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February 3, 2005
Tracy's thoughts on Wicked Twisted Road
The caveat:
"Some people feel that to deconstruct a thing is to kill its mystery. If that's you, then please feel free not to read anything else here. I believe that everybody who listens to music looks for meaning, to some extent. How many RK interviews have we already read, where someone asked 'what is this song about?' or 'does that line refer to X?' Even when a fan learns all the words simply by rote, he or she is subconsciously processing a personal interpretation."
I believe this all still holds today. An overall look:
I love this record...
on Friday, come back for a close look at each track!
read the disclaimer first
thoughts on the album overall
Songs 1 - 6
Songs 7 - 13
(Following are the most relevant bits of the disclaimer I wrote two years ago for the Under the Table explication. If you want to read the whole disclaimer, click here and here.)
"I don't know a thing about music from any other perspective than as a fan. If there is a school somewhere where one can major in Lyrical Analysis and Music Studies, I'm sure those students will hunt me down and shoot me. I don't claim to be any sort of professional here. I just happen to think a lot about lyrics and how each line contributes to the whole, and then how a particular song fits in the album. Microcosm vs. macrocosm, blah blah.
(Now, I'm sure that elicits a resounding "um, no duh" from anyone who knows me or frequents this site, since I've been an RK devotee for going on 8 years now. Still, I hope that I have made a fair case that I am not a homer for Reckless. I've been honest here and there about things I haven't liked or about which I have been underwhelmed. I hope that's a smooth enough segue to:)
...but I don't buy the big "love narrative" that is being pushed. Gregg and I have been going around about this for some weeks now, and I'm sure others will disagree with me too. But, the mere fact that the first track evokes the romantic naiveté of youth and the last track is about how the maturity of a real and fine love leads one to settle down doesn't, in and of itself, create a theme or a pervasive narrative. It just creates bookends that make a nice marketing angle.
And I do love me some marketing. As promotion and Reckless Kelly relate to one another, I have said for as long as I can remember that the latter could use more of the former. Jill McGuckin did a fine job back when she did RK's PR -- but then after a while, there wasn't a dedicated PR person, and eventually the band became simply too busy with, you know, the music. I fully believe that the only reason we aren't seeing an RK shirt crossing the stage at the CMAs on the chest of the Hat Act of the Month (whoops, I mean "Horizon Award Winner") is that what the members of Reckless Kelly care most about is being musicians -- as well they should. It's the job of the label and/or the management company to do the promotion.
And Sugar Hill is excelling, along with Davis and Kimiko and everyone who comprises the RK Support Team. You gotcher Wicked Twisted Road posters, you gotcher WTR postcards. People, there are red WTR cigarette lighter/bottle opener combinations (and no, you can't have mine). And remember the Under the Table shotglasses and matchbooks? This is the kind of stuff that gets the records sold, and so I'm all for that.
But, as a critical fan, I just don't get this alleged theme of a "coming-of-age love story" within Wicked Twisted Road. I've listened to it from start to finish probably 25 times already, and I don't hear it. I didn't pick up on it at first listen, before I was told it was there... and when I went back and looked for it, I didn't find it (She Who Can Overanalyze to Extract Meaning From a Cereal Box). So, if you read one of the many reviews from the folks who mention this Thematic Love Narrative, just figure that they received the Sugar Hill press kit -- and then listen to the album and decide for yourself.
I feel that WTR is just as well-made as Under the Table, equally as commercial in its own way, and I feel that the songs on their own are equally as strong. The main difference, as I see it, is that the new album is grittier. Not in a production sense, but lyrically and musically. It's darker, not as clean and bright and smooth. There are more pieces in minor keys. There isn't as much effortless transition between tracks. The energy levels bounce around -- here a rollicking heist tale as sure to please the Greek crowd as "Crazy Eddie"... there an eerie requiem for the heart, dripping noir and contempt... followed by a Black Crowes-esque jam frosted with gospel-style backup singers... and a Celtic-flavored travelogue complete with tin whistle. WTR is built like an RK grab bag.
(From my Monday-morning quarterbacking chair, maybe this is the reason for the label's heavy emphasis on this love narrative -- to neatly wrap up an album that might otherwise seem to have an erratic flow.)
I'll confess that, on my very first listen (and for any RK fan, the first listen is always going to be like a first two-week trip through Europe -- you rush from country to country, no time to really take it all in, just enough time to take a look around and see what it's about, figure out what cities you want to return and spend the most time in), my immediate reaction was that the record was a little disjointed. But after the first blush, you begin to realize that each song should fairly be considered in and of itself, and not as a part of a whole. Whereas I believed that Under the Table was greater than the sum of its parts, I think that WTR defies that sort of easy cliché.
Think of the albums you've loved where every track stood alone: what makes the record good is that it is one convenient place to get all those songs that you love for different reasons (Joshua Tree is like that, for me). This is in that category.
This isn't an album that you're going have to "be in the mood for" -- the way you have to "feel like a little Rodney Crowell" or "feel like some Gipsy Kings." This isn't an "I'm in a shitty mood 'cause I'm fighting with my old lady" album... though track #9 ("Nobody Haunts Me") sure fits that.
Nor is this a "We've got a truck full of drunks making a midnight run to Acuna" album -- although track #7 ("Sixgun") works for that. Overall, this isn't an album you play at 4:20, but the far-out cosmic ride of "Hiram" would certainly be a soundtrack for that.
The album doesn't have a thoughtful, put-it-on-while-you-write-or-paint feel... although the easy poetry of "Dogtown" and "Broken Heart" do.
This trying on of many hats is one reason that I believe WTR will appeal more to the die-hard fans than UTT did. That album felt like it was crafted to attract a new audience, to introduce RK to the CMT and VH-1 crowds. WTR is far more reminiscent of a live show, where the boys move from "Torn Up Inside" to "Wild Western Windblown" to the Beatles' "Revolution" without batting an eye -- which is exactly like we like it.
I don't know that I'm making sense. I've been ruminating on my reactions to WTR for nigh on two months now, and still this is the best I can do to articulate how I view this album. It isn't that it's poorly made, not in the slightest... but I can't rightly say that I find it cohesive -- but instead, a collection of individual gems, each precious in its singularness. Imagine a polished marble of onyx next to a crusty quartz geode, alongside a glittering emerald and a chunk of hand-cut Mexican turquoise. That's Wicked Twisted Road, to me. I don't see the narrative theme... and I don't guess I need to.
