Brad Paisley: Time Well Wasted

CML call number: CD COUNTRY Paisley
Jon Pareles wrote in the New York Times: "Mainstream country doesn't have many stars like Brad Paisley: a distinctive singer who writes his own songs and happens to be a serious lead guitar picker, too. Mr. Paisley, who is from West Virginia, is one of country's many nice guys in cowboy hats, and he spends most of his fourth album … singing about suburban lives spent in malls and pickup trucks, extolling fidelity and saying sweet things to the woman in his life. As usual, Mr. Paisley dutifully covers the country bases. … What keeps him from getting too corny are his flying fingers and his wit, which has helped make his albums million-sellers. Stars like Dolly Parton and Alan Jackson sing along with him on this new album. Like Mr. Jackson, his role model, Mr. Paisley is steeped in old-fashioned country. Yet he and his producer, Frank Rogers, don't worry about traditionalism versus modernity. Songs that could have turned into power ballads are fitted out instead with fiddle, pedal steel guitar and his own twangy solos. Then he harks back to honky-tonk while singing about his laptop computer or his Visa card" ("Critic's Choice: New CD's," 8/22/05).