Confederate Railroad

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have before us today the latest evidence confirming the demise of Southern rock, a greatest “hits” album by would-be heirs to the Allman Brothers’ throne, Confederate Railroad. Examining this aural document, which chronicles the band’s history from 1992 to the present, we ask ourselves a simple question. Why does it suck so bad? Is it the clichéd use of shopworn Southern archetypes? The commodification of the South’s genuinely rebellious roots? The sanitizing of white trash so that it is neither white nor trash? Yes, it is all these things, and we point to a single individual culprit: Nashville, where, for the past decade, the Railroad have been churning out overproduced drivel such as “The Big One,” a song dedicated not to President Bubba’s alleged endowment but to that hot sunny Sunday when daddy cut a fart in church. I rest my case.