Sugarland Albums (5)
'Gold and Green'
Release Date 10/6/2009
Tracks 10
Label Mercury Nashville
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Georgia's Sugarland rose to great heights in 2009 -- their 2008 album Love on the Inside reached platinum status, they recorded a prime-time network television special called Live on the Inside, which was then released in numerous packages that all sold well, and have sold out live shows globally. Therefore it seems to make sense for the group to release a stop-gap before the year runs out in lieu of a new studio album. Gold and Green is a hybrid holiday recording. It contains ten tracks, five of which are Christmas standards and include a country boogie version of "Winter Wonderland," a "backwoods" version of "O Come O Come Emmanuel," and a reverent acoustic version of "Silent Night," sung bilingually in Spanish and English. The other five cuts are originals themed for the holidays. The set's opening track, "City of Silver Dreams," is an homage to New York City at Christmastime, and a hard luck love song. On "Comin' Home," rhythm & blues roots to compete with a gospel chorus in the refrains. "Maybe Baby," sung by Kristian Bush, sounds like a track left off Love on the Inside. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Live on the Inside is the ultimate Sugarland fan souvenir. This is a double-disc package -- one CD, one DVD -- exclusively available from Wal-Mart. The DVD is a documentary presentation of the duo's ABC Network prime-time special of the same name. The DVD is impressive; it contains all 16 songs from the show, filmed impeccably by Shaun Silva and his 20-camera crew at Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY. The set is packed with hits, including "Baby Girl," "Want To," "Already Gone," "Settlin'," "All I Want to Do," and "Stay." The massive number of cameras allows fans an intimate view of the proceedings, and makes the set seem far more "real" than it did on television. The CD in the set is far more eclectic in that includes some originals and some covers from some unexpected sources. While "Love," R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming/Joey" and "The One I Love," "All I Want to Do," and "Stay" are audio-only reprises from the DVD, there are other cuts here, covers mostly, that were recorded in many other places. The choice is interesting, compelling, and might even prove puzzling for some fans. There's an intimate reading of "Circle," by Edie Brickell, a radical reworking of "Better Man," by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, a superior version of the Kings of Leon's "Sex on Fire," a backwoods take on Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" (no, not kidding), and finally, the the B-52's "Love Shack" which begins as a blues and ends as a tough rocker. Sugarland fans are more than likely to flip over this; it's nearly the perfect document in that it contains not only the historic gig in all its technologically savvy glory, but also enough curios to interest even a casual fan. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Georgia's chart-topping contemporary country-rock act Sugarland hit pay dirt on their first two albums -- their Twice the Speed of Life debut and sophomore Enjoy the Ride sold over two million copies apiece. The duo of Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles initially had their roots in the Georgia alt-rock scene and connected with the more rockist sounds of 21st century country. Scoring hit single and after hit single, the songwriting duo became a top-selling concert draw, but in the pressure and hustle Bush and Nettles became somewhat unsatisfied with their writing and recording processes. For Love on the Inside, they flexed some hard-won industry muscle and successfully lobbied Mercury to let them co-produce their own record (with Byron Gallimore) and record in Georgia instead of Music City. The result is the most organic of Sugarland's three albums. Cut live from the floor, Bush and Nettles' vocals were tracked in the midst of a band playing around them with few overdubs. Repeated takes yielded performance-quality vocals and very natural-sounding guitars, B-3s, mandolins, pianos, and drums (from Matt Chamberlain no less). The songs here are entire levels above anything they've written. Love on the Inside is an album-length reflection on love in its many forms -- from new love to grief, betrayal, regret, loss, and rediscovery. There's plenty of the personal in this set -- Nettles went through a divorce during its creation (check "It Happens," "Keep You," and "Take Me as I Am"). The set hinges on the three songs at its heart: first is the innocent yet feverish first flush of new love on "We Run." Played mostly on acoustic instruments, it celebrates the birth of love as beginning and end in itself. There's the obsession and lump-in-your-throat heat that this is it. It is followed by "Joey," a song about a lost love that's too late to resurrect -- the bereft and abandoned and once Beloved is no longer on the planet. The emotion in Nettles' voice -- especially as it is buoyed by Bush's in the refrain and the wide-open ringing guitars and mandolins -- is devastating. The trilogy ends with the magnificently poetic "Love." It commences with acoustic and electric guitars and Nettles asking questions as to the nature of our most mysterious emotion. Her lyrics are transcendent, profound. With a guitar riff worthy of U2 at their most anthemic, she asks, "Is it the one you call home?/Is it the Holy Land?/Is it standing right here, holding your hand...?/I say it's Love." When Bush enters with his deepest growl to underscore her every line, you'd have to have sawdust for blood not to be deeply, authentically moved. It seems to say, no matter whatever else it is, love is redemption. "Genevieve" is a romantic country gospel tune reminiscent of "Long Black Veil." There is also humor in the sideways tribute "Steve Earle," with its tongue firmly in cheek but devoid of simple novelty -- Nettles' smile has a trace of the shadow as well. While this set is saturated with hunger and ambition, it's also confident and sophisticated -- the album sounds as if they meant every word but had a great time making it. They prove they were always meant to be a live act whether in the studio or on a concert stage. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Enjoy the Ride'
Release Date 11/7/2006
Tracks 11
Label Mercury Nashville
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
There is a lot at stake for Sugarland on their sophomore outing, Enjoy the Ride. First, there's the fact that their first release, Twice the Speed of Life, was a multi-platinum success. Its singles and videos drove the record outside country music's audience to appeal to a degree to mainstream rock & roll listeners who didn't mind at all when vocalist/songwriter Jennifer Nettles appeared in a duet with Jon Bon Jovi on a video of Bon Jovi's "Who Says You Can't Go Home." Secondly, there is the "sophomore jinx," which tends to plague many celebrated acts whose debut albums are successful -- especially beyond expectations. Thirdly, Sugarland were formed by songwriters Kristen Hall and Kristian Bush, who heard Nettles and asked her to join the band. Hall wrote or co-wrote everything on the band's debut -- though Bush and Nettles are serious songwriters in their own right (see below). Hall left the band suddenly and somewhat mysteriously at the beginning of 2006, issuing a gentle yet terse statement that the life of the road and high visibility weren't for her and she wished to concentrate on being a songwriter. She wished Bush and Nettles well and graciously thanked them. Her name only appears on one track on Enjoy the Ride, the album's final cut, "Sugarland," and is nowhere mentioned in the voluminous "thank-yous" on the credits page. Hmmm.... The real question is whether or not the band delivers on Enjoy the Ride. Bush and Nettles co-wrote most everything on the set, which was produced by the pair with Byron Gallimore. Third parties Lisa Carver (underappreciated but gloriously talented), Tim Owens, Bobby Pinson, and Jeff Cohen joined forces to round out the various tracks here. Nettles wrote the brilliant liberation story "Stay" on her own, and Bush worked with Hall and Vanessa Olivarez on "Sugarland." Musically, Enjoy the Ride is a likely but more chancy part two of the Sugarland story. The songs are tough, lean, direct, and in their way poignant. Gallimore's production hand is brighter and tighter than that of Garth Fundis, who worked on the band's debut. The mix is brighter and a bit more rocked up, and that's a good thing. So it all comes down to the songs themselves, and the way they come across. The keyboard lines that open "Settlin'," along with the big anthemic guitars, B-3, and drums are a shock to the system, but then Nettles drops right into the center of the groove with "Fifteen minutes to get me together/For Mr. Right Now, not Mr. Forever/Don't even know why I even try when I know how it ends/Lookin' like another 'Maybe we can be friends'/I've been leaving it up to fate/It's my life so it's mine to make/I ain't settlin'/For just getting by/I've had enough so-so/For the rest of my life/Tired of shooting too low/So raise the bar high/Just enough ain't enough this time/I ain't settlin' for anything less than everything...." The guitars careen off one another and Nettles --arguably (along with Gretchen Wilson) the finest singer in country music today -- soars above the fray in her gritty R&B-tinged voice. This is a terrain familiar to rock audiences. John Mellencamp has been laying this down for 30 years and it becomes even more pronounced on "County Line," the next cut. With crunchy six-strings, popping snares and kick drums, and mandolins and fiddles -- with an ornate B-3 to fill in the spaces -- rock & roll meets the folksiness of country music. This is more rock & roll than anything that's come down that pipe in a decade. Mellencamp, Bob Seger, and even Bruce Springsteen could get away with this song. But Nettles is firmly in her own voice here. In the grain of her throaty wail, and in the anthemic refrains she and Bush sing, is the sound of American experience, the sound of life in process. It's not a movie floating by, but the grit and grist of the mill flowing through the marrow of listeners and musicians alike. This is the music of an inclusive experience known to working people, those whose difficulties are borne in the moment. When the first single, "Want To," busts into the mix, all bets are off. As a Dobro, a mandolin, and those shimmering guitars offer Nettles a shelf, she walks out on the ledge, a step at a time. The Dobro signifies the distance she's willing to go. By the time the drums and electrics rock themselves into the middle, she's going for it: "The whole world could change in a minute/Just one kiss could stop it spinning/We could think it through/But I don't want to, if you don't want to...." This is the sound of desire, ready to be thwarted again if necessary, but dancing out on the wire of chance. From the first song to the third, where the words "no more" really mean a "yes" to what one expects from life, and then this one, where "yes" is really the only answer to living, Sugarland firmly place themselves in the context of the new 21st century country to be sure, but even more in the context of rock & roll's grand tradition of breaking out of the rut and inviting others to do the same thing. It's always tempting to look at country records as collections of songs, with rare exceptions. Enjoy the Ride, like its predecessor, Twice the Speed of Life, is past the notion of "songs" as single entities. In fact, Enjoy the Ride is more cohesive, if anything, than the debut. The looped beats, synths, and organ lines at the beginning of "Everyday America" offer a slippery urban groove to the country mix. There's rhythm here that any soul singer could get behind, and the voices of Nettles and Bush entwine to take in the whole of what the words of that title mean -- no matter how small the microcosmic glance at the scenery is. With those Steve Cropper-esque guitar fills, groove becomes the purveyor of poetry and listeners get the country connection to Stax/Volt. Get to the midtempo ballad of "These Are the Days," where the boy/girl duo can take on the world in the same way Doc Pomus and Dion DiMucci posed their protagonists against the night skyline of the Bronx; in every piano line playing that repetitive riff over and over again -- joined by tambourines and drums, mandolins and guitars, or doo wop voices -- it's the same portrait, the same situation. They become every stretched-to-the-point-of fraying lover's story from pop music antiquity -- and that's as it should be, because indeed in every story lies a moment when "These Are the Days." While the summation of the album is in the track "Sugarland," where it ends properly, "One Blue Sky" is the place where that ending is defined: where disappearance, disappointment, and tragedy -- in this case flood and natural disaster -- create the notion of true American defiance. As the big popping tom-toms offer those electric six-strings something to really fly from, the voices of Nettles and Bush intersect with those left wanting and angry in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, those whose dreams disappeared in the fires of the West carried by
'Twice the Speed of Life'
Release Date 1/1/2004
Tracks 11
Label Mercury
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Sugarland is a shot at the big-time for a trio of singer/songwriters who have languished on the outskirts of country and folk for the better part of a decade. Kristen Hall had a career of her own as a recording artist, Kristian Bush was in Billy Pilgrim, and Jennifer Nettles is the new discovery, previously fronting Soul Miner's Daughter, who never had recorded. With her powerful, soulful voice sounding a bit like a mainstream, country-oriented Shelby Lynne, Nettles is the frontwoman in Sugarland, and she gives the trio sex and commercial appeal, turning the professionally crafted songs on the group's debut, Twice the Speed of Life, into something that's charmingly mainstream. Hall may have been stuck playing in the folk circuit and Bush may have had little more than a cult following, but both have considerable skills as writers, crafting sturdy, melodic songs reminiscent of a streamlined, pop-ready, less quirky Dixie Chicks. If there's any flaw with Twice the Speed of Life, it's that it plays it a little too safe, fitting too comfortably into the confines of contemporary country radio, but it does its job so well, it's hard to complain. Besides, once Sugarland finds an audience with this debut, the group will be able to stretch out on the second record. Based on how solid Twice the Speed of Life is, they'll likely find fans who will be eager to hear how they grow. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
