- Courtesy of RCA records
- Miranda Lambert
As the years have passed I’ve come to realize that music critics often use a kind of sliding scale, where the benchmarks fall in different places according to what genre they’re discussing and where a particular artist might fit on the commercial continuum within it. As I see it, a lot of writing about mainstream country music goes easy on hammy production, by-the-numbers arrangements, and treacly lyrics. And because no other popular genre cleaves so strongly to its own conventions, bullshit such as country-rap lug Big Smo gets celebrated for its formal invention. Miranda Lambert is now one of country’s biggest stars, and her boat rocking comes mostly in the form of sass and independence in the words she sings. There are moments on her latest album, Platinum (RCA), where it’s hard not to gag on the sentiment: the string-swaddled “Smokin’ and Drinkin’,” which includes vocal harmonies by Little Big Town and wan electric-piano chords, is a saccharine dud about weekend warriors getting nostalgic for their younger days.
Today’s playlist:
