Rascal Flatts "Me and My Gang" Album
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Title: Me and My Gang
Format: Album
Label: Lyric Street
Released: 2006-04-04
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Buy Me and My Gang!
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Tracklisting & Lyrics
1.
Stand lyrics »
2.
What Hurts The Most lyrics »
3.
Backwards lyrics »
4.
I Feel Bad lyrics »
5.
My Wish lyrics »
6.
Pieces lyrics »
7.
Yes I Do lyrics »
8.
To Make Her Love Me lyrics »
9.
Words I Couldn't Say lyrics »
10.
Me And My Gang lyrics »
11.
Cool Thing lyrics »
12.
Ellsworth lyrics »
13.
He Ain't The Leavin' Kind lyrics »
Reviews
This fourth effort from the soft-rock-masquerading-as-country band Rascal Flatts moved more than 721,000 copies its first week out, which let the female-friendly trio rub elbows with some mighty heady company. Only four other country artists (Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks, and Tim McGraw) have rolled out numbers like that, and only 24 other acts total (including Eminem, 50 Cent, U2, and Coldplay). So what's the hook, besides Gary LeVox's wounded tenor and Joe Don Rooney's boy-band face? Clearly, it's the songs. Or it usually is. On Me and My Gang, "What Hurts the Most" is the one that'll end up on a tape loop in your head, though "Yes, I Do" memorably frames romantic yearning and regret with ersatz reggae rhythms, and the sexy "Cool Thing" does a slow burn. The problem? New producer Dann ("King of Excess") Huff bloats too many tunes with screaming, by-the-book guitars and general bombast. And despite his uber success with Faith Hill and Keith Urban, Huff has never really understood what makes country, well... country. Instead, he insultingly works in a snippet of steel guitar and a couple of family lyrics--e.g., the melodramatic "Ellsworth" is meant to pull the heartstrings of anyone who's seen the cruelty of Alzheimer's--and thinks he's thrown Nashville a bone. Worse, "Backwards" boringly reworks that hoary ol' country joke "What do you get when you play a country song backwards?," the title song is a Big & Rich ripoff, and even God gets dragged in for a half-baked attempt at middle-America resonance ("He Ain't the Leavin' Kind"). C'mon now. Call these boys pop and be done with the pandering. Joe Don's famously photographed derriere got a fairer crack than this. ~Alanna Nash, Amazon.com
Ever since their eponymous 2000 debut there has been more pop than country in Rascal Flatts' contemporary countrypop, but with each subsequent record the trio has been drifting slowly, steadily toward outright adult pop, which is where they arrive on their fourth album, 2006's Me and My Gang. Discounting the steel guitar that's used occasionally as tonal coloring, the most country song here is the jokey "Backwards," which blatantly (and proudly) recycles the old joke of "what happens when you play a country record backwards?" (the punch line is "Ya get your house back/Ya get your dog back," etc. although it is a little strange that in this version ya get your best friend Jack back before your wife). This isn't a complaint, just a matter of fact: while some countrypop does place equal emphasis on country, Rascal Flatts makes pop music for mature audiences under the guise of country, partially because pop music doesn't have much room for adults anymore. Not that Rascal Flatts are always serious there's the aforementioned "Backwards," but also the silly title track where the boys try to domesticate Big Rich's outsized swagger by simplifying it, singing "la la la" on the bridge and throwing in a talk box guitar stolen from Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" but they do not make any concessions to sounding young, which does make them kind of unique among mainstream groups of any kind in 2006. Furthermore, Rascal Flatts are good at this kind of thing: they choose their material well, pick the right musicians and producers, and turn out appealing slick music that sounds good even when the songs themselves are kind of forgettable. And there are some forgettable tunes here, too there are also those that are memorable in their mawkishness, like "Ellsworth," which attempts to create a portrait a grandma losing her mind but is undone by its clunky heavyhandedness ("Grandma burned the biscuits/Nearly took the house down with it/Now she's in assisted livin'/We all knew that day would come") but as a whole, Me and My Gang holds together well, since the slower moments glide by on the same smooth, glistening surface as the tunes that catch hold, like the single "What Hurts Most." There are no great surprises here well, apart from the vague reggae rhythm that fuels "Yes I Do" but there are no disappointments, either. Rascal Flatts continue to deliver exactly what their fans have come to love and expect, and that's a virtue, since it is hard for pop groups of any stripe to be both consistent and reliable, which is exactly what the trio proves they are with this solidasarock fourth album. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide