We've been post-postmodern since junior high.
RC has had its selections of country music over the weeks, and my general position is the genre's "not for me." Thus the irony of being album picker this week. But time spent around these parts has given me a softer eye to all genres, and time spent around these parts has given me lore on "outlaw country," which is a sort of country very different than your typical jingoism-fest.
As an aside, isn't it odd "country music" refers to, well, this country and in particular a small part of it. It says something about me that my brain will just spit out "Rascal Flats" whenever I need to fill in the gap of "band Kentucky wants to hear."
So Sturgill plays as an outlaw, as that scathing Uproxx interview displayed, and as is evident in the music & lyrics set out front. The music has all the country banners I recognize—ode to drugs song ("Life of Sin"), twangy bouncy song ("A Little Light"), hoedown jug hooting song ("Long White Line"), country-rock song ("It Ain't All Flowers"), country-folk song ("Voices"). Backward guitars song...? They all have a playful sort of twist.
If you're looking for it, there's a clear metaphysical position set forth through the line of the album, with nodes available to stop at for reflection (mine being "Turtles," "Living the Dream," and "Flowers"). And if you're not looking, you might still catch a glimpse of something pleasant, like that cover of "The Promise," a song I haven't heard since Napoleon Dynamite. Striving towards a bluegrass buddha or stringed siddartha or jamming jesus or whatever, the album employs both playful irony and priggish sincerity wrapped up at once:
A picture's worth a thousand words, but a word ain't worth a dime / We all know they'll go on talking til the end of time
They all changed the way I see / Love's the only thing that ever saved my life
And as such, metamodernism in country music. A country cynic's country album. Plus, hey, only 35 minutes! Better than your typical primetime shlock NBC program.
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