Dixie Chicks- Taking The Long Way (WW)
Open Road/Columbia/Sony BMG
For most artists, being able to
release their seventh album in the mainstream would mark as an achievement; a
statement of longevity most would pine for. However, for Dallas, Texas’ own Dixie
Chicks, their seventh album “Taking The Long Way” was meant to be their
re-emergence onto the big stage after lead singer Natalie Maines’ comments
during a March 10, 2003 London concert derailed was supposed to be the Chicks’
pop breakthrough, “Home”, which featured the group’s first Billboard overall
Top 10 singles, “Long Time Gone” and “Landslide”, the latter being the spot-on
cover of the Fleetwood Mac song. Just as a refresher, Maines told the London
crowd that fateful night that “we’re ashamed the President of the United States
(George W. Bush) is from Texas”. Bush was actually born in New Haven,
Connecticut and had lived in Texas since he was two, but that’s besides the
point- the comment came during the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, and given country’s
obsession with unwavering patriotism, Maines’ comment was allowed to be blown
wildly out of proportion and send the Chicks into the pop music wilderness,
cast off as country revolutionaries who just didn’t fit in.
Shortly afterward, Maines and
the Chicks went on the defensive, first apologizing for their remarks then
defiantly standing by them, appearing nude on the cover of Entertainment Weekly
to show that the group had nothing to hide from their ever-growing circle of
critics, which had now included some of their own long-time fans who resorted
to literally bulldozing their CD’s. Maines herself engaged in an unnecessary
press war with Toby Keith, chastising the Tulsa, Oklahoma singer/songwriter for
writing the overtly patriotic “Courtesy of the Red, White And Blue (The Angry
American)”, calling the single “ignorant”. Keith shot back, noting that he “is
a songwriter, she isn’t”. I won’t go into the details of who I think is right
or wrong since that’s another story altogether, but undoubtedly it was Keith
who got the last laugh in the form of smash hit albums “Shock ‘N’ Y’all” and
“Honkytonk U” since the feud broke, while Maines had no real music to show for
in that same time period.
I could probably go on all day
with the Chicks’ chequered recent history, but that will take away from this
review, so I won’t. What I will say is that this album is for all intents and
purposes a comeback and the Chicks needed to be at the top of their game. They
got off to the right start in the form of “look-at-me-now” singles “I Hope” and
“Not Ready To Make Nice”, but for anyone hoping that the energy and vitality
those songs brought would carry through on “Taking The Long Way”, you’re out of
luck.
It’s certainly not without
trying- the Chicks took a cue from Keith’s criticism in penning all of the
songs themselves, and for their efforts have written a largely
politically-oriented album- but their comeback efforts fall extremely short.
Most of the material here is extremely forgettable and ultimately falls flat,
dying under a deluge of clichés. “Lullaby”, for example, is a pleasant
background tune about a break-up but never emerges with anything remotely
memorable, with the band showing as much energy as the song’s turgid pace.
“Lubbock Or Leave It”, an aggressive up-tempo song, also falls into the
“pleasant” category, but it’s also meant as a political statement- yet lines
such as the opening “Dust bowl, Bible Belt/Got more Churches than trees/Raise
me, praise me, couldn’t save me/Couldn’t keep me on my knees” come off as
tired, unremarkable clichés, making a song whose political point falls entirely
flat. Even when the band does hit its groove- such as “Not Ready To Make Nice”
(where the Chicks tackle their critics head-on), “The Long Way Around” (about
how “different” the Chicks are) and “I Hope” (about the need for the troubled
world to right its wrongs)- the band’s bluntness sticks out like a sore thumb
and while being blunt isn’t necessarily a drawback (Keith makes remarkable
music while being unabashedly blunt), the Chicks’ bluntness comes off as a
hollow attempt to make a point, coming off like an activist who’ll make a lot
of noise but soon after they’re finished talking everyone forgets what they
said, not even bothering to try to remember what they were saying.
That, in a nutshell is really
what’s wrong with “Taking The Long Way”: it’s mostly an unremarkable cliché,
featuring a band that’s literally grasping at the few remaining straws it has
left of its credibility. This is not to say that it is a terrible album in of
itself- most of these songs are at least decent, and if this was just another
Chicks release, it’d probably be a success- but for a comeback album, this is
far below the expectations it needed. Simply put, the Chicks needed to bold and
daring to regain the attention they used to command. Instead all they come off
as is blasé.
-DG