Album of the Week: “Unleashed” by Toby Keith

Following 9/11, the country music genre experienced a massive shift in tone and subject matter, powered by rampant blind nationalism drudged up by the attacks and subsequent unjust wars of Bush’s United States. Gone were the soulful ballads of working class struggles and in came ramped up anthems of pride and praise for American hegemony. Country stars rose up from the suburbs instead of the farms while songs about tractors and company stores were replaced by odes to life within the white picket fence. A genre defined by frustration surrounding the blue-collar worker experience in America found itself in a new era of sound filled with the biggest bootlickers on the planet. This shift inspired many of the stereotypes that non-country fans continue to hold against the genre, despite its rich history through the 20th century.

In honor of today’s celebration of the fascist state, we’re highlighting one of the most important voices in the “y’all-ification” of country: Toby Keith. His debut single “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” from 1993 released to instant popularity, becoming the biggest country song of the 1990s. Following 9/11, Keith released “Unleashed” which featured four major hit singles that powered the album to his first number one album on the Billboard 200.

Keith’s biggest song came to be “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)” – a touching tribute to his veteran father and Old Glory, but also a declaration of war against enemies of the United States. Keith sings “you’ll be sorry that you messed with / The U.S. of A. / ‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass / It’s the American way” and “it’s gonna be hell / When you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell.” At this point you’d expect Keith to take on the Taliban himself, calling out the “sucker punch [that] came flyin’ in from somewhere in the back” in the track that apparently took him only twenty minutes to write. Even I, one of the United State’s biggest haters, felt a nationalistic glee boiling up inside of me as I listened to Keith’s targeted verses, though that flame quickly extinguished when I remembered he’s singing about bombing poor people in the Middle East.

Other hit singles “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Beer For My Horses” – a Willie Nelson duet – bring more excitement to an album otherwise held down by slower love songs. The album’s legacy will live on as an early contribution and inspiration for the post-9/11 country sound, with Toby Keith leading the pack amongst the musical crusaders growing out of the American suburbs. This July 4th, throw on a few of Keith’s hits at your barbecue and pretend to be a willfully ignorant American that likes the right-wing dictatorship ruling our country. It’ll make that hot dog taste just a little bit better.