The CD: “Blame The Vain” (New West Records)
Performer: Dwight Yoakam
Website: dwightyoakum.com
Listen: here

New West is Dwight Yoakam’s, well, new label, and though he has parted ways with longtime producer-guitarist Pete Anderson, do you think he’s gonna suck now? Hardly.

“Blame the Vain” is more of the same Dwight: the patented whiny-trippy voice, romance gone wrong, a landscape of loneliness and, oh yeah — rockin’ country. One thing that you get for free, with the purchase of any of Yoakam’s CDs, is the mental image of Dwight shaking his leg (complete with spray-painted on jeans) to the beat. Cool.

You can always count on Dwight having an open slot on “Imus in the Morning.” Yoakam’s appearances are one of the best parts about that show.

The title track opens the CD, with Yoakam firing off verbally: So go ahead and blame me for anything you want/It all ends up the same/When everything you’ve been claiming is wrong.

One of the best things about Yoakam’s songs are that you can feel alone with him. So, you’re not really alone — right? “Lucky That Way” is a somber song with gospel-type singing that fits right into this theme. Listening to this type of country fried rock, you can understand where a lot of rock & roll came from — country.

I did see the video for “Intentional Heartache”, the third song, on CMT. (Why, you may ask, was I watching CMT? At least they play music!) The song spells out what can happen to two-timin’ male pigs and their signed Dale Jr. posters. You dogs — you’re filth to me!

Check out the swinging, up-tempo “Three Good Reasons” — I almost “fell out” when I heard what the number one reason was: I’ll give you three good reasons for leavin’/Number one is that I’ve forgotten number two/Number three is in a place that’s been kept hidden for so long I can’t remember, but it’s true. MMMMMWAAH!

Love it. DY sings in his best Elvis voice on this one.

“She’ll Remember” sounds like the Rentals song “These Days” at first, what with the sliding synth and all — that’s right: moog-sounding synthesizers on a country song. This goes on underneath an unknown sample of a guy lamenting lost love, then — twangy guitars and Dwight singing! It wasn’t some kind of horrible DJ project after all. Yoakam sings about self-denial and the likelihood of a particular female (Bridget Fonda?) returning to him: Once all that’s left is what’s been used/And any chance to hide from the truth keeps getting slimmer/then she’ll remember. The song has an almost classic rock feel to it, and that’s good.

P.S. Oh yeah, Massey Energy brought the Ohio-born & Kentucky-bred Yoakam to play at their picnic a few years back, and people not slaving for their little fiefdom weren’t invited. Massey — you’ve made my eternal sh!tlist!

— Nick Harrah

This entry was posted on Friday, December 23rd, 2005 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.