taylor
Diamond Member
Pulse’s #1 Conan Stan
Best Country Poster 2023 and 2x Woman of the Year!!!
Joined: October 2019
Posts: 16,124
Pronouns: she/her
|
Post by taylor on Sept 9, 2020 5:59:13 GMT -5
I see what bboat11 was trying to do getting my blood boiling with those hints for the first reveal :kii: I happened to have just gone to bed right after my last post lol. VERY glad to see "Slow News Day" escape the bottom 3. |
|
.indulgecountry
Diamond Member
Best Country Poster 2011, 2017, & 2018
"You left a mark on my face // And brought a dozen red flags in a vase"
|
Post by .indulgecountry on Sept 9, 2020 11:17:56 GMT -5
"Tear It All Down" feels a touch close to filler territory on the album, but Terri Clark's vocal performance elevates it enough to save it from being a throwaway. Still, it's on an album with career highs and it's just bit there by comparison. It escaped my bottom 2 by virtue of at least having a pulse, unlike "Travelin' Soul" or "Slow News Day" in all their snooziness.
"Cowboy Days" was done completely dirty though. I can't believe such a fun jam is this low. :/
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251 
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 9, 2020 21:05:05 GMT -5
People are still good, that I always will believe. But these days it feels like everyone could use a little peace. Livin’ in a world that’s filled with fear and worry, It might be time for us to hear a different story.
9. "Slow News Day"
Track 11 Runtime: 4:10 Songwriters: Terri Clark
Placement in the Singles Rankdown: #38 out of 53
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 9, 2020 21:29:14 GMT -5
Here we go! We kick off tonight's reveals with the first single leaving us already. "Slow News Day" was the album's 3rd single, and managed to peak at #12 in Canadian Country radio despite doing absolutely nothing on American country radio. This was pretty much the first release of her career that indicated she was going to continue being popular in Canada despite starting to wind down in the U.S.
This is such a beautiful song!! The lyrics are super poignant, and speak directly to the humanity within all of us. In 2004/2005 when this song was written/recorded/released, times were tough in our country. 9/11 was barely starting to scab over, the Iraq war was in full swing, our relations with the Middle East had never been more tenuous, etc. This song does not take a political stance, or pass blame; it merely speaks to the average person who is weary and tired and just ready for the world to see a little bit of peace.
The most striking thing for me about this song, revisiting it in 2020, is that the lyrics currently hit harder today than they literally ever have!!! Not a day goes by without some kind of new scandal coming to light among our political leadership, or our President intentionally lying to his people, and his followers blindly going along with it just because of political affiliation... Again, this song is delightfully refreshing due to its lack of political positioning and appealing to the best nature of all of us.
As I have said with some of the other low songs, this song's main weakness simply comes from the fact that it is on such a strong album that it has a TON of competition. The uptempos especially are so good that this one occasionally feels like a chore to listen to because I wanna hurry up and get to the title track, "Damn Right", "Bigger Windows", etc. And among the other ballads it simply cannot compare to songs like "She Didn't Have Time" or "I Wish He'd Been Drinking Whiskey".
I remember being super shocked when this was released as a single, but when you look at the importance of the lyrics, plus the fact that Terri wrote it by herself, I guess it kinda makes sense. Still, I think the title track would have been her best shot at another hit...
|
|
|
|
Post by tim on Sept 10, 2020 9:11:29 GMT -5
I can appreciate the sentiment behind what Terri was trying to express with "Slow News Day" and more than not songs such as these usually have a way of resonating with me. Such is not the case with this song, however. This one fell into the bottom 10 for me in her artist rankdown and I was hoping that I might like this song more this time around, but alas I didn't. I already find this song to be a bit of a chore to get through, so given that this is the second to last song on the album it didn't make it any easier. I also have to admit that I find the first couple of versus to be a bit choppy which just don't seem to flow very well.
|
|
.indulgecountry
Diamond Member
Best Country Poster 2011, 2017, & 2018
"You left a mark on my face // And brought a dozen red flags in a vase"
|
Post by .indulgecountry on Sept 10, 2020 10:25:35 GMT -5
Oh thank God. "Slow News Day" is sadly a misfire. The intent behind the song is commendable but the song itself is so snoozey and boring, and is another song that falls into my category of 'like it even less knowing it took up a single slot from another better song.' It also feels very dated with the references in the first chorus being so heavily about Passion of the Christ. The song isn't universal enough that it still works like it could've been written yesterday, so I'm gonna disagree with bboat11 about that. For comparison, Reba's "Why Haven't I Heard From You" feels dated because of the lyrical references, even though the topic is as relevant as ever (like imagine her frustration if the guy didn't get a hold of her now, when everyone has a literal cell phone in their pocket at all times!). |
|
taylor
Diamond Member
Pulse’s #1 Conan Stan
Best Country Poster 2023 and 2x Woman of the Year!!!
Joined: October 2019
Posts: 16,124
Pronouns: she/her
|
Post by taylor on Sept 10, 2020 13:00:01 GMT -5
Insert the Reba GIF. "Slow News Day" is incredible and everything that bboat11 said hits it on the head. I absolutely loved it, and to be quite frank I hope we do manage to have a slow news day soon...literally. |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 13, 2020 3:20:26 GMT -5
Hey everyone! I am soooo sorry to leave this one hanging like this! My computer died without warning on Thursday, and it has been multiple days and hundreds of miles of trying to find an Apple store that will serve me 🤬⚰️🙈 They’ve always been unnecessarily difficult, but due to Covid they are now literally inaccessible! I finally got them to ship it to their warehouse for repairs, so now it might be like a week for them to get it back to me...
Assuming they don’t somehow delete all my files, I will finish this the moment I get it back ♥️
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 19:47:08 GMT -5
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 19:53:24 GMT -5
Let's pick back up with our second #1 loss of the rankdown!!!
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 20:15:37 GMT -5
One more margarita was one bad idea. Now you don't know where you left your car. And the rent's overdue, well, imagine that. And you think you might die from a broken heart. Well, you've told us all you're life's a total wreck, Then you might not want to hear what's comin' next.
'Cause this is a honky tonk song!
8. "Honky Tonk Song"
Track 8 Runtime: 3:49 |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 20:28:34 GMT -5
"Honky Tonk Song" is our next unlucky victim, and George Strait Junkie is the next unlucky participant to lose his #1. This song is yet another infectious boost of energy on an album that has a very healthy energy dynamic, and I am not surprised to learn just a second ago that this actually has the same songwriters as "Cowboy Days"! The songs are definitely built to occupy a similar lane. This tongue-in-cheek ode to how you shouldn't be looking for an uplifting message because it's written in solidarity with everybody who feels like they were born to lose is just classic Terri. This is the type of song that she nails the hardest, imo. It struggled to gain much ground in this rankdown, however, and ultimately settled for a bottom 5 finish despite nearly escaping a couple times near the end. |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 20:45:38 GMT -5
But everybody’s gotta go sometime. Everybody’s gotta cross that line, Even though goodbye won’t come easy. Leave a little bit of love behind. It takes a lot of faith to find The strength to walk away freely. Everybody’s gotta go sometime.
7. "Everybody's Gotta Go Sometime"
Track 10 Runtime: 3:43 |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 20:57:56 GMT -5
Goodbye won't come easy for some of us with regards to "Everybody's Gotta Go Sometime"... This song settled in to the #7 position early on, and appeared ready to sit there without budging until some people absolutely TRIED IT in the last crop of submissions!!!!! It had fallen all the way back from #7 to #10 as of gardyfan's list! Thank goodness for Cody Wants Out...'s top 2 rank bumping it back up to #7 at the end, undoing all the damage of the last few lists! Kanenrá:ke tried to include this in the singles rankdown as an example of the best album track from the album (I...  let's just say "LMAO" to that one) and it got trashed out at #31, and then struggled to get any higher than #7 here, so clearly it does not seem to be as well-loved on Pulse as it seems like some people want it to be. However, it is still an insanely great song (I just think there are several on this album that are even better), so I find the fact that it is the most polarizing song on this album to be a bit of a head scratcher. Despite the polarizing nature, this is our first song to make it into the album tracks rankdown (if y'all continue to show enough interest in Terri for me to feel like it's worth it to do an album tracks rd for her!!!) {Spoiler} Y'all better keep showing damn interest, btw!!! Her album tracks are SO consistently great, it would be a real shame for us not to honor them with their own rankdown  |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 21:04:33 GMT -5
Oh, I forgot to mention something with regards to "Honky Tonk Song"! That was originally slated to be the title track of this album. That version of the album had a couple songs that didn't end up making the final cut when the album got renamed ("You Gotta Love That" and "Last Good Time"), but those songs can still be found if you have the insanely rare luck of finding a copy of the original unreleased album at Goodwill or something (which just happened to George Strait Junkie, believe it or not!!) Terri found a couple new songs that she felt made the album even better ("She Didn't Have Time" and "Life Goes On", if I remember correctly), so the other two got scrapped, the album got renamed, and one of the new songs became the title track and the other become the first single! "You Gotta Love That" and "Last Good Time" didn't make our rankdown for the main album, but I will make sure to include them if we end up having an Extras rankdown for Terri at the end of the album series :) |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 21:08:57 GMT -5
Here I sit with a drink in my hand. Local cantina with a sign hangin’ sayin’ Somethin’ in Spanish ‘bout, “Let the good times roll.” Between the sandy beaches and the margaritas Thought I’d find a way to let you go. But there’s not enough tequila in Mexico.
6. "Not Enough Tequila"
Track 5 Runtime: 3:23 |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 21:14:45 GMT -5
"Not Enough Tequila" is a song that is a whole entire mood. And not in a sassy or campy way like you might expect based on the title plus the fact that songs like "Honky Tonk Song" and "Cowboy Days" also exist on this album. This song is just plain moody. It is introspective and wistful. Terri perfectly captures the emotions in this song, imo! When listening to the tracks in order, it provides a delicious breath of sad tropical air that is just super relaxing and easy to listen to after being hammered by the unrelenting uptempo barrage of "Life Goes On", "Damn Right", and "Cowboy Days" plus the emotional gut punch of "She Didn't Have Time". But it is not just great due to clever album placement; it also holds its own as a great song in its own right. That's why it hung on to the top 5 for about half of the submission process, never got any lower than the top half, and is the second entry into the album tracks rankdown from one of her best albums!
|
|
taylor
Diamond Member
Pulse’s #1 Conan Stan
Best Country Poster 2023 and 2x Woman of the Year!!!
Joined: October 2019
Posts: 16,124
Pronouns: she/her
|
Post by taylor on Sept 15, 2020 21:18:06 GMT -5
Lol, you come back and no one comments on anything Thank God "Not Enough Tequila" and "Honky Tonk Song" are out. Those are the two duds for me and they vastly overstayed. |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 21:43:19 GMT -5
Lol, you come back and no one comments on anything
Thank God "Not Enough Tequila" and "Honky Tonk Song" are out. Those are the two duds for me and they vastly overstayed. Yep, that's why I'm gonna stop now rather than finishing the whole thing  Haha jk, I am going to stop though. My computer was wiped clean as part of the repair process, so I am having to redo all my settings and try to restore all my stuff... I lost everything that wasn't in the Cloud, but fortunately my music, pictures, and documents are all in the Cloud, so I'm not sure what else I really need, lol. But now it's a matter of getting them to re-sync and all that fun stuff... My iTunes in particular is giving me headaches. We'll finish strong tomorrow, now that we are down to the top 5!!! Put it on your calendars!!!  |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 15, 2020 21:46:06 GMT -5
Here is the top 5, btw!
Bigger Windows
Damn Right
I Wish He’d Been Drinkin’ Whiskey
Life Goes On
She Didn’t Have Time
|
|
|
|
Post by George Strait Junkie on Sept 15, 2020 23:35:58 GMT -5
The original also had Eric Church’s “The World Needs A Drink” witch was a single but didn’t do too good so it got scrapped
|
|
|
|
Post by castleoblivion26 on Sept 16, 2020 0:26:37 GMT -5
"The World Needs A Drink" is such a great song, should have done better!!!
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 16, 2020 1:10:28 GMT -5
Oh, I forgot to mention something with regards to "Honky Tonk Song"! That was originally slated to be the title track of this album. That version of the album had a couple songs that didn't end up making the final cut when the album got renamed ("You Gotta Love That" and "Last Good Time"), but those songs can still be found if you have the insanely rare luck of finding a copy of the original unreleased album at Goodwill or something (which just happened to George Strait Junkie , believe it or not!!) Terri found a couple new songs that she felt made the album even better ("She Didn't Have Time" and "Life Goes On", if I remember correctly), so the other two got scrapped, the album got renamed, and one of the new songs became the title track and the other become the first single! "You Gotta Love That" and "Last Good Time" didn't make our rankdown for the main album, but I will make sure to include them if we end up having an Extras rankdown for Terri at the end of the album series  So I just made the epic discovery that "You Gotta Love That" is actually available for purchase as a standalone song on iTunes again!!!! It was briefly available back in 2005, but was removed pretty quickly and has been unavailable all these years. It definitely wasn't available last time I looked at her on the iTunes Store, which was as recently as a couple months, lol. If you want to check out another song that was intended to be on this album, go buy it/stream it and see what you think!!!  |
|
|
|
Post by tim on Sept 16, 2020 8:01:50 GMT -5
Despite my ranking I quite enjoyed "Not Enough Tequila" and I initially had this much closer to my top five before it ended up falling back with each subsequent edit. I knew it was an album track that seemed to be well liked overall so I thought for sure it would land in the top five. Speaking of, this is a very strong top five and I don't have a single complaint about any one of these songs making it in there. There's little if any doubt about which song will come out on top as that was likely settled just as soon as this album was announced as the first within the series, so we just have to try and guess in which order the four other songs will come in! That said, it'll likely come down to the album tracks exiting first leaving the remaining singles in the top two.
5. I Wish He’d Been Drinkin’ Whiskey
4. Bigger Windows
3. Life Goes On
2. Damn Right
1. She Didn’t Have Time
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 16, 2020 20:16:31 GMT -5
Little clapboard house, Rent always due. Railroad tracks, factory smoke stacks for a view. No easy street In our neighborhood. Yeah, it was hard to tell the bad times from the good.
5. "Bigger Windows"
Track 6 Runtime: 3:47 |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 16, 2020 20:27:31 GMT -5
Kicking off the top 5, we say goodbye to the 3rd song to make the album tracks rankdown! Honestly, one of my favorite things about Terri's music is how heavily she tends to feature the baritone guitar. It's such an impressive and commanding sound that I think is one of the key elements that gives her music a real personality. That being said, from the moment this song started and I heard that descending baritone guitar riff for the first time, I knew this would go on to be one of my favorite album tracks of her entire career. And I was not wrong!! To this day I literally never get tired of this song!! The melody is pure ear candy, and Terri once again tackles the vocal with the perfect amount of gusto and personality to make it an enticing listen. Kanenrá:ke, of course, finally loses his last place (We'll have to play a game throughout this series, guessing which amazing song from each album that he hates for no reason!) |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 16, 2020 20:33:50 GMT -5
Oh, but life goes on. And before too long You figure out you’re right where you belong. It’s sad and it’s sweet, But if you’re lucky it keeps goin’ on and on and on.
4. "Life Goes On"
Track 1 Runtime: 2:59 |
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 16, 2020 20:38:03 GMT -5
Our title track bows out at #4, as the fourth song to enter our album tracks rankdown! This song was poised to finish at #3 for almost the entire submission process, and I was pretty disappointed to see it get tanked back to #4 with the final couple lists... This is by far one of the catchiest songs I have ever heard! I cannot believe that they released "Slow News Day" to radio when this song was RIGHT HERE!!!!! It may not have been the highest album track here, but I do think that it had the most hit potential out of everything that was left on the album.
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 16, 2020 20:39:50 GMT -5
Looks like I'm gonna have to spam and shitpost to get to a new page...
|
|
bboat11
Moderator
Pulse's Resident Martina McBride Expert
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 27,251
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Staff
|
Post by bboat11 on Sept 16, 2020 20:40:32 GMT -5
Since I'm the only person who has any thoughts about this album... |
|
