byrdsongs, xlviii

With Gram Parsons gone, the Burrito Brothers crossed the fine line separating country rock from M.O.R. I don’t use the M.O.R. appellation derisively, mind you. I dig the stuff when it’s good, like Sunshine Pop good, and AM Gold good, and Jimmy Webb good, and Laura Nyro good. And I’m ok with Gordon Lightfoot, Linda Rondstadt, America, Bread, Jim Croce...all that light 'n fluffy stuff I used to hear wafting out of the ceiling at the grocery store when I was a kid. And this late-period M.O.R. staple happens to be one of my favorite songs ever. It may be a boomer midlife crisis put to music, but yuppiedom had its sensitive side, the lawyer in love, clad in the colors of Benetton, fighting the traffic on the 405 in her shiny new beamer. Don't hate her. She read a few feminist books in college and probably voted for Mondale.  …So M.O.R. isn’t necessarily bad. Just don't make me listen to Jimmy Buffet. His Hawaiian shirt schtick, and especially the drunken meatheads who go to his concerts, are almost as nauseating as "Long Island’s answer to Bob Dylan," who was the epitome of low-end M.O.R. But good M.O.R. has its place, and this extends to the Gram-less third Burrito Brothers album. It’s countrified M.O.R., and it’s a template for ccr (see yesterday’s post), but it’s not terrible. It’s unremarkable, sure, but the music is pleasing as background noise, perhaps when you’re folding the laundry or doing the dishes. Sneaky Pete’s weepy pedal steel will lull you to sleep on your feet, which was the whole point of this stuff, was it not?