Album Review: Dixie Chicks - Fly

Yes, I've been procrastinating on this one, I don't really know why, but I have a quota to meet so I should get my act in a pile.

This was the fifth studio album by the Dixie Chicks, and it topped the Top Country Albums, Billboard 200 and Canadian RPM Country Albums, only peaking at Number 6 on the RPM Top Albums. It even won a Grammy for Best Country Album in 2000, and was nominated for best album of the year, losing to Santana's Supernatural however. That did not stop it from certifying 10x Platinum in the U.S. and 3x Platinum in Canada. So this was a pretty big album for the time, but does it deserve such high accolades?

Not really if we're going by the first couple of songs, neither of which offer anything really great to the album, it isn't until the third song "Cowboy Take Me Away" that there is a song that is better than okay. It featured nice opening instrumentals and offered a nice change of pace to the album. The following track "Cold Day in July" also stands out, although not really for the right reasons. The track is forgettable, I don't even remember it that well, and this is the only song that has that problem, as even though very few of the other songs are great, I can still remember a good chunk of them, but this? I don't think I could recognize this song until the chorus.

The fifth track is the stand out single from the album "Goodbye Earl", which is my favourite song on the album. I've already talked about the song on my Ace Audio blog sub-series so if you want a more detailed look at the song follow this link. I like the subject of the song and how well the story itself is told, listening to the whole album this time around, the instrumentals sound the same quality wise, but they still stand out with that odd keyboard sounding instrument and how upbeat the song is despite how dark the lyrics are, I love it.

Unfortunately, for here onward there are very few songs that go farther than the "okay" rank. "Hello Mr. Heartache" is a song that could have worked, especially with the groove and lyrics, but it still is just "okay",  and there are plenty of tracks where my notes are simply just "This song is okay". The only other note I had here was for "Hole in my Head" which I thought may have worked better as a glam metal song, or something like that.

For a fourteen track album, I've only found three tracks that I think even go past the "Okay" rating, and the twelfth track "Heartbreak Town" is one of them. It's slower and has nice instrumentals and vocal work, it isn't a great song, but it works. The final track on the album "Let Him Fly" is a lot of the same, just okay. When I reviewed Hardwired... to Self Destruct I found that the album got better towards the end with the last two songs, but this didn't.

I mean, overall I have heard worse, but I really wanted to like at least a few more songs from this album. With the exception of three songs, most of them were just okay, and "Cold Day in July" may be the most forgettable, but it is not the only dull song on this album. Maybe I shouldn't have said I would have reviewed this. Oh, well what's done is done.

I give this a 5/10, it's just okay. I'm the Entity of Darkness, and sorry about this being my only review this month, I'll try to make it up next month.