Heard Here

Hillbilly Idol
hillbilly IDOL

There are a lot of people in this country –– on this campus, especially –– who say they like any music, so long as it’s ‘good,’ but who categorically dismiss country music as being artless and unlistenable. “Oh, sure, I like Johnny Cash,” they’ll say, but secretly (or not so secretly) they’ll dismiss country as music by and for ignorant white folk. And frankly, I’m tired of this shit. Country music is real in the way that little else is, unpretentious to a fault almost. It’s music about drinking, women, cars, roads and heartbreak, not necessarily but sometimes in that order. This is stuff everyone can relate to.
I’ll admit, a lot of the country music on the radio today is crap. But music in any format is crap if it’s on the radio, and radio country just suffers from most of the same blandness that radio pop, rock or hip-hop does. And just as indie rock and underground hip-hop have, after years of marginalization, begun to enjoy recognition and success, so too has the alt-country/classic country/whatever you wanna call it movement begun to gain momentum. And one of the sweetest sets of voices in independent country music comes from a bunch of local boys, Hillbilly Idol, who opened for up-and-coming alt-country successes BR5-49 two weeks ago to a packed house at the Beachland Ballroom.
Their new self-titled release, the follow-up to 1999’s Town and Country Music, is everything a country album (or any album, for that matter) should be. It’s melodious, brilliantly orchestrated, and full of both humor (c’mon, they’re called Hillbilly Idol) and heartache, often in the same song. The best example of the latter comes in “I Don’t Think About You Anymore,” where guitarist Dave Huddleston sings, “I stay at home ’cause I need time for / Watchin dust settle down on the floor / Check the clock every hour just to make sure / I don’t think about you anymore.”
Huddleston shares both lead vocal and songwriting credits with Paul Kovac and Al Moss, and every member of the band also plays at least two instruments; in all, there are 14 different instruments that appear at least once on the album. And they all can wail, as evidenced especially on “Sirocco,” the album’s final track, an instrumental.
The band does tend a little toward sappy at some points –– “Smack Dab in the Middle of Love” might not have been the best choice to open the album –– but it’s all heartfelt, and much of it quite poignant. The Tim O’Brien cover, “Late in the Day,” is one of the sweeter songs out there, transporting the listener into the bittersweet lyrics and bucolic imaginings of Huddleston’s vocals. The album as a whole does a good job of the same, conveying the small pleasures of ordinary life like good country music does oh so well.

-Jacob Kramer-Duffield

Ja Rule
Pain is Love

Kurt Cobain’s suicide was to alternative rock what Tupac Shakur’s murder was to rap: an opportunity for market-savvy record execs and would-be artists, like Bush, or lil’ Zane, to siphon profits from an established demographic, be they grunge or thug. One key difference being that in rap, unlike rock, achieving fame and record sales means you “blew up” rather than “sold out.” Among the fools who rushed into the 2Pac-less rap landscape was Queens native Ja Rule, who first appeared alongside Jigga in “Can I Get A…” He quickly came into his own with the single and bikini-packed video for “Holla Holla,” known for its infectious tendency to grunt-a-long in the ride, “It’s Murda!!!”
Now, armed with a few more facial hairs and an ever-improving work-out routine, Ja, like Jigga, is vying for your $16 for the second time in 10 months with Pain is Love. Indeed, it’s hard to tell whether such singles as “I’m Real” (Murda Mix; Murda, of course, is one of Ja’s favorite motifs) and “Livin’ it Up” are off his last album, or off some new one. Yes, he has a new one. Pain is Love chronicles Ja Rule’s quick ascension in and semi-disillusion with the rap game. What happened to the days when Janet Jackson CD’s spawned six singles over two years? This quick release style feels more like saturation marketing than artistic abundance, but who cares? Ja’s cuter than Jay-Z’s, grunts better than DMX, and has more thug passion than any rapper out there on the market.
The equation for thug passion — one part Alizé, one part Chrystal — you’ll all remember, was proven by Professor Pac on All Eyez on Me. And Ja borrows from other successful 2Pac ventures on this album as well. Tracks such as “Pain is Love” are like an early 90’s time machine, back to the glory days of thug love. The video for “Livin’ It Up” is basically modeled after Pac’s “Gangsta Party,” right down to the cross-eyed, white models. Bottom line, the singles are the real winners, but Ja didn’t lose too much sleep putting this one out. If you’ve happened to lose your copy of 7 Day Theory or Me Against the World pop in “Pain is Love” for a quick fix.

-Jonah Landman