80s Country Singer-Songwriting Gem Dwight Yoakam Should Be Your Favorite Honky Tonk Man
Become a cowpunk today.
Dwight Yoakam is an American singer-songwriter who is known for his country music starting in the late 1980s and he has been releasing albums ever since.
Yoakam was born in Kentucky in 1956 and had an interest in music at an early age. He learned how to play guitar when he was six years old and participated in school plays. He played guitar in garage bands, playing rock and roll and country music. He went to Ohio State University before eventually dropping out to focus on his music career. He moved to Nashville and then to Los Angeles with his music partner, Pete Anderson, to play at country clubs and punk band-dominated nightclubs. Yoakam didn't do as well in Nashville because his radical music style didn't match the refined music coming out of Nashville.
In 1984, Yoakam released an EP, "A Town South Of Bakersfield," which had a lot of playtime on college and alternative radio stations. This EP helped him sign a record deal with Reprise Records. With Reprise Records, in 1986, he released his debut album, "Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc." The album became immediately popular and eventually went platinum. Three songs from the album, including "Guitars, Cadillacs" and a cover of Johnny Horton's "Honky Tonk Man" were sent to the Top 40 of the Hot Country Singles chart of the year.
Yoakam's second album, "Hillbilly Deluxe," and third album, "Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room," were also huge successes. Yoakam and Yoakam's albums were well received by rock and country critics. His work was also praised by Johnny Cash and well talked about in media outlets and publications like "Time Magazine." His fifth album, "This Time" (1993), featured a song called "Ain't That Lonely Yet" which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks and won Yoakam a Grammy award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. Yoakam continued to release music into the 1990s and 2000s.
Yoakam also forged a successful acting career. His first major role was in the 1996 film "Sling Blade." The movie did well commercially and won an Oscar. He also worked as an actor, director, and co-writer on the film "South of Heaven, West of Hell"(2001). He appeared in multiple other films and TV movies including "The Newton Boys" (1998), "Wedding Crashers"(2005) and "Logan Lucky"(2017).
More recently, in 2016, Yoakam released the album "Swimmin' Pools, Movie Stars..." which showcased a more bluegrass sound. This was unexpected and different considering his leaning towards duets and tributes.
Yoakam was influenced by rock and roll and country artists from the 1950s and as a child, he listened to traditional country musicians like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Yoakam received support from fans who attended his shows who called themselves "cowpunks," most likely derived from Yoakam's combination of country music with rebellious attitude.
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The 1975 Uses Political Language And Societal Commentary To Draw Inspiration For Their Songs
Some of the lines are: "Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men/Start with misdemeanors and we'll make a business out of them."
When you first hear the words, "The 1975," you probably don't think of band, a year, definitely, but not a band. Well, prepare yourself, because you are about to be introduced to the best band of all time. I am a huge fan of the band, The 1975, and I am here to tell you why you should listen to them too.
The British-band consists of Matthew (Matty) Healy (vocals, guitar), George Daniel (drums), Adam Hann (guitar) and Ross MacDonald (Bass). So far, they've released two albums, the first one was self-titled, "The 1975." But the second one was a bit more lengthy with "I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it." But now, they have a third album coming out on November 30 called, "A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships," and I've never been more excited. To make things even better, they're planning on releasing a fourth album in May called "Notes on a Conditional Form."
Trying to describe the sound of The 1975 is a little hard because they're a little bit of everything. They're techno, pop, indie rock, rock, alternative, indie pop, electropop, and the list goes on (but that's the whole point.) They're the type of band that you can't really categorize because they don't want to be categorized and they shouldn't be. While some of their songs are similar, they're also dramatically different. One song has a gospel choir in the background and another song mostly consists of relaxing sounds and minimal vocals. A few songs have insane guitar riffs, another is a ballad and one only has an acoustic guitar.
4 out of the 15 songs on their upcoming album have been released as singles in the following order: "Give Yourself a Try," Love It If We Made It," "TooTimeTooTimeTooTime," and "Sincerity Is Scary." Of these songs, "Love It If We Made It" and "Sincerity Is Scary" are my favorites. I love the political commentary in "Love It If We Made It," which I will get into later, and "Sincerity Is Scary" is one of those songs that you can sit down and listen to relax.
Two of the best things about The 1975 is their lyrics and the topics that they address. There are a lot of amazing songwriters out there, but I have to say, The 1975 is pretty hard to beat. Take their single "Love It If We Made it" for example. It's an extremely political and topical song and its lyrics are pretty in-your-face. Some of the lines are: "Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men/Start with misdemeanors and we'll make a business out of them."
Just these two lines are already full of political commentary.
Selling melanin could be a reference to the slave trade as African Americans have a lot of melanin in their skin, which gives them their skin tone, and suffocate the black men is a direct reference to Eric Garner, a black man who was suffocated while he was in a choke hold sustained by a police officer. The part about misdemeanors relates to the prison system in the United States and how a large percentage of inmates are African American who are in prison just for misdemeanors.
The band loves to comment on society, more specifically American society, and there's a handful of songs that are about drugs and/or addiction, something that the lead singer Matty lives with.
Something to note about each album they have is that there's always a song titled "The 1975." The songs have the same lyrics, but different styles. It's meant to give a little taste of what the album will sound like and highlight the differences between this album and the one before/after it. For example, the "the 1975" song in "i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it" includes some gospel singers in the background, more sounds that you can imagine might be found on an alien spaceship and crescendos to the end of the song, while in the first album, the song is more subdued and ends with a decrescendo.
The 1975 also has an interesting way of mixing sound. They'll overlay robotic sounds with a guitar riff or a prominent drum beat. In the song "Sincerity is Scary," they bring back the saxophone sound that was heard in the song "If I believe you" and instead of meshing it with a light doo-wop beat, they combine it with a piano and a soft drum. They'll always find a way to make two very different instruments work together in harmony.
A lot of people may not be into the sound that The 1975 has, specifically older generations as they might think it's annoying, but my mom really likes their music, so how bad can they be? If you're into a mix of songs and if you're always down for a groovy beat, I'd definitely recommend giving them a try.