That's the new Chris Stapleton album. Came out Friday, and I didn't know until I saw an ad in the "Billboard Bulletin," which undercuts my theory that print advertising doesn't work. But more interestingly, how did I miss this? Was I just too far outside the footprint of the hype or is this an undersell, since it's about the life of an album as opposed to the first week these days.
And if you look at the streams on Spotify, none of the songs, other than the three previously released cuts and the opening track, has a million streams, not yet, which means you don't see "Higher" in the Spotify Top 50, it's positively not mainstream, then again, maybe it is.
Now the bottom line is this album is too long, fourteen songs and fifty four and a half minutes, essentially an hour, and listening all the way through is akin to going to a show, you know, you're excited at first, then you calm down and enjoy the sound, but as the hour wears on you're nearly numb, you're no longer as focused, you're riding along but the feeling is just not as visceral.
But you've got to have a lot of tracks to make money. That's right, if people like what you do, they'll stream the whole album over and over again. So longer albums render more revenue. But this is just too much music to consume all at once. The albums of the past, pre-CD, rarely exceeded forty minutes, and they also had four main entry points, the opening and closing cuts on each side, whereas "Higher" is just a wash of songs, a smorgasbord of sound, partake and you'll be filled beyond the brim. Yet this is superior to the paradigm of the last century, wherein you put out an album and milked it for singles for three years before you put out another. Today people put out more music more frequently, and that is great. But it's a bitch when it comes to marketing.
Let's say "Higher" was two albums, could the media get excited six months from now? How hard would it be to get the word out? Best to blow your load all at once? This has nothing to do with music, but the paradigm ultimately hurts the music. Yes, there's just too much. There, I said it. We all know it, but nothing seems to change, we keep getting more and more.
But having said that, I played "Higher" from front to back, and until I started getting worn out about two-thirds of the way through, I was astounded, because this music doesn't sound exactly like anything else, at least not anything shoved down our throat these days. There's no desperate attempt for a single, it's like "Higher" was cut in an alternative universe, one outside commercial demands, where the focus was solely on the artist and what he wanted to achieve.
The album begins with an acoustic guitar. The Rolling Stones would freak out, this isn't the way you do it, you put your best foot forward, you bang the audience over the head. Then again, the country rock icons the Eagles opened the third side of their double live album and their live shows to this day with an a cappella version of Steve Young's "Seven Bridges Road." Every Eagles fan knows it, but it was never a hit.
But "What Am I Gonna Do" is an invitation. The door has been opened and the musicians are sitting on chairs, picking, vocalizing, welcoming you. That's what "What Am I Gonna Do Is," an invitation, and then comes "South Dakota."
"Lord this morning when I woke up
I wanted that whiskey in my coffee cup
Had last night ringin' in my head
Tellin' me I oughta go back to bed"
I don't drink coffee and the hangovers are not why I gave up drinking but I've been in this space many a time. It's miserable. It's anything but bright and sunny like the nitwits begging for our attention with their pop drivel. This is personal. And "South Dakota" is a perfect title, almost no one lives in that state, and you're positively alone when you wake up after a bad night.
But what grabs you immediately is the groove. They're locked in tight. This is a sound boomers will remember, that has been excised from most popular music. Yes, Chris Stapleton might be considered a country artist, but if this were back when we'd definitely consider him a rocker. And then comes the guitar solo, slow and tasteful, not showing off, but just right, you're twisting and turning along. And that's when you truly start to marvel, this is when you become overwhelmed, this is when you realize that Chris Stapleton could be the best artist working today, in any genre. Not only can he sing and play, he's authentic, credible, you can't criticize where he's coming from. It's hard to criticize his music at all, it hearkens back to what once was that we thought was gone forever, but Stapleton proves it is not.
And the weird thing is Stapleton is revered in Nashville, yet no one sounds exactly like him. You see they're afraid to give up the system, they're afraid to let go of the rules, they want right-leaning stuff about drinking and family, putting the audience first, but Chris Stapleton is not putting the audience first, he's just doing what he wants and the audience follows along.
Not that Stapleton is the only one going straight for the gut in country music. Hardy and Lainey Wilson's "Wait in the Truck" won not only the Music Video of the Year award, but it was declared the Musical Event of the Year at last week's CMA Awards. But crickets at the Grammys, that's right, the Video of the Year in the country world didn't even score a nomination at the Grammys, what was the Event of the Year got no attention from the Grammys. And you wonder why the South hates the North. Talk about elitism. And unlike the drivel with accolades the Grammys focus on, "Wait in the Truck" is about domestic violence. How could the Grammy organization get it so wrong! Sure, they nominated women, kudos, but they're completely clueless in this year of country.
After "South Dakota" comes "Trust," which has got an acoustic feel that got its start with Stephen Stills and hasn't been heard much recently, if at all. "Trust" is sweet, it rings right whether you're sitting in front of the fire or driving down the highway.
"It Takes a Woman" is more authentic country than anything aired in that format on the radio. This is the kind of song you might skip over at first, like "You Gotta Move" or "Dead Flowers" on "Sticky Fingers," but with repeated plays you get it.
And then we get another acoustic number, the title song, "The Fire," that has got that homemade feel, it's simple, a ditty, but not a throwaway, Stapleton can throw this stuff seemingly at will, and the vocal is so sweet.
But then comes "Think I'm in Love with You."
Now when you listen to an album for the first time you see what jumps out. "South Dakota" did. And so did "Think I'm in Love with You," which also has an indelible groove, that is in the pocket from the very first note, it's hard not to move along as you listen, the music penetrates your body and comes out in said movement. And there's tasteful picking, and the chorus sounds more R&B than country, it's positively infectious. And not overproduced. Stapleton is not throwing everything in including the kitchen sink, he's not looking for sheen, he's leaving some air, letting the instruments breathe, and the result is life, which is too often absent in what is made to be a hit.
Now there's the highly revered "White Horse," co-written with Mr. Semisonic Dan Wilson. But the next song that stuck out for me was "The Day I Die."
"I had never ever hurt this way
The pain is almost more than I can take
I'd give anything for you to stay with me
And never say 'goodbye'"
Whew, most of us have felt this way. The celebrities say they can get over breakups instantly, but the rest of us know this is impossible, they may haunt your dreams for the rest of your life.
And there's that change at the end of the chorus, and even a bridge. Stapleton knows how to write a song, something that too many people never even learned, never mind forgotten.
And the two concluding numbers, "Weight of Your World" and "Mountains of My Mind," are winners too.
Assuming anyone gets this far.
Albums are best when played start to finish, for the mood. That's the goal, to entrance the listener, draw them in and change their life, even if it's only temporarily.
Am I going to sit here and say "Higher" is the best album I've ever heard? No. But what stunned me is I played it, through and through, and now as I go back it sounds even better. And that's a rare occurrence. Hell, look at the plays of most albums on Spotify, there are hits and the rest, the rest are overlooked, but the rest resonate on "Higher."
I'd say your mileage may vary, but I also know if you were addicted to buying records back when, especially in the seventies, if you liked not only one style of music, but many, if you could own a Joni Mitchell record and a Zeppelin album too, "Higher" is going to be familiar in a way that you can't quite put into words. You see Stapleton is coming from where your heroes of yore once did. He puts the music first. And he's employing the building blocks. And you don't have to study a manual to get it, you've just got to push play and you're engrossed.
Try it.
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