Enough with the frat parties already! Between Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, and Florida-Georgia Line's total domination of the country world in 2013, it had begun to seem that country music was shifting to a pop-happy, hip-hop influenced sound that had the feel of a non-stop celebration of testosterone in the summertime. Sure you had your Kacey Musgraves, The Band Perry, Ashley Monroe, and Pistol Annies-frontlined purists, but all of their truly amazing records got lost in the sea of guest rappers and assimilation into the mainstream world of country-fied party-pop. This was perhaps also due to the fact that Miranda Lambert waited three years to release the follow-up to her phenomenal marriage album "Four the Record", a country album that transcended beyond country and struck a chord with a broader audience (even scoring Lambert her first Top 20 US hit ever in "Mama's Broken Heart"). Its singles were so sporadic over those years, that Miranda Lambert, the singer, failed to project over Miranda Lambert, the wife of Blake Shelton and constant lightning rod for the press and media scrutiny. Obviously, being the insightful songwriter she is, Lambert attempts to rectify all this hooplah with a 16-track album complete with guest appearances from Little Big Town and The Time Jumpers, and covering every subgenre of country in vogue right now, from Americana to Bluegrass, from neo-Traditionalist to Shania-style country-pop. Naming this record "Platinum" might seem a bit precarious (especially when given the album's length and star-studded writers and producers list), but there's a perfect balance here between swagger and softness, which makes the whole enterprise all the more interesting--and accessible. "Platinum" continues the ideas presented by its predecessors, but now aims to please about every audience imaginable. Impressively, it all works. Even more impressively: it all works well. Miranda continues to experiment with electronics (the synth in "Automatic" is clearly audible, ironic though it may seem, and "Little Red Wagon" follows suit with some clear synth overlay), and she pushes country into the pop about as far as it can go with without losing its feel or form (her duet with Carrie Underwood "Somethin Bad" being a pretty good example). But not once, however, does "Platinum" feel like a desperate bid for higher sales or airplay. Even if it is pop-py in the sense that it can satisfy a large amount of people, Lambert is not about to give in and go against what made her a star in the first place. Her refusal to pander to modern trends is as strong as ever, and it shows that sometimes just going back to the basics can go a long way in making an impact. She heavily succeeds in that goal, and she created not only the best album of her career, but the best country album released thus far in the 2010s.
Recommended Tracks in Bold:
1. Girls 2. Platinum 3. Little Red Wagon
4. Smokin’
and Drinkin’ 5. Priscilla 6. Automatic
7. Bathroom
Sink 8. Old Shit 9. All That’s Left
10. Gravity’s a Bitch 11. Babies Makin’ Babies 12. Somethin’
Bad
13. Holding
onto You 14. Two Rings Shy 15. Hard Staying Sober
16. Another
Sunday in the South
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