To her credit, it’s not laughably bad, but I question her earnestness. Country is a genre that is at its best when it’s being completely open and honest, whether it be in the realm of nationalistic chest-thumping or sad bastard alcohol jams.
“Country Strong” hits the big country music tropes – land, pride, family – but it’s pretty funny hearing the words come out of Paltrow’s mouth. “I have weathered/ colder winters/ longer summers/ without a drop of rain,” croons the Manhattan-raised Pence graduate in her half-hearted-attempt at a southern accent.
Has she? Really? This is a girl whose Wikipedia page contains the sentence “Paltrow has been the face of Estée Lauder’s Pleasures perfume since 2005.” When exactly, I wonder, were those long summers? Could it have been that stretch of time when she was dating/engaged to Brad Pitt? That must have been a pretty sexy, long summer.
If she’s in with country music for the long haul, I would be completely ecstatic if she wrote some songs about her own personal life. A quiet, twangy acoustic ballad about her newly musically-impotent husband? A fun, completely un-ironic, honky-tonk jam about being on the set of a Wes Anderson movie? Those are songs I’d be curious to hear.
You can hear Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Country Strong” at Videogum.
