“At the end of the day, I'm trying to make good music and bring people together through music. “I'm doing this for the people who love music and the other little Black boys, Black girls who want to come up after me and do country. MORE FROM FORBES 3 Doors Down Bassist Justin Biltonen Has His Sights Set On Country Music By Annie Reuter While he admits to having felt a sense of tension or judgement from certain country audiences in the past, he aims to set an example for aspiring country music singers. “I think there's always going to be that sentiment for anybody because there's always room for growth.”Īs Jones continues to break down barriers while pursuing a career in the country genre, he stresses that Black representation matters. “We have come a long way, but we’ve got a long way to go,” he notes. At its best, The Day the Earth Stood Still can remind us of the kind of power that style can have in the hands of a craftsman like Willie Nile.One of the lyrics that holds special meaning to Jones includes, “We've come a long way/ Still got a long way to go.” He says it’s this line that best describes America. More accurately, the sort of sincere, no-frills rock that Nile plays is a bit underappreciated in today’s musical climate. To call Willie Nile underappreciated may be damning with faint praise, as he has plenty of people who very much appreciate what he does. As a result, the more somber moments of The Day the Earth Stood Still end up being a drag when they shouldn’t be.Įven so, Nile rocks harder and more melodically than most songwriters do, and The Day the Earth Stood Still offers plenty that should happily satisfy the cult fanbase that he’s acquired for himself over the years. Yes, the intimacy that those arrangements create allow one to get up close and personal with Nile, but he already disguises little about himself. Those heart-on-sleeve moments that Nile creates just work better when he’s at the head of a raucous band rather than alone with an acoustic guitar or piano. When he slows things down, however, the songs tend to fall flat despite the earnestness of his delivery. When Nile lets loose, the album springs to live and is at its most engaging. Nile has always worked best as a rocker, and The Day the Earth Stood Still very much shows that in practice.
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It’s unfortunate, then, that the album as a whole isn’t as lively as it could have been. Conversely, “Off My Medication” is a song whose menace is presented with a bit of a wink, a track that reminds you that, for all of the serious things that he discusses throughout the album, Nile still wants you to have some fun. More explicit is “The Justice Bell,” a tune dedicated to the late John Lewis, which presents a hopeful plea for a better, more equal society than the one we currently live in. The title track’s recitations of an unspoken impending doom, for example, easily apply themselves to the collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s as lyrically ambitious of an album as Nile has ever put together in recent years, with the songs focused on the ills of the modern world. It runs the emotional gamut from hard-driving, ass-kicking rock to earnest, heartbreaking folk while also leaving a little room for Nile to get silly when he wants to. On each album he makes, Nile seems to strive to capture as much of the human experience as he can in song, and The Day the Earth Stood Still is no exception here. The Day the Earth Stood Still is no different from many of his previous albums in this regard though it grounds itself in the present moment, much of the album is Willie Nile doing what he does best. He may change perspective with each album, but everything he does is unmistakably him.
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Since then, despite the label shenanigans that led to a stop-and-start recording career, Nile has become the picture of consistency. A true songwriter’s songwriter, Nile was a rarity when he first started recording music: a punk rocker with an open admiration for the folk and rock traditions that preceded him. The term “rock ‘n’ roll lifer” has been applied to many artists over the years, but it is perhaps most suited for Willie Nile.