It's not every day you get to use
Taylor Swift,
Gary
Allan and
Jerrod Niemann in a single sentence. But I just did, thanks
to the what-were-they-thinking year-end list published by the
The
New York Times. Their Top 10 albums list is particularly interesting when you look at it through country glasses.
(Not to be confused with the beer goggles Neal McCoy sings about, by the way.) Swift's
Speak Now was in second place,
Allan's
Get Off on the Pain was No. 6 and Niemann's
Judge Jerrod & the Hung Jury closed the list. That must
be some feather in his cap since Niemann is brand new to major-label fame and fortune. And Swift's on pretty much every list
that has anything to do with music this year. So the pleasant surprise here, to me, is Allan. He absolutely belongs on this
list. And frankly, the songs themselves should be on all the Best Songs of All Time lists, if such lists existed. Especially
"Kiss Me When I'm Down." I mean, I don't know anyone else who can sound
that sexy rhyming "tube of toothpaste" with
"empty Zeppelin three-CD case." And like the
Times says, Allan "has made music to match the hurt."
