Toby Keith - Shock'n Y'all (CD)

All Music Guide

Since Toby Keith not only can come across as a loudmouth redneck but seems to enjoy being a loudmouth redneck, it's easy for some listeners to dismiss him as a backwoods rightwing crank particularly when he succumbs to such easy impulses as mocking Dixie Chick Natalie Mains in concert and naming his 2003 album Shock'N Y'All, not so cleverly spinning the military catchphrase from the second Iraqi war into a bad pun. Those listeners aren't entirely wrong, since he can succumb to reactionary politics, as on swill like "Beer for My Horses," but Keith isn't coming from a didactic right wing standpoint. He's an oldfashioned, cantankerous outlaw, who's eager to be as oversized and larger than life as such legends as Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, who bucked conventions and spoke their mind. Sure, Toby enjoys pandering to the Fox News Republicans "Courtesy of the Red White Blue" won him, and his jingoistic ventures don't have the humanity and humor of Merle's protest song...s (although to Keith's credit they display far more humanity than Sean Hannity, and are much more genuine than Steve Earle's post9/11 songs), but that doesn't mean Keith doesn't have a big, warm heart. In fact, on every album prior to Shock'N Y'All he's displayed a taste for mawkish sentiment, but what makes this album work is that he's turned that sentiment into warmth while making the record into the hardest, toughest set of songs he's yet made. Unleashed gave him the clout to make any kind of music he wanted and left to his own devices, he's lonesome, orn'ry and mean, a cheerful advocate of redneck libertarianism with a sly sense of humor. All of which wouldn't mean much if he wasn't a strong songwriter, and more than any of his previous works, Shock'N Y'All proves that he's a steadyhanded journeyman, crafting songs in the tradition of classic outlaw country. It's a deliberately harddriving, harddrinking, gutsy country album, yet it doesn't shy away from modernism, best illustrated on "Sweet" with its funky rhythms and use of "babelicious" (which rhymes with "delicious," btw). Even with these modern flourishes, the album is firmly within the hard country tradition, with lots of barroom humor, propulsive rhythms, hearty humor and a humanity that contradicts the rabble rousing of Unleashed. And if Toby Keith is more of a partyhearty hound than a profound singer even when Toby imagines "If I Was Jesus," it's only so he can turn water into wine at parties that's now an attribute, not a deficiency, since it gives him focus and sensibility. Keith is happy to be a dirty old SOB, cracking jokes, drinking beer and flirting with the ladies, and that makes Shock'N Y'All a fun, rough, rowdy album that wins you over despite your better impulses. It's not polite, but Shock'N Y'All is pure Toby Keith, and the best album he's done to date. - Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Read more Less