Big & Rich – Fight For Your Right To Party
America has given us so much: the lightbulb, the movies, Shock and Awe, Hogan Knows Best.
Besides these wonderful additions to our lives, America has also given us the musical equivalent of a drunken, creepy uncle: Country and Western.
Whilst possibly a bold cross-breed-mutation science experiment gone badly wrong, á la The Fly, Country and Western can also be seen as the musical embodiment of the tiny, tiny overlap in a Venn Diagram in which the two main data sets are ‘Startlingly bland MOR rock‘ and ‘Borderline-racist God-fearin’ homily’.
On the other hand, C&W duo Big & Rich are the perfect remedy for our fast-paced, cynical times. It’s almost as if they were specifically designed to ease any pains you have. Just think:
- Returned from a tough, sweaty day punching the keyboard and muttering swear words in the direction of your boss? Put on a Big & Rich record.
- Spent 15 years driving a tractor on a farm the size of Croatia, and need something to soundtrack you and your good ol’ boy buddies’ beer-chuggin, woman-sluggin’ escapades in the local Hicksville bar? Get Big & Rich on that jukebox.
- Need some tunes to whistle while you’re erecting giant, petrol-soaked crosses [remainder of anecdote removed on lawyer's advice]
The point is that Big & Rich, like all successful country artists, do bland well. Inevitably though, this causes the eventual withering of the singers’ souls to a dried husk. But what better way to regain some respect, some kudos and to just kick back and have fun than to cover an all-time PARTY CLASSIC?
This cover is so wrong, it’s almost right. The thought of a slick, ultra-tight bunch of C&W session musos heading into a $1000-dollar-a-day studio and recorded a dumb teen ode to smoking, playing truant and wanking is wonderful.
Except, of course, that would be too good to be true, wouldn’t it? So, middle America’s posterboys deemed the words ‘porno mag’ too offensive for the delicate redneck constitution, and also thought, Hell – while we’re at it, why not stick some fiddles, some honky-tonk and some swelling choral harmonies in there too?
This cover was a potential cross-genre classic, instead, it became a car-crash of stupefying proportions. Wait – Big & Rich! Because they’re both ‘big’ – in metaphorically societal terms – and wealthy! I just got that.
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Godawful. Can you imagine the sort of party that they’re fighting for their right to have?
I have a feeling the party would have a ‘double denim’ theme. And everyone would look like Kenny Rogers.
*shudder*
Oh my. Oh no. This is the worst cover ever. I visualize the fan-base for this “music” being a bunch of Uncle dads and Aunt moms…
I’m speechless.