"Kick My Ass" by Big and Rich from the album Horse of a Different Color. 2004.
Country music itself gets to sparking two camps of thought: the haters and the revelers. Wind the topic down to that certain inspired typecast, and the battle intensifies. You know which exact typecast I mean. The kind of country song that would be called an internet troll if magically personified into a forum. The artist seems to purposely pull out all the cheesy tricks of the "backwoods" style to either satire him/herself and the standards, fulfill the diehards' fantasy, or send the nonbelievers running (usually with flaming pitchforks). A few examples that everyone seems to know and make fun of, lovingly or otherwise, include "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk", "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy", and "All My Ex's Live in Texas". And of course who could forget "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" by the featured Big and Rich? (Let's not get into that terrible music video's parade master, the county rap- or rather, uh.. "hick-hop" disciple Cowboy Troy, okay?) The way I see it: these songs are fun, so long as they they don't take themselves seriously. Just jokey sing-alongs lacking depth. Songs for the sake of songs. Not every tune in the music collection has to have personal meaning, or inspire internal dialogues on the human condition. Which is why you shouldn't kick my ass for picking "Kick My Ass" this week (har-dee-har-dee-har).
Before I get into the song itself, I'd rather note the interesting trend of the internet music clime. As I'm sure you know, the way the industry and radio operates, artists and bands must pick certain songs off their albums to specifically feature as "singles" (usually with some prodding by the record company or distributors holding a share of the profits). Without getting into too much history, originally records only had enough space for a handful of songs tops, so it wasn't too much of an issue. Then larger albums came about and were obviously favored for the greater capacity, yet singles remained popular enough. CDs arrived and imitated the vinyls previous. Speaking as a spawn of the era, I can speak of the sparsity of singles' purchasing power once Compact Discs scaled the ivory tower. Nobody I know ever went and bought a CD with two to four songs on it when they could buy the album and get them all, plus! Maybe an album was purchased for a song heard on the radio or something, but never a CD single. Besides, eventually all the tracks received a listen and usually grew on the listener. Now, here in future-web-land where single songs can be bought, why buy the album with all these unknowns when you can get the sole earworm you crave? Or so the opinion more-or-less goes. I'm not claiming that albums don't get purchased or have gone out of style, but I think more than ever a person buys a single song over the album it appears on. Album filler songs, the money-suitcase of my rat race rant here, can arguably be a rarer breed of music these days. Even more startling, with greater profits on a 99 cent song over a 7 dollar album, I'm sure the effort put forth for filler songs (already supposedly lacking by definition) has diminished for profits' sake alone (enter debate of money-making vs music-making artists).
All that paragraph leads to this: had I not got my hands on the Big and Rich album with "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy", I never would have found "Kick My Ass". It may very well be album fluff, just taking up time and space so the album feels substantial, but I love the humorous charm on the track. A sort of nonchalant biography of a guy who probably should have a bigger ego than it appears and the misfortunes that come off it. It sounds pretty "country", as much as I hate to use the descriptor as a catch-all, and it fills the cliche lyrics quota of fast trucks and drinking parties. But again, chock it up to filling a hole. Plus, on the album, there's a makeshift jam attached to the end that you won't find elsewhere. Just for kicks. That kinda stuff wouldn't flow on the radio.
You'll find other hidden gems on the album that kind of break away from the crazier image the groups tries to maintain. Can't find recordings of all of them online, so I'll let you hunt the album down to bolster the general comments above. "Drinkin' 'Bout You" has this old timey tavern feel to it, "Live This Life" is a somber little semi-story, "Real World" sounds almost like a Brad Paisley kind of joke-song, and "Saved" tells the devil where to go. Spoiler: it's Hell.
Anyways, the real recommendation this week it seems would be to grab a random album containing a song you know and see if there's some wonders hiding behind the fame.
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