Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way:

Call me a yuppie tool if you want. I guess I'm still young, despite my gray hairs, but certainly not urban and only marginally professional. Anyway, I like these girls, despite their sketchy dealings a decade ago that helped push them to superstar status, and consider them the ‘real deal’. Yeah, the need co-writers for virtually all of their songs, but they pick good ones and come up with good results. So their 2006 release was one I was looking forward to, and kind of hoped would reflect a new attitude, less gloss, more substance, in light of their troubles with the country music establishment in recent years. (But what the hell is with the album cover???) An establishment they just don’t need, but who fed them loads of cash for a good while.
So the girls pop out this Rick Rubin-produced slab, and the Rubester did a fairly good job toning down the slick production edges.

The choice of co-songwriters reflects these girls standing in the music world- no Nashville hitmakers, but real, honest-to-goodness crafters like Mike Campbell, Gary Louris, Keb ‘Mo, Dan Wilson, hell even Linda Perry and Sheryl Crow. The nice part about their own songwriting contributions is the diversity in lyrics. Because the three ‘chicks essentially write their own songs separately, we have very different viewpoints here. You’ve got pissed-off Natalie, the firecracker with and attitude on “Not Ready to Make Nice,” a solid stab at the ‘fuck-you song’ we knew she would put out there, as well as the cranked-up “Lubbock of Leave It”, another solid one with poppin’ banjo and a great guitar riff from Heartbreaker Mike Campbell. Then you’ve got the sisters- one seems to be smitten in love (the wistful and lovely “Easy Silence”, XXX “Lullaby”, the gospely “Baby Hold On”). Then the other who seems to be reconciling her lost love on the Neil Finn co-penned “Silent House” as well as and the album’s standout “Voice Inside My Head”. The latter was the radio single, at least on our shitty The Point station, and its theme of love lost and regret belies its pop melody.

Yeah, there’s a weak track or two, particularly “Favorite Year”, co-written by Sheryl Crow. The lyrics, again looking back on a soured relationship to the good times before, aren’t bad, but without even looking at the liner notes I thought it sounded like a derivative SC song. That said, if it’s the weakest thing on the record, then this one stands up as pretty solid after all. Hopefully the ‘chicks will continue on this alt-pop-countryish path and stay the hell away from Nashville. They don’t need an army of New Country fans, even if they make fewer millions, but rather can hold their own artistically in the real music arena with a fanbase that truly appreciates them.

TB