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  Countrypolitan Favorites by Southern Culture on the Rocks


Countrypolitan Favorites cover art

Artist: Southern Culture on the Rocks
Title: Countrypolitan Favorites
Catalogue Number: YepRoc YEP2124
Review Format: CD
Release Year: 2007



If you are going to do an album of covers then you should choose good ones. Southern Culture on the Rocks show exquisite taste in the selections for their latest release "Countrypolitan Favorites". Add in the talents of guitar god Rick Miller and you know that something good is going to happen.


Tackling country classics like "Rose Garden" and "Oh Lonesome Me" is one thing. Reconstructing T Rex's "Life is a Gas" is quite another. It takes talent and a certain skewed vision to bring something new to a song like that. Like the rest of the album, this track sounds like the B-52s launching a musical assault on Nashville, Californian country rock and all points in-between. Immaculate, reverb laden musicianship drives it all along. The best track, however, was the cover of the Kink's "Muswell Hillbilly". Not often heard these days, Southern Culture on the Skids handle it with the respect that it deserves whilst injecting it with fresh vigour.


This is one great, half demented party album. Like a karaoke session gone mad, this is an almost surreal listen that could well - with the addition of a respectable amount of beer - produce uncontrollable line dancing. Any music that makes the Bluesbunny smile cannot be bad. Any music that can make the Bluesbunny dance must be something special. Buy and enjoy!


www.scots.com
Reviewer:
Review Date: June 20 2007