First, the bad news: Nothing on Billy Ray's new, second album comes within a country mile of "Achy Breaky Heart," the inescapably catchy song whose album sold a staggering 9 million copies worldwide and rocketed the swivel-hipped singer to overnight stardom last year. Now, the worse news: On this record, with its flood of hurt-hunk ballads and pose-ready rockers, Cyrus seems to be making a common mistake that rapid-rise performers usually live to regret, namely, believing his own hype.
In many respects, Cyrus got a bum rap the first time around when country critics called his debut album, Some Gave All, rootless and amateurish. Chided by a Nashville establishment that likes its young studs to kick around the corral until they're broken in nice and proper, Cyrus went for the visceral—and in "Achy Breaky" found the ideal showcase for his muscle-flexing, pelvis-jerking style.
And therein lies his problem. Over the long haul, country music's life-blood is the union of singer and song, not of beef and cake. Throughout It Won't Be the Last, Cyrus puts his attitude where his mouth is, but outside of the unsubtle "Talk Some" ("I read your body language perfectly clear"), it backfires. Cyrus undercuts even his best songs, like Alex Harvey and Mike Curtis's "Somebody New," with melodramatic bellows, husky snarls and a truckload of embarrassing Elvis-oid crooning—"When I'm Gone" shamelessly drags in Elvis's old backup vocalists, the Jordan-aires—betraying his still-unformed musical personality. Until he proves he has one, he'd best keep in mind the lyrics of his own "Throwin' Stones": "What goes up must come down." (Mercury)
>Billy Ray Cyrus
TOPSY-TURVY TRIUMPH
HAVING YOUR CAREER TAKE OFF AT achy breaky speed isn't all caviar and klieg lights. Just ask Billy Ray Cyrus, 31. "It's really a lot harder than I thought it would be," he confesses. "The work, the interviews, the lack of sleep, the lack of nutrition. I'd like to say that I have an outlet, that I get away, but I don't."
Instead, the hillybilly heartthrob from Flatwoods, Ky., who now lives in Nashville, put his "all" into his second album, It Won't Be the Last, which sprinted to the top of the charts almost as briskly as his debut album. "This music is very real," he says. "If you listen, you can hear where I've been. These songs are about my life."
Cyrus traces his musical roots to his local Pentecostal church, where he started singing in the choir at age 4. Further inspired by the sounds of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin, he picked up a guitar in 1980 and taught himself to play.
Now, having just wrapped a "When I'm Gone" video, Cyrus, who is divorced and the father of Christopher Cody, 14 months, is back on the road again pushing his latest wares. And so what if some music industry folks cluck at his Chippendale-like moves and his gruff, barked-out delivery? Billy Ray's loyalties lie with his fans. "I appreciate the people who listen to me and judge me by the music," he says. "If you want to know me, listen to the music. These songs are a true reflection of my soul."
- Contributors:
- Billy Altman.
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