The Nashville of The Nashville Network is no more. Hell, The Nashville Network itself is no more: TNN became Spike, which is good for watching Deep Space Nine reruns while playing hooky in a Dayquil daze but little else. The city of Nashville has long since morphed from countrypolitan to Cosmopolitan, with ritzy suburbs named Brentwood, nightlife beyond the Bluebird Café, and Tim McGraw/Nelly collabs.
On each of the three albums since his alt-country debut, Dressed Up Like Nebraska, singer/songwriter Josh Rouse has fashioned urbane light-pop window treatments for yuppie denizens of the new Nashville. His latest is his second titular nod to Music City, USA-- 2000's Home was recorded shortly after Rouse moved there-- and arrives following the itinerant Nebraska native's move to Spain, where fragile Tweedy/Adams vocals are presumably less ubiquitous.
Rouse's 2003 soft-rock concept album 1972 bared his Bread fetish; Nashville returns to the 80s pop undercurrents that emerged on his 2002 breakthrough, Under Cold Blue Stars. The album's finest track, "Winter in the Hamptons", hews closely to the Smiths classic "Bigmouth Strikes Again", placing handclaps and an infectious "ba ba" chorus atop chiming acoustic guitars and a bass line that nearly quotes the vocal hook from Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You". But the most Rouse does lyrically with his urgent-sounding arrangement is: "Put on your hat, because the forecast is rain clouds."
If there's a single reason Rouse has never broken the David Gray barrier, it's his often-inconsequential observations. Sleepy acoustic closer "Life", harmonicas aspiring toward Saint Neil, will erase only the most superficial post-breakup hangovers with "Just sing a song and let love shine/ 'Cause that's just life." Try Love's "Everybody's Got to Live" instead.
As with past Rouse efforts, Nashville is always pleasant, if unexceptional. On pedal steel-drenched opener "It's the Nighttime", his awkward school/fool rhyme is only grating upon close listens, and his playful come-on about wanting to "try on your clothes" would be kinda cute even in the Bible Belt. While today's best-publicized mtvU acts act like imitating the early '80s is revolutionary, Manilow-tinged ballad "Middle School Frown" mentions "new wavers" and "punk rock stars" in the curmudgeonly context they deserve.
With a Pernice Brothers-sharp melody and swooning strings, "Streetlights" will please fans of 1972 (the album or the year). "My Love Has Gone", which opens "Side B", echoes the bitterest Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac. It's all nice, but give me New York or Hotlanta, thanks.
