Description

No matter how hard he tried, Cowboy Troy never quite shook the impression that his 2005 debut, Loco Motive, was a novelty — and he tried hard, working the record for a long time, eventually scoring a plum gig as a co-host of CMT's singing competition Nashville Star, which raised his profile considerably and revealed an amiable, relaxed charisma unheard on his desperate-to-please debut. But no matter what he did, he never erased the perception that his country-rap fusion was no more than shtick, quite likely because the hammy, ham-handed Loco Motive was played entirely for laughs, and hismore… clumsy rapping suggested that he didn't have the skills to really succeed as a rapper, so he turned toward novelty instead. Troy intends to blast these preconceptions out of the water on his second album, Black in the Saddle, whose defiant title alone suggests the aggression of this record even if it doesn't hint at how truly hard this hits. Where Loco Motive was a conscious pop crossover, the kind of record that can score you a gig on a national TV show, Black in the Saddle is lean and mean, targeted at eternal adolescents who love wrestling, beer, and hick chicks in equal measure. If the debut sounded like a throwback to 1990, this sophomore effort is a throwback to 2000, the era when rap-rock ruled, since this not only is fueled by heavy metal guitars, it also has a dose of that genre's self-pitying angst ("Take Your Best Shot Now," "Paranoid Like Me"). This gives Black in the Saddle a sonic cohesion — only interrupted by the pure glitter-ball disco of "Blackneck Boogie," a blatant and not entirely unenjoyable stab at a dance craze — yet it also fits Cowboy Troy's newly dexterous verbal attack. He rarely stumbles and never sounds stiff, which is a considerably improvement over the awkward flow on the debut, but he still has a considerable Achilles' heel in his tin ear. His delivery may have improved but he still is spitting out some of the goofiest lines to ever be uttered by a rapper. No amount of spin can cave "You can't mess with my bow tie/You know it's so fly" or "You come and see the show it's gonna be full-fledged," or "Hard-earned ducats/Hard-earned money/Telling jokes all night cuz y'all think I'm funny" — or the truly embarrassing slice of social consciousness "Man with the Microphone," where Troy is the lone voice speaking out against abused children and those suffering in Darfur and Sudan. Here, his verbal shortcomings undercut his point — the chorus "I'm the man with the microphone/Somebody turn it on so I can sing my song" only suggests that he's an impotent protest singer, since he has to have somebody else's permission in order to get the word out — and it also brings up the album's other shortcoming, that the hooks from Muzik Mafia ringleaders Big & Rich don't mesh with Troy's raps. Often, Big & Rich's hooks seem to be grafted onto Troy's pre-existing track with little regard in how it all matches up, and this gives each individual song a lopsided feel, even if the album as whole hangs together much better than Loco Motive. So, all this means is that Cowboy Troy is improving but he's not there yet: he's got the sound and some of the skills, but not the songs. Maybe next time around he'll pull it all together.

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Category:

Music > Albums

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

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Cover Info:

Title:

Cowboy Troy - Black in the Saddle (2007) Retail CD

Part:

CD

Dimensions:

2212 x 2215 px

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986 KB

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Report a Problem Wrong Cover Duplicate Image Bad Quality Wrong Info

04/07/07 by Adivinah

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