Title - 'Lady Antebellum' (Capitol)
Artist - Lady Antebellum
How about a first album coming from a new pop-country artist going straight into #4 spot at Billboard 200 in the week of release? Something out of this world? No...having a free single ("Love Don't Live Here") heavily promoted on iTunes Store (the second music retailer in the US, only behind Wal-Mart) for a week can do miracles these days. Until two or three weeks ago, Lady Antebellum could be anything to me except a music group.
The album is one of those great summer albums, one of those albums that you want to crank up with the windows down. They sort of remind me of Little Big Town in some ways. For me country music has gotten very generic sounding, Lady Antebellum breaks out of that sound. Great harmonies, great hooks, great songs. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the name of the group, sounds like a girl group rather than a trio of two guys and one girl. That aside, this is a great album and if you like Little Big Town, I think you'll like Lady Antebellum as well.
Catchy lyrics, good singing and nice playing coming from this competent young trio are what it takes for them to deserve the attention they already got and hopefully much more. It's worth a try.