{"id":232,"date":"2013-08-05T20:24:17","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T20:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=232"},"modified":"2013-08-14T21:10:07","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T21:10:07","slug":"rs-top-500-albums-483-steve-earle-guitar-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/?p=232","title":{"rendered":"RS #482: Steve Earle – Guitar Town"},"content":{"rendered":"
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#482<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Steve Earle,\u00a0Guitar Town<\/em><\/h3>\n
Release Date:<\/strong>\u00a01986<\/div>\n
Previously Owned:<\/strong>\u00a0No
\nFirst Time Listen:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes<\/div>\n
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\"Steve
Steve is going to go to town on that guitar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Impressions: <\/strong>\u00a0Modern country isn’t exactly my bag, but over the years I’ve grown to appreciate older country stars like Johnny Cash & Patsy Cline, and so-called alt-country artists like Uncle Tupelo, but the sheen of modern Nashville country still bores me. I guess lots of these newer country stars just seem to me like they are doing lame arena rock dressed up with a “country” packaging. Steve Earle seems a little more earnest than these 10 gallon hat wearing pretenders, but we’ll see if this album wins me over. Here we go…Hmm, “Guitar Town” seems like a decent enough mid-tempo twangy cut, although I think sometimes Earle’s country singing-inflections don’t always hit my ears the right way. Probably years of urban ridicule in tv, comedy, and movies have possibly ruined country music for me. Earle’s got a mix of swagger, smarts, and skill that is impressive, in songs like “My Old Friend The Blues,” and the Elvis-ian throwback “Think It Over.” Overall, \u00a0a solid, polished platter of country\/rock, occasionally\u00a0affecting but the uninspired production softened the blow (never more evident in the the cheeseball lullaby “Little Rock ‘N’ Roller.”) Lyrically he’s a solid songwriter–who knows, maybe I’d like country a little more if it was in this vein– but the band never seems to elevate to anything but “capable.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Starred Songs:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0“Guitar Town,” “Good Ol’ boy (Gettin’ Tough)”<\/div>\n
Sneaky Track:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0“Think It Over”<\/div>\n
Should this album be on the list? <\/strong>Toss up.\u00a0It’s okay, but doesn’t really\u00a0blow me away.<\/div>\n
Replace With:<\/strong> I’d rather listen to an Uncle Tupelo’s “Anodyne” or\u00a0Son Volt’s “Trace” even though they might not be considered as “great” as this\u00a0album. Weird, huh?<\/div>\n
Will you listen to this again?<\/strong>\u00a0 Probably not.<\/div>\n
Verdict:<\/strong>\u00a0Solid-platter of country\/rock, but\u00a0I think I’d like this alot more if the music rose to the level of Earle’s songs or if my general immunity to country music was absent.<\/div>\n
Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

#482 Steve Earle,\u00a0Guitar Town Release Date:\u00a01986 Previously Owned:\u00a0No First Time Listen:\u00a0Yes Impressions: \u00a0Modern country isn’t exactly my bag, but over the years I’ve grown to appreciate older country stars like Johnny Cash & Patsy Cline, and so-called alt-country artists like Uncle Tupelo, but the sheen of modern Nashville country still bores me. I guess lots … Continue reading RS #482: Steve Earle – Guitar Town<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[68,36,67,31,10,14,66,69,9],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rolling-stone-top-500-albums","tag-68","tag-3-stars","tag-country","tag-debut","tag-first-time-listen","tag-replace","tag-steve-earle","tag-toss-up","tag-unowned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/batterymedia.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}