The Singles Jukebox

They’re on Jools Holland in a week or two, so now seems like the right time…

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[6.00]

Matt Cibula: I still don’t get these guys, guess I never will at this point, and this song is nowhere near as deep as it thinks it is. But their intentions are good, and the guitar noise at the end woke me up considerable.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: “Birthday Boy” is unmistakable Drive-By Trucker gangstabilly, but there’s a strain of another Southern Rock in this tune, a back road these boys don’t usually go down. I’m hearing shades of mid-’80s R.E.M. here; a touch of the darkness of Reconstruction of the Fables combined with guitars reminiscent of the chiming, anthemic sounds Don Gehman produced on Lifes Rich Pageant. I’m a sucker for Southern Gothic, especially when it involves strippers (word to the Ying Yang Twins), and Mike Cooley smartly conveys the lap dance recipient’s discomfort by focusing all of his attention on the service provider. It’s not among the best Drive-By Truckers’ compositions; tunes like “Zip City,” “Marry Me,” and “The Southern Thing” are a clear notch above this. But worthy of a few dollar bills stuffed into a g-string? Certainly.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Probably the second most boogiefied groove on the new album (after “Get Downtown,” another Mike Cooley number), which isn’t saying much even if The Big To-Do is their best in seven years (which I’m leaning toward thinking it is, despite still suffering from their “We’ve decided ‘rock’ means Crazy Horse not Skynyrd” problem.) It’s also the second DBTs album in a row with a bummed-out Cooley song about a birthday on it. And this is a great song — best part is when the whore figures out the birthday boy is single with a girlfriend, and the logic she uses. Problem is, you have to strain to hear that line and all the rest, because the singing, like the choogling, is self-defeatingly buried beneath reams of murk for no reason. Maybe it’s supposed to sound Stonesy –you know, circa Exile On Main Street or whatever. But that still doesn’t make it rock.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Like your average Mike Cooley song, it goes from point A to point B without fuss. Unlike your average Mike Cooley song, it lacks energy and color. The street walker he’s speaking through could have wandered in from a Ghostface album. In short, a below-average album track, not a single.
[6]

Frank Kogan: Good jangling and gargling rocker with typical DBT alienated and lonely overtones as a prostitute – a birthday present, I assume – talks to a birthday boy. Bit of interplay regarding who goes under what name, who gets to call someone else whatever he wants, and whose identity is hidden.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Though it is well written, and has some excellent lines, straight men should not write first person about female sex workers — it becomes weirdly eroticised in its pathos.
[5]

John Seroff: The standard answer these days to “What Kind of Music Do You Like?” is generally “I Like Everything But Country” if you’re under thirty and “I Like Everything But Country and Rap” if you’re over thirty. For me, it’s boiled down to “I Like Everything But Standard Indie and Southern Rock.” As you could easily and accurately extrapolate from that, Drive By Truckers aren’t my cuppa. The guitar lines are muddled and unengaging; the vocals hover shyly between mediocre and Neil Young pastiche; the central theme is so narrow and repetitive that the mind wanders. There’s nothing precisely bad about “Birthday Boy”; the lyrics are actually quite solid. I think it’s more a case of a vegetarian trying to critique delicatessen: I just don’t have the stomach for it.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: There’s a bit of rawk punch in the opening of this country-rock, but once the song starts that dissipates and it rather rambles. The lifeless singing doesn’t help either, but really the inconsequential song about getting a hooker for your birthday is a loser anyway.
[3]

Alex Ostroff: “Birthday Boy” is alt-country with balls, heavy on guitars, darkly funny, and sympathetic without ever being condescending. Our guide here is a stripper, whose voice manages to be knowing and jaded, but never bitter. The Truckers’ debts to classic rock somehow conjure memories of Counting Crows, but where Adam Duritz conjures cloying self-pity and moralizing, Mike Cooley avoids passing judgment. Instead, we’re delivered unembellished hard truths about relationships, money and people, all the more affecting for their matter-of-fact presentation. Don’t know why I’ve never paid attention to a band this prolific, but if the rest of their oeuvre is this good, sign me up.
[7]

Tal Rosenberg: Drive-By Truckers were a band I was always meaning to get around to hearing but never did. When I saw they were appearing on the Jukebox, I went and dug into some of their old records. Maybe in six months I’ll feel differently, but right now this is a devastating tornado of a band. And this song is just unbelievable. The rhythm guitar razes the Earth and the drums are pistons pounding mightily; but the bass and the lead guitar are performing an elegy for a woman and a man in bitch of a predicament. Patterson Hood sings in what sounds like second-person of a prostitute bought for a guy by his buddies. For the moment, we’re let into a situation that’s unenjoyable for both parties, but they’re in a deal that can’t be broken; girl’s already bough and paid for. And as the lead guitar wails and the drums beat away we’re reminded that “Pretty girls from the smallest towns/Get remembered like storms and droughts.”
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