Not a Moment Too Soon by Tim McGraw is the #3 album this week. I am not a big fan of modern country music. I like older country music: Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson are all great. Their songs are original and compelling. I find modern country a bit too trite and repetitive. The songs are so formulaic that someone put together a mix of songs all about the same things:
Not all modern country music is this bad. The worst country music is confined to the Bro-Country sub-genre. To an extent, the purveyors of this music are self-aware about this. For example, Beer Beer, Truck Truck (video) is a direct response to this criticism.
Not a Moment Too Soon is a bit too old to be Bro-Country and commit all the sins highlighted in the video above. Instead, it commits other sins including tackiness and racism!
- In It Doesn't Get Any Countrier Than This McGraw sings to his mother about his girlfriend and all the sex they've been having.
- In Indian Outlaw, McGraw (who is white) sings as if he was a Native American about his wigwam, paw-paw, and maw-maw. During one bridge there's a refrain that sounds like the Atlanta Braves theme.
- Refried Dreams is about being stuck in Mexico, destitute and missing a lost love. I'm not exactly sure what is refried about his dreams. Perhaps they're broken dreams, or unfulfilled, but what's refried about all that? Are they only refried because it sounds like refried beans? If so, is it basically only a slightly-racist pun? Hrm.
- Don't Take the Girl gives me painful whiplash. The first stanza is about a boy who wants to go fishing with his father, but doesn't want a girl to come along. No problem, that's cute enough. The next stanza the same boy is a teenager taking the same girl to the movies, when they are accosted by a stranger with a gun who wants to harm the girl. Wow, that's quite the turn. In the final stanza, the girl is dying during childbirth. Um, okay, that's… a way to end this song. I guess it tells a story but it's not a great one and it's not done in a way I find very artistic.
If you're wondering, in my opinion Americana is the inheritor to classic Country music.
Finally, I will not be listening to this album again.