Customer Reviews

Sugarland: Live on the Inside (CD/DVD)

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Why do I say this??? Because any headlining show by a major act is generally 2 hours long plus, and this concert DVD is a tad over 1 hour...BUT at least they amend that by adding the CD of mostly cool covers. I am also disappointed that there's virtually no extras, except for a melange of photos and cool posters...why not include an interview at least???

I have to admit, when I first heard Sugarland's music, I HATED it...Jennifer's voice bugged the crap out of me...the low pitch mixed with her thick Georgia accent somehow rubbed me the wrong way, maybe because it was too strong?? But it grew on me. Also, I am NOT a fan of mainstream radio-oriented cookiecutter chart country music, at all...my taste is on the alternative country/roots rock/Americana/country punk side, and I assumed that Sugarland was lumped in with the crap I hate...I won't listen to country radio...sheer torture...give me Sirius' Outlaw country, or NYC's WFUV, bands/artists like Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers, Emmylou Harris/Gram Parsons, Ryan Adams, people like that, singer/songwriters and rocking country bands who play the clubs and get zero airplay because they're either too raw, too rocking, too real, too old-school country but punked up.

BUT I also love what I call "country powerpop", where the music is bright, hooky, catchy tunes, but mixed with some twang in an organic way...singer/songwriter people like Keith Urban, Sara Evans and Taylor Swift, who's music has country elements, but is really powerpop, and won't shy away from a heavy riff if that's what the songs call for.

Suagrland tend to fall in the latter, but have elements and taste that veer towards the former...and they have great taste in modern rock and top 40 equally. I kinda turned when I saw their CMT Crossroads show with Bon Jovi and Jen was on BJ's "country" version of "Who Says You Can't Go Home??"...and when they played with Adele on the 2008 Grammys on a hybrid of their "Stay" and her "Chasing Pavements". The way Jen sang with Adele, there's something friendly and infectious about her, the way she joins other artists and performs live.

I have something to say about "Stay"...it's kind of a ripoff of the played-to-death "We Got Tonight" by Bob Seger...the chorus and the copping of "Why Don't You Stay??" from the end of the chorus, but she and Kris turn the song on it's head in a way that it works...just saying.

This is my first Sugarland title, and I now want their 3 proper albums...I am a bit of a fan of their departed member Kristin Hall tho...she wrote "Let It Rain", first song on Amanda Marshall's 1995 self-titled debut, and I frikking LOVE that song...but I have this to say...the bit where Jen and Kris come out on the encore in their 2 spacebubbles...they copped that from Oklahoman psych-bubblegum rockers The Flaming Lips!!!!! That's leader Wayne Coyne's trademark!! I hope he approved. However, they have an infectious energy ("They're DAMN right!!!"), with the lit-up umbrellas, glowsticks and blowing bubbles, the songs are good-to-great, and they seem like cool people who I can talk about music with...plus Jen looks a lot like my cousin's wife Karen, originally from Georgia, but now in Maryland...I watch the show I have to catch myself.

Pretty cool...I'm not a Wal-Mart fan tho, and it's unfortunate that the only actual physical store carrying it is Wal-Mart...I'm not a fan of their politics and forcing artists like Green Day to edit their CDs (like "21st Century Breakdown") if there's certain language...but they still sell R-rated DVDs/Blu-Rays and they sell guns...I'll stop there with their hypocrisy...Sugarland is cool and I guess they chose Wal-Mart cuz of their popularity in small towns and the south and stuff...whatever...I just went in to buy this and left, I prefer to buy items where I can hold it in my hand rather than online.