Loco Motive (CD - 2005)

Personnel: Cowboy Troy (vocals); James Pennebaker, Adam Shoenfeld (guitar, electric guitar); Paul Allen (guitar); Paul "PDA" Allen (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Mike Johnson (steel guitar); Michael Rojas (piano, Farfisa, Hammond b-3 organ, synthesizer); Ethan Pilzer (bass guitar); Atom, Jonathan Nicholson, Jon Nicholson, Atom (background vocals); Jill Kinsey (vocals, background vocals); John Rich (acoustic guitar, background vocals); Dan Dugmore (lap steel guitar, dobro); Randy Kohrs (dobro); Jonathan Yudkin (banjo, mandolin, fiddle, strings); Larry Franklin (fiddle); Brian Barnett (drums, percussion); James Otto, Paul Worley, Tim McGraw, Big Kenny , Liana Manis, Joan Bush (background vocals).

Additional personnel: Big & Rich.

Audio Mixer: Bart Pursley.

Recording information: Blackbird Studios, Nashville, TN; Sony ATV Studios, Nashville, TN.

Photographer: Clay Patrick McBridge.

There's a certain appealing perversity to the idea of Cowboy Troy, the self-proclaimed "hick-hop" artist: he's the first country rapper, dropping science over boot-scootin' country co-written and produced by Big & Rich, the biggest and weirdest duo in modern country circa 2005. It seems like Cowboy Troy could be the 21st century Charley Pride or perhaps something even hipper, but his debut, Loco Motive (there's a joke in that title, by the way), is something else entirely: an album so awful, it inspires genuine awe. Which isn't to say that country-rap is an inherently bad concept -- in fact, Kid Rock and Bubba Sparxxx have both come close to a more genuine fusion of white trash and hip-hop than this -- and it's not even to say that there aren't moments on Loco Motive that kind of work. Thanks to Big & Rich, there are some nagging hooks that are impossible to shake, and the music often carries the same sort of gleeful, cross-pollination pandering that made their Horse of a Different Color a hit. No, the problem is with the main man himself, Cowboy Troy, a rapper who has so much style and skill, he seems like an extended Wayne Brady skit. Troy claims "I've been flowing since Madonna was strikin' poses," a reference to the Material Girl's hit "Vogue," which topped the charts in 1990. It's an appropriate allusion, since it sounds like Cowboy Troy hasn't listened to any rap since Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. He cranks out plodding, heavy-handed, self-aggrandizing rhymes, tripping over his words and never modulating his intonation or volume. Doesn't matter what he's rhyming about; doesn't matter if the song has a thick rock beat or is a misguided update on LL Cool J's "I Need Love"; doesn't even matter if he's rapping in English, Spanish, or Mandarin, as he does on the grotesque "Wrap Around the World" -- you know that Troy is going to serve it up slow, simple, and loud, as if he was a member of the Sugarhill Gang rapping to a foreigner who's hard of hearing. This makes for terrible music, but it's the kind of terrible music that you can't wait to play for other people. After hearing a couple of tracks, you keep listening, stifling your laughter, anticipating the next boneheaded move Troy is going to make. Inevitably, he makes the same boneheaded move each time out, but waiting to hear him stumble over Sarah Buxton's sighing vocals on "If You Don't Wanna Love Me" is what makes listening to Loco Motive fun. To be sure, that's not what Cowboy Troy or Big & Rich intended, but it's the only reason why anybody would want to listen to this record from start to finish, and that unintentional humor is what's going to make Loco Motive a cult record of sorts. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Considering that Cowboy Troy proudly bills himself as the "first black country rapper" and the inventor of "hick-hop," listeners might be excused for writing him off as mere novelty. Doing so, however, would cause them to miss an extraordinary talent, who not only revels in breaking boundaries, but rustles up a heck of a block party.

"Crick in My Neck," which combines a funk beat with twanging banjo and Floyd Cramer-like piano tinkling, could serve as a hilarious anthem for girl watchers of every stripe. "If You Don't Wanna Love Me" borrows a vocal melody from Chicago's "Hold Me Now," while sensitively tackling the oft-mined hip-hop topic of turbulent domestic relations, but from a suburban point of view. Of course, Cowboy Troy is, above all else, a rapper and therefore required by the genre's laws to include a song devoted to bragging about his skills. "Beast on the Mic" is a worthy entry that not only displays some fleet rhyming, but pulls off the neat trick of matching down-home fiddle licks with raging nu-metal guitar. LOCO MOTIVE is a wildly ambitious album that succeeds in defying expectations, while never succumbing to simple shock tactics. minimize