My top 50 videos of 2011: #40 - #36

Well, it looks like the men of country music are going to continue their dominance over this countdown by the look of the next five videos. There's only one woman in this group and that would be LeAnn Rimes. I'm not sure what's going with that, but who knows? There's still a lot of videos left so maybe the girls will regain control. Ultimately good music is good music and a good video is a good video no matter who sings it. And who sings the songs in this part of the countdown? Well I'm happy you asked. You know one of them, but we're not talking about her just yet.
No, my #40th video was done by a certain Brad Paisley and it featured a certain country group named Alabama. I'm talking, of course, about "Old Alabama" directed by Jim Shea and found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDRfrVMrV6Q:

The video starts off with Brad Paisley and NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon hanging out at a drive-in with a bunch of classic cars watching Alabama with Brad claiming that he'd been in the band. There are two things that makes this video cool to me. The first is the footage of Alabama that they've managed to add Brad Paisley into and the second is all the cars. I'm not even much of a car person, but even I can appreciate these. Add a couple more NASCAR drivers and Alabama themselves and you have a pretty nifty video, complete with a snippet of a classic Alabama song. I will say that the random hand caressing Jeff Gordon in the latter half of the video is a little creepy to me. That and some of the lip-syncing done by the non-singers comes across as slightly awkward, but that's forgivable, especially seeing as I sincerely doubt any of them had done this before. The ending with Jeff Gordon telling the cop that Brad is the real Jeff Gordon, resulting in Brad getting a speeding ticket is classic Brad Paisley.

#39 features a couple of guys who have been around for a few years. It feels like it's been a while since we had a video from them, so it was nice to see them come back, especially knowing that one of them is now cancer free. Of course I am talking about Montgomery Gentry. This is a Potsy Ponciroli directed video for "Where I Come From", found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iDwzIB6Pn0:

This is the first of the videos on the countdown that pays tribute to our military. Hey, it's a country music video countdown, this was going to happen sooner or later. I've seen people complain about how often country singers sing about the military or do videos honoring them and well, if you ask me, we can never have enough of those. Especially when they are sincere and if there's one thing that I think the country music genre has proved, it's that they love our military. And so do I. With that said, let me take a minute to give a shout out to all our brave men and women in uniform. Freedom isn't free people and if it wasn't for all of their sacrifice, who knows where we'd all be. Nowhere I'd want to be. So may God bless our military and their families! A simple thank you on a blog can never be a big enough show of appreciation for all they do. 

Back to the countdown. This song could not be more Montgomery Gentry if it tried, which is a huge plus in its favor. I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that I believe that a video should represent both the song and the artist and this one is a perfect example of a video doing just that. This is also a good example of a video adding more dimensions to a song. They could have done a video of them in some small town and inserted scenes of small town life in among the shots of the band and kept it at that and it would've been a nice video. But if that'd been all there was to it, odds are that it would not have made this countdown. Because while nice, it's also a bit on the shallow side. There's not a lot of depth to that and I'm a fan of depth. And the added shots of a battle in progress took this video to another level entirely. Because that soldier that gets injured? I think we're supposed to assume that the town shots we see are his hometown and that is why he's over there in the first place. To protect where he came from, to protect the people he loves, to protect the country he loves - that's why he's there. And there's where the other soldiers are going to make sure he gets back to. Where he comes from. 

The next video on the countdown carries on the military theme, starting off with a retired Navy seal, Marcus Luttrell, talking about all he went through while in the military and how you need to believe in yourself no matter what happens. I love openings like this; they get my attention immediately and make me want to see what happens next. Intriguing opening aside, I love this song. It was written by a trio of guys who call themselves the Peach Pickers (Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson & Ben Hayslip) and happen to be 2011's ASCAP and BMI songwriters of the year. Yeah. To say these guys have written some great songs would be a vast understatement. 

In any event, the song I'm talking about now is sung by Joe Nichols. The video was directed by Trey Fanjoy who I think was the perfect choice for this. Coming in at #38, here is "The Shape I'm In" found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-8eGqUM0eo&ob=av2n:

The premise of the song is simple. The singer is having a bit of a rough time, but hey, he's doing all right for the shape he's in. I really don't see any of treatment they could've have done for this video; that's how perfect I think this one is. This is one that's better watched than explained, so I think I'll let it speak for itself. It's emotional without being sappy and all in all is just a great video. I love how the video opens and closes the way it does. I think a lot of inspirational type songs and videos fail because they try too hard to be inspirational. This is one that avoids that and it does so by being real. That's what it is about this video and song, there's something so real and human about it. It flat out admits that things aren't perfect and could get better, but all things considered, the singer is doing okay. And sometimes okay is all we can manage. Just as long as the sun keeps rising and we keep learning, we'll be just fine. I also think this was a great marriage of a song to an artist. I love the way Joe Nichols sings it - there's something very honest about his delivery which is perfect for this. Great song, great video.

Whew. Taking a break from the men right now to focus on the lone girl of the section. Here, at #37 is LeAnn Rimes in her Nigel Dick directed video for "Give".

This is another of those songs that I like the more I hear it. The message is very simple. If you want something, give it. There's deepness and beauty in the simplicity here, both in the message and the video. Though the video takes an interesting idea and adds a perhaps unexpected dimension to it by choosing to focus on homeless teenagers. This is a video that invites the watcher to sit back and think for a moment. There's such a sense of loss and hopelessness early on in the video and that slowly give way to something uplifting and powerful. I love the added touches of having them all holding up signs they'd made and the sing along at the end. And in addition to all that, this video features the great guitarist Greg Hagan who was previously in Little Big Town's band. As a very loyal LBT fan, it was awesome to see him in this so much. All in all, a very nice video.

Okay. Now. Time for a bit of a mood change. I wish I had a smoother way to transition from that to this, but hey. It is a mood change. We've done the slightly goofy with "Old Alabama" and we've honored our military and been all inspired and whatnot and that's great. But now I believe that there's a storm a-brewin' and what's useful to have when it comes to storm? A warning.

Which works out great because my pick for my #36th video is Hunter Hayes and "Storm Warning". This video was directed by Brian Lazzaro and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5MPxz-8e6A:

Now it's time for some of what I am calling music video theory in which I argue that from the second video an artist makes on, the primary goal of the video is to promote a song and help the artist become more popular than they were before the video got released. Not that those things aren't important for the first video an artist makes - they absolutely without a question are - but if you ask me, the first video may just be the most important. Because this is when an artist typically officially introduces themselves to the country music audience. Now granted, you could learn about an artist in a number of other ways and the first video you see may not necessarily be the first they've ever done, but even still. For all intents and purposes, I'd still consider their first video as their introduction. I love first videos that really give you a feel for what kind of artist they're going to be. An image that will hopefully be expanded with each new song and video. 

That all said, I've seen a lot of first videos by artists and remember most of them and there's been some fantastic ones. But I don't know if I've ever seen a video do a better job of introducing a new artist than this one right here. I don't usually use words like prodigy because I feel like they are way overused, but if I was ever tempted to call someone a musical prodigy it would be someone like Hunter Hayes. He's twenty years old and has been performing since he was about age four. Yes, you read that correctly I said age four. Don't believe me? Head on over to youtube and do a search for "Hunter Hayes Jambalaya" and watch the first video that shows up. Go ahead. I'll wait.

I don't know about any of you, but I find that to be pretty darn impressive. This kid has some serious talent. As you can see in his video for "Storm Warning", he plays a slew of different instruments and if I'm not mistaken, he played all the instruments on his debut CD and I think either wrote or co-wrote all the songs. Yeah. I'm impressed. I have the CD and I think it's a very solid one. He sounds so much like Gary LeVox from Rascal Flatts sometimes that it kind of freaks me out. As far as the video, what makes it stand out and serves as such a great introduction to Hunter is the fact that his backup band is himself. It's like an army of Hunters at points in this. There's so many new male country artists coming out of the woodwork lately and more coming, I'm sure, and Hunter does a great job at helping set himself apart from the rest of the pack. Even if you don't know his background, you're bound to notice that he's his own band here. No one else is doing this; most likely because they can't. I don't know what the musical future holds for Hunter Hayes, but if this is an indication of what's to come, than it's going to be a very bright one.

So...there we have it. Another five videos done and written about. There's so many great videos left to come and I can't wait to write about them. As always, if you enjoyed this, please feel free to leave a comment or pass this along to someone else. And if you really like it, do me a favor and follow me. I've set it up so you can follow me by email if you want and all of that can be found to the right of this window. Thanks for reading!