Smithfield
Jason MyersWhen independent duo SmithField released a video for new track "Something Sexy" on May 13, the project took a couple of cues from one of contemporary country's most iconic twosomes.
The chorus cited a bevy of modern love songs, including "Amazed" and "I Melt," but the list started with an allusion to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's "Let's Make Love." The video itself employs a handful of votive candles, another nod to the visual piece that accompanied the McGraw/Hill title. It's fair to consider the reference a SmithField mission statement.
"Everything with ‘Something Sexy' was intentional," says the duo's female voice, Jennifer Fielder. "They had separate careers on their own, but for a while there, they were signed as a duo as well as solo artists. And they had their own duo records, their own duet tour. So to me, they're still very iconic for what we do."
To be fair, there are few acts that do what SmithField does. Country has plenty of duos — Florida Georgia Line, Dan + Shay, Maddie & Tae, Brothers Osborne, just to name a few — but each of them is a single-gender combo. The last full-time male/female pair to log chart-topping singles, Thompson Square, hit No. 1 in 2011 with "Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not" and in 2012 with "If I Didn't Have You."
The paucity of that artistic structure is a head-scratcher at first glance, though even Keifer and Shawna Thompson understand why the configuration is so rare.
"You got to coexist with this other partner, boy or girl," says Keifer Thompson, "and you got egos: ‘You're singing more than I do.' ‘You're singing them better than I do.' ‘I'm fatter than you are.' ‘I have abs.' You have all this stuff that goes into play when you enter into a band or a duo. And so that's one giant obstacle right there: just coexisting together as a duo. And then you got the male/female version of that."
The twosomes themselves have heard industry pessimism about their setups — "That'll never work," both Thompson Square and SmithField were told — but it hasn't stopped them. Marking its 10th anniversary, SmithField will issue its third EP, New Town, on June 16. Thompson Square is close to signing a new recording deal, and Latino act Kat & Alex signed to Sony Music Nashville during the pandemic after an initial run on American Idol. And they refuse to believe that it can't work.
"I seriously cannot imagine doing this by myself anymore," says Kat Luna, who encountered Alex Garrido when both were solo artists working the local circuit in Miami. "As soon as I met Alex, I knew that I never wanted to perform by myself on that stage ever again."
The first two Kat & Alex videos — "Heartbreak Tour" and "How Many Times," which employs the hook "How many times can a heart break" — revolve around on-screen romance while acknowledging the pain of isolation in the lyrics. They see the fragility of love as a selling point for their mixed-gender format.
"Dan + Shay, for example, they're best friends — that's their thing; Florida Georgia Line — same thing, good friends," notes Garrido. "For us being a guy/girl duo, but also a married couple, that's something that we definitely want to express. We want the audience to be able to personally connect with us and when they see us go, ‘Hey, I believe in Kat & Alex because I see myself in their shoes.'"
The drama that's inherent in relationships is a built-in hurdle for male/female duos, most of which are married couples. A breakup isn't just the end of a romance; it also means the dissolution of a business entity, a scary proposition for anyone who invests in the act.
"If you're a label and you put up a lot of money for something, it could be hard," concedes Shawna Thompson.
That's especially true in a crowded marketplace. Despite the scarcity of such full-time duos, the genre has been flooded with mixed-gender pairings that partnered artists who are primarily solo acts. The current Country Airplay chart features Keith Urban with P!nk, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, Ryan Hurd with Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini and Kenny Chesney, Dustin Lynch and Mackenzie Porter, and Lauren Alaina with Jon Pardi. Other recent matches include Carly Pearce and Lee Brice, Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth, Jason Aldean and Miranda Lambert, Kane Brown and Alaina, Cody Johnson and Reba McEntire, Brantley Gilbert and Lindsay Ell, and, of course, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani.
"They're all posers," jokes Keifer.
But they're also using those duets to bring a temporary change of pace to concert setlists. That has been particularly noticeable in shows that have featured holograms over the last decade, as when Brad Paisley welcomed the image of Carrie Underwood for "Remind Me" or when Aldean called up a recorded version of Kelly Clarkson for "Don't You Wanna Stay."
Duos can throw a changeup, too, though it runs in the opposite direction, removing a voice instead of adding one.
"We do like to give each other individual moments in our songs every once in a while," says SmithField's Trey Smith. "But we said it from the very get-go of this thing that we wanted this to be not just a duo on paper, but a true duo."
SmithField does shake up that template, though, since Smith and Fielder are an oddity among male/female enterprises: They're childhood friends who are neither married nor dating. That causes plenty of speculation, which they see as a positive effect.
"The mystery of it has been one of the most intriguing things for our audience because a lot of times people don't know that we're not together," observes Smith. "In our show, we are good at really playing it up. It's almost one of the things that draws people into our show, because after the show [when] we do a meet-and-greet, they're always like, ‘I have to know, are you guys together?' "
As a business entity, the answer is yes, despite the skepticism that accompanies the full-time male/female duo.
NEWS
Steve Albini‘s bands Shellac and Big Black now have their catalogues available for listening on Spotify.
Albini passed away aged 61 earlier this month due to a heart attack. He was well known for being the producer of major albums such as Nirvana’s ‘In Utero‘, Pixies’ ‘Surfer Rosa’, PJ Harvey’s ‘Rid of Me’, Manic Street Preachers‘ ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ and more.
Back in 2022, the late producer took his music off the streaming platform. He had previously criticised the company for platforming anti-vaxxers such as Joe Rogan, and tweeted later that they were a “terrible company”, adding: “I don’t want to be part of their business”.
He later told Attack Magazine that Spotify was “one of the few places outside of record stores where recorded music can earn anything at all, and for bands [with] more generous, honest relationships with independent labels not part of the ownership trust, then the payments from Spotify, though meager per-play, can add up to a viable income stream. Nobody’s getting rich, but it could pay for the groceries.”
Now, it appears that Albini’s work with his bands Shellac and Big Black are now available to stream on Spotify. This include’s Shellac’s final album ‘To All Trains’, which was announced shortly before Albini’s death and was released last Friday (May 17).
Tributes have poured in for the legendary producer since the announcement of his death. Our NME obituary hailed him as “a lone voice of anti-industry punk scene ethics, even as he worked with major labels on some of the biggest names in alternative rock.”
Meanwhile, Foo Fighters dedicated a rendition of ‘My Hero’ to the late producer in Charlotte, North Carolina last week.
“Tonight I’d like to dedicate this song to a friend that we lost the other day, who I’ve known a long, long time,” Foos frontman Dave Grohl told the crowd. “He left us much too soon. He’s touched all of your lives, I’m sure. I’m talking about Steve Albini. For those of you who know, you know. For those of you who don’t know, just remember that name: Steve Albini. Let’s sing this one for him.”
PJ Harvey also said he “changed the course of my life” during sessions for her 1993 LP ‘Rid Of Me’., and Joanna Newsom dedicated a version of her song ‘Cosmia’ to him, who engineered her 2006 album ‘Ys’. See further tributes here.
Elsewhere, Yourcodenameis:milo spoke to NME about how the 20th anniversary of their LP ‘All Roads To Fault’ was made all the more profound by the passing of Albini, who engineered the album.
Remembering their time with the punk and production legend, Lockey said: “We paid attention, saw everything he did, asked questions that he would gladly spend ages answering”.
“He once stopped the session and proceeded to give us a lecture on how the peanut built America. He schooled us in billiards, then showed us his favourite cooking shows that he’d recorded. It was all so natural and encouraging, we could do what the fuck we wanted and he’d capture it. That’s the deal, and we fucking loved it.”
