Dwight Yoakam - Tomorrow's Sounds Today

Dwight Yoakam pulls out all the stops with this, his first album of the new millennium. With sharp-as-nails true honky-tonk and some of the best and sharpest playing by his band, one of the finest ever put together, "Tomorrow's Sounds Today" was and is one of the most welcome discs released at the dawn of the 2000's. It remains one of my very favorite Yoakam albums ever released.

The dawn of the 21st Century wasn't all that promising for country music in general. For years things had been bad and getting worse, but Dwight Yoakam never followed the mainstream, and his first offering for this new millennium was one of his strongest efforts to date. A disc that absolutely drips with honky-tonk feeling, "Tomorrow's Sounds Today" was named with Yoakam's patented tongue-in-cheek irony, as in many places he seems to be channeling Hank Williams. It's as though the title is telling us that yesterday's sounds are just as viable now as ever and will be for many tomorrows to come.

Yoakam takes his rock-solid sound to new places with tracks like "Free to Go" and the two-steppin' "The Heartaches Are Free." Painful lyrics such as "Red, red drops that drip out from the bottom of my heart must mean that I'm living in a world of blue" are wound up in toe-tapping tunes that feature prominently the amazing steel guitar work of Gary Morse. Dwight teams up with old buddy Buck Owens for one songwriting spree, as well as two pleasant duets, including one a song written by long-time producer Pete Anderson (a first).

I'm not ashamed to say that "Tomorrow's Sounds Today" remains my personal favorite Dwight Yoakam album. There isn't a second on this disc that I don't like. I keep a copy in my desk at work as well as one at home. It truly is Yoakam at his very best.