1. Introduction And Theme/Night Life
2. Lonely Street
3. Wild Side Of Life
4. Sittin' And Thinkin'
5. Twenty-Fourth Hour
6. Girl In The Night
7. Pride
8. There's No Fool Like A Young Fool
9. If She Could See Me Now
10. Bright Lights And Blonde Haired Women
11. Are You Sure
12. Let Me Talk To You
I'm literally one album away from the Beatles and this is the best you can give me? I could name at least 100 other albums that they could've put in this list, but tragically I was not consulted and now I have to deal with this leaden turd.
The problems start immediately. For some reason, rather than starting the record with a song, Ray chooses to begin the record with a song that is then rudely interrupted a few seconds in by a two minute spoken word introduction that explains the concept of the record. Why did this need to be here? This isn't Tommy. This isn't even Sgt. Fucking Pepper. The "concept" of this album could be explained in one sentence. Do you really think we're that stupid, Mr. Price? As if that wasn't enough, after this wooden intro, the song starts over sans dialogue. It being the first song on the album, as well as being written by Willie Nelson, make it the only thing approaching quality on this album.
From there, we're set adrift in a sea of tunes so bland, it makes Jazz Samba sound like Cannibal Corpse. Since this record claims to be a concept album, the lyrics are uniformly about the perils of the night life, all drinking and loose women and what have you (how do you make that uninteresting?). And boy are they preachy. It's more or less setting the bar for everything I dislike in modern country music! There's not even any of the wry, homespun humor that vindicates a lot of country. He sings lines like "I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels" with bland seriousness, with the result of an album that's about as fun as a turnip.
I guess it entered their heads that since all of the songs sound alike lyrically, they should all sound the same musically as well. Sure, there's one or two slight exceptions, but other than that these songs are more or less interchangeable. I know, I've been complaining about songs sounding the same or blending together for as long as I've had this blog and you're probably all sick of me saying it, but it is exceptionally bad here. If I didn't know better (which I don't), I'd say that at least half of these songs use the exact same backing music. Sure, the fiddle or steel guitar may be playing a slightly different lead, but when you're listening to 12 of these things in a row they all come together to form what seems to be a Megazord of preachy, patronizing lyrics and near-identical instrumentation. If I wanted a bunch of songs that all sounded the same, I would've listened to the Ramones and then I might've at least enjoyed myself.
It's not that I have an innate dislike of country music, as you might think. This album just happens to contain what I dislike about country music in a conveniently wrapped package. The steel guitars sounded nice enough, but not even they could save this album by launching it into the Hallowed Hall of Mediocrity. Tragically, this album is left to founder and fester in the Pit of Shame and Despair, forced to exchange pleasantries with St. Anger and Limp Bizkit albums for the rest of its damned days. 2/10
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