Five-Banger on Tap for This Week's New Music Videos
Five -- count ‘em -- five new music videos were waiting for the CMT new music evaluation team as they huddled for this week's screening session. And quite a variety it was, too. From the freshness of Taylor Swift to the wisdom of Dolly Parton, from the maturity of Bob Dylan to the youthful exuberance of Billy Currington. And we can't forget the learned experience of Billy Ray Cyrus. Let's take a look and a listen.
Artist: Taylor Swift
Video: "Love Story"
Director: Trey Fanjoy
Taylor spots a high school object of attraction and falls into a fantasy which morphs into an elaborate fairy tale. She's suddenly catapulted into Romeo and Juliet in fabulous period dress, in a striking turreted castle. It looks enchanted. Everyone lives happily ever after.
Comments: "That's gonna be huge!" "It's beautiful." "Are the literary metaphors mixed here? There seems to be some Scarlet Letter in there along with Romeo and Juliet." "Was that the Jonas brother they say she's dating?" "No." "This is going to be huge."
Artist: Dolly Parton
Video: "Shinola"
Director: Fran Strine
Through intercutting performance footage, Parton sings her witty musical diatribe against a spurned lover who doesn't appreciate her. "Your attitude stinks, and I hate it," she fairly spits out. An angry Dolly Parton is a fearsome sight indeed. One roadblock here: The song turns on a fairly archaic saying about not knowing "s**t from Shinola." Ahh, but what is ‘Shinola'? Read on, and discover.
Comments: "I love me some Dolly Parton!" "What is Shinola?" "That shows you're not old." "Everybody remembers Shinola." "It's an old saying about not knowing s**t from Shinola." "But what is it?" "Shinola is shoe polish." "Ohhh."
Artist: Billy Ray Cyrus
Video: "Somebody Said a Prayer"
Director: Roman White
This is a very somber and pensive Billy Ray Cyrus, who sings a musical commentary while looking on as a dramatic family tableau plays out. It involves adolescents and substance abuse and misunderstanding adults and the wisdom and faith of young children.
Comments: "Wow!" "Pretty powerful." "More emotional than his last drag-racing video." "Is there a standards problem with showing the liquor bottle?" "That's not the subject matter of the video. It's in context." "This is not a drinking song. Far from it."
Artist: Billy Currington
Video: "Don't"
Director: The Brads
Opening shot: an attractive young woman asleep in bed alone. Next shot: Billy, carrying two take-out coffees in a cardboard tray, as he hurries down the street. Guess where he's headed. But she leaves before he gets there! He finds her note and vaults out the window to track her down in frantic chase scenes, without spilling a single drop of precious java.
Comments: "Why did he take the Interstate to go four blocks?" "I love the music." "I'd drive like that to take her coffee." "Billy looks great." "What if she had wanted tea?" "I felt like I was watching a Starsky & Hutch episode."
Artist: Bob Dylan
Video: "Dreamin' of You"
Director: Thom Zimny
This is the first music video I know of dealing with the life of a live music bootlegger, and it's fascinating. Veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton is the enigmatic bootlegger trailing the Dylan tour in his beat-up pickup, clutching a worn photo of a mysterious woman who figures enigmatically somehow here. The video itself is so engrossing that you tend to gloss over the song a bit, at least the first time through.
Comments: "That was cooler than s**t." "I'll put that on my iPod." "There's footage from the ‘60s there, but the bootlegger has a laser printer." "I'm sure the timeline isn't literal here." "I'm not sure Bob has sounded this good since the ‘60s."
Consensus: Taylor Swift is ready to go into hot shot rotation. Billy Currington is a good fit in medium rotation. Note: the video for Swift's "Love Story" world premiered on CMT on Friday (Sept. 12) at 8:30 p.m. ET and was posted on CMT.com immediately after that.
©2008 Country Music Television, Inc., a Viacom company. A division of
Lolly says:
Omg I love Taylor Swift’s new video. It is amazing. I really like it a lot and I hope it goes far in the music industry. I think she just went over the top on that one. GO TAYLOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alyssa says:
Where can I see Bob Dylan’s video?
Vicki says:
Is this the Taylor Swift and anything to do with a Cyrus music website?
CJ says:
Where is Dolly’s video. I would like to see hers. Come on dosen’t she count anymore or is she right after Taylor???
matt richkid says:
Love your site it is very informative am going to research the other posts to see what else I can learn, cheers! and keep up the great work!
bkb says:
give each artist the same exposure you give swift. or does it have to do with money being exchange. i was also surprise to see the swift video being played between shows.come on, give us a break, big time boreing is sitting in real fast.
Chris D. says:
I like the Swift song, but one thing, the Scarlet Letter reference makes zero sense in the song, so it just seemed to be thrown in there, but it’s a good song with a nice video.
Joey+Roryfan says:
There is alot of new blood in country music which is making for a very exciting time for fans. A new generation in age and type of country music has emerged. Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood are bringing back the teens, including my own daughters. For my own taste I’m digging Joey and Rory, the third place contestants from CMT’s Can You Duet? Instead of turning on the local news in the mornings I am tuning into the videos on CMT in hopes of seeing their new video, Cheater, Cheater. I love their simplicity. It’s so refreshing after the gone Hollywood styles of some of the standard artists we see on the CMT countdown each week. Using orchestras and rap artists does not a country sound make. Get back to basics and you’ll rejuvenate country music and bring back a huge fan base from the Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn generation. I’m in my late 30’s and these are for me the standards of country music from whom everyone else is judged. Joey and Rory come from that generation as well and it definitely shows in their performance and their style. The next time a meeting is held to decide the list of songs on the countdown consider getting back to the country in country music, consider Joey and Rory.
Jan says:
I agree!! Give the same amount of playing time for everybody!!
Love Joey and Rory says:
I watched Can You Duet too. I thought Joey and Rory were awesome!!!!!! I think they have a big future ahead of them!!!! I just saw their video a few days ago and loved it!!!!! They have a great new (or should I say old) sound!!!! I hope they can get some air time.
Chris N. says:
You can’t show liquor bottles on CMT? So much for my new single and video, “I Love Liquor Bottles (And Here Are My Favorites).”
LeeAnn says:
I agree with the others regarding Joey and Rory……they are awesome…..so is Melissa Lawson from Nashville Star!!
Lets show some support and air time of some of these NEW artists! Taylor Swift has clearly embedded her mark on the country scene….lets see some more air time on some of the other artists please…….its only fair!!
Nova says:
I love billy currington’s new song Don’t and actually love all the new videos. Billy Currington’s is nice because it’s not all glitz, glamour and makeup and has a touch of some of our longtime favorites S and Hutch, The General (car)… and the slide, Steve McQueen, a beautiful girl,a hot guy; a nice old fashioned kind of country song and a kiss and coffee to boot. It will do well. Dylan well… that’s obvious (my sons adore him… I adore his son Jakob’s talent); am so proud of Taylor being in our country music family… she embodies everything I admire about today’s young country folk- beautiful, individual, independant, intelligent and self-confident in her tremendous talent; beloved Rebecca Lynn Howard wrote the title track for the Joey and Rory new cd and like the video but not the reference to ‘ho… Loretta and Miss Kitty did it in my day… so please forgive me- however- not on the 5. Billy Ray is always a winner … and Dolly … well, she’s perfect and love her talking on her daddy and growing up and some of the old sayings. And would like to request that if we can see Dylan and some of the older rockers and lots of airtime for them; perhaps we could bring up some of country music’s greatest artists …. who still keept the charts talking and walking in country music globally… after all this time. Congratulations to all 5 videos and to Joey and Rory… and Rebecca Lynn.