Midland

One Liner: Modern, good-looking purveyors of the sound of the rest of this poster

Wikipedia Genre: Neotraditional country, Texas country

Home: Dripping Springs, Texas

Poster Position: LARGE Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  This is weird.  They are a modern band, like their first album was in 2017, but it really feels like these could be Brooks & Dunn albums that I never heard back in 1995.  And because I don't think I've ever heard an entire Brooks & Dunn album before, that situation could be very plausible.  Mildly rockin', lots of harmonies, cheesy lyrics - it hits all of the notes that I would expect from the old Nashville style country of the 90's.  Like, I'm thinking late career George Strait, and all of the guys who were trying to copy him to launch theur careers.  The song titles - "Drinkin' Problem," "Longneck Way To Go," "Cheatin' Songs," etc., and the very intentionally kitschy album covers go right there as well.

Of interest to likely no one, Wikipedia lists 20 states as having a Midland.  Midland, Texas is half of the oil patch of Midland/Odessa that has gone boom and bust many times over the years, and was depicted in Friday Night Lights.  This band has nothing to do with that place (that I can discern), but the members claim it was named after a Dwight Yoakum song.  Instead, the group claims Dripping Springs, right outside of Austin, as home.  The guys actually met originally in L.A., where some of them were already in other bands.  Two of the members formed a band and the third left town, but then they hooked back up in Jackson Hole for the bass player's wedding.  They jammed for a week and decided to try writing some songs, and went to a studio in El Paso.  After that clicked, the other two moved their families to the Dirty Drip.  

Of interest to many, probably, is that the lead singer has also been an actor and a model for Dior and other major brands.  I have never heard of any of the things he acted in except for one of the CSI shows.  His wife founded the clothing company Outdoor Voices.  The bassist directed several of Bruno Mars' music videos (?!?!).

Four albums - 2017's On the Rocks, 2019's Let It Roll, 2021's The Sonic Ranch, and 2022's The Last Resort: Greetings From.  Which is a weird album title?  You can hear an actual progression through the albums, which I think is kind of fun.  The first two, which boast the majority of their most popular songs, are the ones that sound like what I have described up above.  But then Sonic Ranch (which is named after the studio in El Paso where they first made music together) has a more Texas country/Americana vibe to it.  And that new album comes with a different sound as well.  Still generally the same, but it angles more towards conventional rock now as well.  Like, "King of Saturday Night" sounds like they were listening to "Takin' Care of Business" and started a jam session.  "Paycheck to Paycheck" has a Skynryd-lite feel.  I think Sonic Ranch is my favorite of the bunch, even though none of those songs make their top ten most popular tunes.

Let's get some tunes going.  Their most popular, by a large margin, is "Drinkin' Problem" from the debut album.  169.6 million streams.

Maybe someone out there really knows what Brooks & Dunn sounds like, but this really feels like the same thing I think of when I think of them.  Harmonies, soft-focus lite rock, some piano, a hard rim shot to keep the two-steppin' time, and lyrics about being broken hearted.  It is almost yacht rock, or the Eagles, just with more steel guitar.  Their second- and third-most streamed tracks are also from that debut album.  From the second disc, the top track is "Cheatin' Songs," with 27.5 million streams.

Maybe someone out there really knows what Brooks & Dunn sounds like, but this really feels like the same thing I think of when I think of them.  Harmonies, soft-focus lite rock, some piano, a hard rim shot to keep the two-steppin' time, and lyrics about being broken hearted.  One interesting thing to me about this band is that they are listed on the poster as the second artists on Saturday, so they are ostensibly a big act.  I don't know them at all, and their streaming numbers aren't that big.  They must have a cult following or something...

Their top song from Sonic Ranch is "Cowgirl Blues," with only 3.3 million streams.

Yeah, that is definitely my favorite of these four albums.  Which is kind of funny, but also makes sense, that I would like the least popular one.  Oh wow.  The end of that video shows a massive crowd for them.  Yeah, they must have a cult that thinks they're the stuff.  The top track from the new album is "Sunrise Tells the Story," with 16.7 million streams.

He looks like Christian Bale in that military uniform.  And also, that tune being the popular one shot a hole in my claim that this new album is less country and more rock, as that song is pretty classically just like those older tunes.

I'm not in love with the majority of this, but I'm not sure a modern take on cheesy country is really aimed at me.  From reading another article about them, it sounds like they (like so many other young bands) got derailed by COVID and the lockdowns.  The first two albums had been big successes, they were opening for bigger acts on tour, got some Grammy nods, some late-night shows, magazine covers, etc.  They were touring Europe at the time of the lockdowns, and had to rush home to avoid getting stuck over there.  So, an inopportune shutdown, but now is finally their moment.  If the schedule shook out the right way, I'd go see it just to see what the hype is all about.