amarillo by Morning” was not a number one in the US).

Maybe it was this unique transition and overlap, or maybe there was just some kind of weird planetary alignment, but something was just right in 1983, and while the rest of the 80s were also (in my far less than humble opinion) fantastic for this niche of the musical market, something about 1983 was just a stand out.

In true Cammy fashion, I obtained the new Reba McEntire CD like clockwork yesterday.  I’m happy to report that the fannishness that drives me to pick up a new album on release day does not necessarily color my view of the CD:  All The Women I Am is a few gals short of awesomeness.

I had a sneaking suspicion I was in for an experience that would rate only a “meh” when the first single was released.  I was actually visiting Kristy at the time so she can attest to my underwhelmed reaction to “Turn On Your Radio.”  It’s catchy enough, I guess, and Reba executes it well, but at the end of the day the song itself and the arrangement are the same variety of drivel that’s been plaguing country music for a while now.  I’m all for eliminating the lines between genres, but there’s eliminating the line, and then there’s poorly executed hybridization that annoys both sides of the fence.

I could overlook it if this were the only track on the album that fell into the over-used sound, but, leider nicht.  The title track, “All The Women I Am”, has the same feel as “Turn On Your Radio” (rock pretending to be country pretending to be rock like some kind of frakked up Victor Victoria identity crisis).  I could forgive the recurring theme of Girl Power in the lyrics.  In fact, I am quite amused by the self reference they contain (“I’m a daughter of the red dirt / Okie dust still in my bones / But I can light up New York City with my red hair and rhinestones”), but they aren’t enough to compensate for how much I don’t enjoy the musical arrangement.

The coup de grace was the final track.  A dance remix of “I Want a Cowboy” from her last studio album.  Let’s get this straight right now:  I generally despise dance mixes.  If you’re going to do club dance stuff, do club dance stuff–there’s a time and a place where you need that style.  I’ve never heard a dance mix of a non-dance song that didn’t suck. Country songs subjected to this Dr. Moreau treatment come out particularly ridiculous.  Honestly, what the hell kinda club would play an electronica dance mix of a Reba McEntire song?!?  So with a song that was mediocre to begin with, and made worse by the dance mix treatment?  Honestly, I couldn’t even listen to the whole track.  I hit skip about 30 seconds in.

“A Little Want To” is tolerable mostly because in comparison to the previously mentioned tracks, it’s almost a gem.  It’s a little too far to the twanging honkey-tonk grind side for me, and the lyrics, while upbeat don’t really catch me.  Why is everyone in country trying so hard to “rock” a mandolin?  I appreciate the traditional elements, but the way they’ve been used on this and so many other songs is like a musical cliche.  So, meh.

There’s minor hope for “The Bridge You Burn” but nothing to blow your dress up.  ”Cry”  and “Somebody’s Chelsea” are about the same–on any other album they would be those songs you forget about but never actively dislike.  On this one, I’m kind of glad to have them.

I will admit that the sap in me like “When You Have a Child” and I know myself well enough to admit that I’d like it regardless of the rest of the album content.  I won’t try to sell it though because I recognize schmalz when I hear it and while I will revel in it, I’m not going to drag you all down with me.

I kept hoping for a surprise favorite to pop up like “I’ll Have What She’s Having” cropped up on the previous album (a toe-tapping, western-swing look across the barroom at the kinda guy you’d like to see on the menu–ask Kristy how excellent the song is).  The closest I got was on a track that I had low expectations for: “If I Were A Boy.”

Now, when I heard Reba was covering a Beyonce song, I about shit a brick.  Beyonce is just not my style.  I’ve tried to listen to her, but she just doesn’t work for me, musically.  And, having heard her original version of “If I Was a Boy” I was fairly certain this listening experience was going to try my Reba fannishness.  Lo, I am surprised.  I actually like the damned thing.  Very different arrangement from Beyonce (thank you, Jesus), that fits Reba and comes off quite well (though I’d like to lose the echo).  It’s not traditionally country, but unlike the other ugly baby hybrids, this is a somewhat decent example of genre cross pollination.  It’s also an example of why I love hearing different artists cover the same song–love one, loathe another.  This one gave me a little hope for some envelope pushing out of Reba like we used to get back in the day.

“The Day She Got Divorced” is not a song I will ever like, but it’s one I can kind of respect.  Where I’m very used to the female empowerment, upbeat songs Reba puts out, as well as her tear-jerkers on the heartbreak of a divorce, this song is neither.  It’s a divorce tale without the pro-gal slant.  It begins with the image of a woman chain smoking and going about a very pedestrian morning.  The husband is rotten, but the wife’s having a crappy affair, too.  And rather than the post- divorce heartbreak, the day after this marriage ends is just like the day before.  It’s just kind of….dingy.  I dislike the woman, the man, the entire situation.  But I give props to the idea of this slightly grittier and less emotional look at divorce.  I will never enjoy hearing the song, but I can appreciate it.

All in all, I’m a little let down with this package as a whole.  That said, this is still Reba, so even her worst is a lot better than some of the best that you get out of others, and I don’t regret my purchase.  I know that eventually some of the mediocre songs may grow on me a little.  But an album like this makes me scratch my head and wonder where the days are when Reba burst out with something so different from the rest:  ”Fancy”, Annie Get Your Gun….There are sparks of hope from “If I Was a Boy” and “The Day She Got Divorced” but they are pale in comparison to what we’ve seen in the past.  Reba’s shown us a lot of women over the years, but the album feels like she left out the best of them.

Kristy: Would I drink coffee with Reba McEntire?  Are you kidding me?  Of course, I’d drink coffee with Reba.  I may not be the absolute Reba devotee that Cammy is, but I do enjoy her music.  But it’s a whole lot more than that.  I like her voice, but there are singers out there whose voices are more my cup of tea.  The reason I like her so much is actually something else.  She’s excellent at selecting songs and she’s an amazing performer.  Singing and performing are related, but not the same thing.  Reba’s a great singer, she’s an amazing performer.  Which I was able to confirm first hand a week and a half ago, but which I’ve known for a while from seeing her mini-movie music videos and her sitcom.  (Yes, it was cheesetastic, but I like cheese)  So I’d like to have coffee with her from a fangirl point of view.  She also has shockingly good comedic timing.  Which leads me to believe she’d be funny in real life.  Which would make her fun to hang out with.  I bet she likes to gossip as much as the average southern woman and I bet coffee would be full off giggles and under-the-breath sarcastic comments.  Fun times!  And then there’s that facial expression she makes which Cammy and I dubbed “The Evil Pixie Face.”  This has led me to consider whether Ms. McEntire may actually be a pixie, in which case having coffee with her could be some of the awesomest folklore research ever.