Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962)

The nitpicker in me wishes it was "Today's" sounds rather than "Modern," which has too much baggage and evident knowingness. But end of complaints right there. Everything else about this album is as amazing as it is unexpected as it is spectacularly, cheekily right. Working off the bat with the black + white component that so intensely fueled rock 'n' roll from its origins, call it Ray Charles's shot at Rock 'n' Roll 2.0, Rock 'n' Roll 62, switching in gospel for blues (and how far apart are they anyway?), a full-grown Negro for a humble young white boy, and the best of C&W from the vaults. Ready set go. Nothing this self-conscious should work, but this one breaks all the rules. It's as fresh today as it was the day they put it down. The arrangements, with horns and Raelettes liberally deployed, are pinpoint perfect, song to song. Is it country? Yeah, it's country. In a way that stubbornly remains a whole new bag, its own thing, like no country you ever heard before or since. But it's definitely country.