Album Details

• Artist: Working Class Hussys
• Album: Diary Of A Blue Collar Cracker
• Label: Tree House Rock
• Year of Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: carlita on 2012-12-02

Media

When you come across a band named Working Class Hussys with an album entitled Diary of a Blue Collar Cracker, you must stop what you're doing and pay attention. Period. Checking out photos on their Reverb Nation page, I couldn't stop laughing at the "The Sounds of Hick-Hop" cover that adds a gangsta touch to Grant Wood's iconic painting, "American Gothic". Visiting their Facebook page, the band describes itself as "Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Beatles". Armed with these little tidbits of info, I was finally ready to press "Play".

An eclectic blend of 90's alternative and 70's classic and country rock, it was more like "Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Beatles meets Pearl Jam meets Beck meets The Doors". The album's central theme is hurt- loss of friends to suicide ("Friends of Mine"), family to unfortunate illness ("Somewhere You're Smiling"), gonads after bone-crushing heartbreak and falling in love again ("Like Your Woman", "Antisocial Butterflies", "Loves to Be") and hometown identity ("Whiter Shades of Trash") as changing race and social class dynamics alter everything you've ever known.

Even though most songs on the album address melancholy topics, the melodies are bright and danceable so that "somewhere I smiled" and found myself bobbing my head to lead singer Ian Patrick Gentles' pain (sounds weird, I know).  Not everything is gloomy as there's amusement in making fun of overdramatic friends (we all have them) on "Nobody Knows My Pain". After listening to this enlightening and tongue-in-cheek introspective, am sure the Working Class Hussys won't be "empty-handed" very long.

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