There's More Where That Came From


Flashback: “A Little Too Late” by Toby Keith, 2006
September 2, 2009, 3:03 pm
Filed under: Country Music, Flashback Series | Tags: , , ,

While it may be winging it a little to call this a flashback, but it’s a little hard to believe that 2006 is slowly becoming more retro as we quickly head into the 2010’s.

Back in mid-2006 Toby had a hit with “A Little Too Late” off his White Trash with Money album. The song is about a man addressing his former girlfriend that the couple is through. While the plot has been donemany times before, Toby offers another good piece of music that reminisces on his great 90’s and early 2000’s work. It’s hard to think that he can have a great song like this and then go on to make something as outrageous as his recent single “American Ride”! But I guess you just have to take the good with the bad.

“A Little Too Late” went on to reach #2 in August 2006. The music video is also another treat, the plot is a little grim, that is until the ending offers a pretty good plot twist.



Changing Musical Styles

Back in 2002, when I was about 10, I noticed my 23 year old sister had bought the album Let Go by (the then new) Avril Lavigne. Soon after I got a copy of it for myself (I know what a lame little brother, huh?) After giving it one listen I fell in love with pop/rock and the new mature teen pop that was replacing bubblegum pop artists like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys.

 

2004 came around and Lavigne was back at it again with her  sophomore album Under My Skin. While the album didn’t sell as much as her debut, it produced the two hits, the first ”Don’t Tell Me” and the second, the smash hit “My Happy Ending”.  The album, in it’s musical right, was darker than the first, with songs showing a darker yet mature side Avril as she dealt with more grown-up subjects. With that said it was still firmly rooted in pop/rock which made it a successful, a little more evolved follow-up to Let Go. In the years that followed Lavigne had been one of my favorite pop/rock female artists, with Kelly Clarkson soon taking her lead.

Then around late 2006, Lavigne released the hit single “Keep Holding On” for the movie Eragon. The song was a bit of departure from the music she had on her previous albums, with less rock influence on it and more power pop elements, which worked well for the song. Early 2007,  Avril’s official first single off her third album The Best Damn Thing, ”Girlfriend” hits radio and becomes one of her biggest career hits. I thought the song was a great rush of pop-punk, but from there on I knew that her new album would be a departure from what we’d seen before. After it was released I didn’t know whether to love it or hate it.

So what’s the point of me blabbering on about this? Well I’ll tell ya! Soon after I began looking at many more artists and how they’re styles have changed from album to album. While some artists have barely changed their musical stylings(Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, and for the most part Reba McEntire), using the “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” formula; Many artists have changed their styles multiple times(Madonna, Faith Hill, Alanis Morissette) to either stay-up with new trends or to keep things different and more fresh.

So my question to everyone; Who are some artists who have made changes in their music, for the worse or better?



Flashback: “Story” by Brandi Carlile, 2006
December 12, 2008, 3:26 am
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , ,

While the song wasn’t made too long ago, I had, recently, been browsing around YouTube, and stumbled across this video again and remembered when it was becoming a big hit back in early 2006(although it seems that it wasn’t as big a hit as I thought). After being advertised on Grey’s Anatomy, which is a great show, but has an even better knack for finding great artists.

While this isn’t the official music video and has not-as-great quality, this video always seemed like it had more soul to it than the official one, so here it is: