Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superb follow-up record, May 1, 2007
Miranda Lambert promises to be the next Dolly Parton. Not that Dolly Parton could ever be replaced, but the country music world is in need of a new, feisty blond who can write and sing songs that no one else wants to. Miranda Lambert, with her blunt honesty and pure talent, is capable of doing so, and doing it better than any of her peers.
CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND is appropriately named; several of these tunes sizzle with bottled up hatred, from the opener "Gunpowder & Lead" ("his fist is big but my gun's bigger/he'll find out when I pull the trigger"), to the title track, even to the whistful "More Like Her" ("You don't look much like a man from where I'm at," she sings mournfully). Other tunes are simply insights into darker lifestyles; "Down" and "Desperation" will depress the hell out of you, while "Guilty In Here" tackles a woman who uses the men in her life, and can't stop ("Is it guilty in here, or is it just me?"). Other songs are a bit more light-hearted, including Gillian Welch's whimsical "Dry Town" and Lambert's superb "Famous in a Small Town."
This album stands as one of the best yet this year. Miranda Lambert is one of the best songwriters on the scene. She wrote or co-wrote all but three of these tracks, and those she didn't write ("Dry Town" by Welch, "Getting Ready" by Patti Griffin, and "Easy From Now On" by Carlene Carter) fit right into the flow of the album. Her voice can be sharp as a razor or smooth as butter; her delivery is always top-notch. All of these songs shine with personality and grit; it takes pure talent to deliver every one of these songs, and Miranda Lambert is the best woman for the job.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gunpowder Lead and TALENT, May 7, 2007
Listen to the first two tracks on this cd to hear how diverse Miranda can be.
Gunpowder and Lead is leather and electric and the very next track Dry Town is blue jeans and root beer. I love it.
There aren't any throwaways on this cd.
Desperation, a Miranda composition is a fine story song.
Same with Famous In A Small Town, a Miranda/Travis Howard song.
The whole cd has a great cohesive feel to it. Though the songs are all
very different in beat and intensity. Great lyrics throughout.
For the life of me I cannot understand why Miranda is not
everywhere on country radio and why she isn't winning the awards.
She writes her own stuff, she is a musician, she has a very unique vocal style in today's country, and she is naturally gorgeous.
Don't depend on the limited view of country radio play, get this cd for yourself.
You will be doing yourself a great favor.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
LET ME FIRST SAY I HAVE COME TO LOVE THIS ALBUM, July 31, 2007
Let me first say I have come to love this album. I became an immense fan for Miranda Lambert with her first album, KEROSENE. That record was such an unexpected breeze of fresh air that (with some fear of being a turncoat to my country icons) I called it one of the best country albums in a long while. Who knew that a winner of what was essentially a T.V. contest would put forth a CD of such enjoyable force and quality? CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND misses some of the shine of its predecessor; but not by much.
GIRLFRIEND struck a bitter note which spoiled the whole album for me on my first listen. . Given my enthusiasm for Lambert's first album, I was supposed to like this one as well. What was wrong? All that week, I went around trying to figure out why. On the following Saturday, three beers and two shots of whiskey into watching FORT APACHE for the nth time, the root became apparent and it had been right there in my front of face all along.
*Gunpowder and Lead* is song I can't deal with. Well, I do deal with it: I hate it. In my line of work, I incidentally (very incidentally) get my nose pressed up against the glass looking at the banshees of domestic violence-- whether I like it or not--and I do not. Domestic violence is not a funny subject. Far too many couples end their troubles at the business end of a gun. More than a few women have laid in wait to meet their men head-on with firearms only to have the confrontation turn badly for them. (A rule from the Old West is the still stands up: Never point unless you mean to shoot. Never shoot unless you mean to kill.) Some advice the violence in this song is more like that of a Roadrunner and Willy Coyote cartoon than the real thing. Well, at least for this song, I'll have to excuse myself. I can't go there.
So when the first song is skipped, the heart of this CD comes into focus. Love loss, rejecting a faithless lover, jealousy and anger at seeing the ex-boyfriend's new love, wishing you were more like her, the glories and crap of a small town, and guilt. Miranda's singing winsome throughout as she moves from humorous to matter-of-fact, angry, sexy soft kitten, and the despair of lost happiness. This is a mature woman's outlook without a hint of *Moon and June* infatuation.
The crown of the album is at the end. *Dry Town*, *Famous in a Small Town*, *More Like Her*, and *Guilty in Here* are favorites of mine. Nevertheless, Lambert tackles one of the loveliest and heartbreaking songs in American music: *Easy From Now On*. I won't say Lambert excels Emmylou Harris' version of thirty years ago; but Lambert's does give it a run for its money. The images and emotions embedded in the lyrics and melody are likely to be with you for the rest of your life--and that ain't a bad thing. *Easy From Now On* makes this album worth your money.
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