Miranda Lambert - Revolution
by Cheryl Harvey Hill, Sr. Staff Journalist
10/28/09

Revolution is the third album from country music's most beautiful firecracker, Miranda Lambert. Lambert is one of the genre's greatest success stories and she has set the bar high for herself since both of her previous albums debuted at #1 on the Country Album Charts. Lambert wrote, or co-wrote on every track but one of her debut album, Kerosene, then wrote or co-wrote on all but three tracks of her sophomore album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend; seeming to follow the “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” guidelines, Lambert wrote or co-wrote on all but three of the fifteen tracks this time out. For the inquiring minds among you, Blake Shelton co-wrote on “Love Song,” with Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley from the group Lady Antebellum, but only “Sin For Sin” was written exclusively by Lambert and her handsome beau and it isn't exactly the love song you might be expecting from one of country music's most popular couples. Ah, but I don't want to spoil it for you so I won't say any more. I'll let you discover for yourselves just what kind of chemistry happens when these two write together. As for their other collaboration on this album well here's what she has to say on her website, "A song called 'Love Song', I would never think would be on my record," she admits. "You know what I mean? Because I just don't sing songs like that. But this song is about real people in real love, not the fairy tale. And you know, I guess I've reached a point where, it's all right to maybe love somebody.” I'm sure Shelton is pleased to hear that.

"I'm a little more stable in my life, and not the crazy, wild-eyed kid that was writing 'Kerosene' at 18," she says. "I've been through a lot and grown up a lot on the road. And I've always kind of been a little older than my age anyway. I have the regular 25-year-old small town girl side to me that likes to make cupcakes and live on a farm, and then I have this rowdy, crazy, headbanging, rock-star-girl side that is my life on the road. I feel this record shows a more complete picture of who I am.”

The tracks that got my attention on the first run through were “Only Prettier,” “Makin' Plans,” “Time To Get A Gun,” “The House That Built Me,” and “Virginia Bluebell.”

Like many great singer/songwriters, Lambert draws from her own life when she's writing but the comparison to other great singer/songwriters ends there since she has become one of an elite group of prodigious story tellers who convey their lyrics with so much passion and poise that you are never able to discern what may have been culled from their own lives or what they may have been gleaned from other lives they have encountered.

All fifteen tracks on this album, whether an uptempo barn burner or a sultry, slow ballad, will manage to strike a chord somewhere within your subconscious, either lyrically, melodiously, or both. Oh yes, and is it any wonder that People magazine selected her as one of the “100 Most Beautiful People” in 2009. Oh wait, after listening closely to the lyrics on “Heart Like Mine,” well, maybe I should have mentioned that song and included the word “controversial” somewhere in my review. (Now, now, Miranda, honey, put the gun back in your holster, I was just messin' with ya, honest! I'm done.)

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