- Bottle Rockets, The Brooklyn Side. This is a thoroughly wrongheaded record. No one cares about rural America these days (save Newt Gingrich, and that’s just the con artist in him). Country music only appeals to bumpkins and suburbanites, and even they don’t like country rock (it goes without saying that MTV kids don’t either). The few who might like to hear what the Bottle Rockets proffer will be confused both by the title of the band’s second album (a bowling term, not a geographical reference) and the cover photo of a billiard ball.
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But this wrongheadedness is what the record’s about. The band–who rock like Crazy Horse–don’t exactly celebrate the rural haplessness they see around them: they think a lot of it’s a goof (“Sunday Sports”), and they’ll take a stand when they have to (“Star and Bars,” from their first album). But they’re not condemnatory either. For better or worse they know it’s a part of them and there are plenty of others around who’ll do the put-downs for them. If pushed into a position of choosing, they’ll come down solidly on the side of their compatriots. Lead songwriter Brian Henneman may be on to something: little bits of wondrous logic (“If any thousand dollar car was worth a damn / why would anybody wanna spend ten grand?”); the occasional moment of lyrical felicity (“Maybe it’s something in my genes / Maybe it’s something in my jeans”); and as brutal a depiction of his musical heritage as has ever been articulated (as in the song “Welfare Music”). All this just for starters, played with no little ferocity. The result elegantly captures an ambivalence somewhere between hate and love, clear-eyed but somewhat rueful, all bound up in a metaphysical free-fall–call it the Love Song of J. Alfred Six-pack in four-four time with plenty of distortion.
Mavericks, What a Crying Shame. Like the Bottle Rockets, the Mavericks are too smart to be country; but they’re also far too country to be rock. What makes their album a success is their sweeping understanding of the music’s high-strung heart and the immense authority and unshaking tenor of leader Raul Malo.
Veruca Salt, American Thighs. What makes this record isn’t its extremely facile manipulation of pop strictures nor its rampant commerciality, both of which are interesting but beside the point. It’s the dedication of youthful songwriters Nina Gordon and Louise Post to the album’s center: a tale of growing up and out in the 1990s. Key supporting role: a rock ‘n’ roll band.
