ONE-TRACK SMACKDOWN...................................................31 OCT 2005
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Artist:
UNCLE EARL |
[Editor's note: The following is the first in a series of occasional short features that opprobriate singularly unpalatable tracks.]
It’s high time that someone introduced these “g’Earls”—as they style themselves—to the People’s Elbow. So here goes.
For sheer poser cheeze-value, it’s hard to top this hunk of havarti from Uncle Earl’s otherwise pleasant new album. Against a backing chorus of “ooooooo’s” and staccato chant, Abigail Washburn smugly celebrates her inevitable acceptance at the Pearly Gates. But the amount of prestige associated with this achievement quickly becomes apparent: her heaven is an agoraphobic’s nightmare on which EVERYONE must eventually converge. Even if you don’t like the idea of spending eternity smashed up next to Washburn and her troupe of cloggers and yodelers, too damn bad, because “don’t matter what you think (divine), "don’t matter what you say (divine), don’t matter who you blame (divine), we’ll be with everyone in heaven, we’ll meet our brother, our mother, our father, sister too."
Of course, it would be perfectly understandable if you dismissed this song out of hand as an uninspired rehash of the hackneyed “heaven-as-family-reunion” trope. But then you’d miss out on the weirdest part of all: the song’s barely suppressed eagerness for a Freudian clusterf*ck. "Know your father on that day divine," the g’Earls chant rhythmically, "take your brother to that door divine...we’ll be with everyone in heaven." We at Cheezeball.net are down with brotherly love, but this is just ridiculous. It also doesn’t help that the liner notes tell us Washburn and company recorded this opus philadelphum "around one mic. In the dark.”
In summation: The whole thing leaves us with nasty Ollabelle flashbacks. A perfect example of how one song can torpedo an album.
hl