Tomorrow's Sounds Today
Tomorrow's Sounds Today is the eleventh studio album by country music artist Dwight Yoakam. This album was released on October 31, 2000. It rose to No. 7 on the Billboard Country Albums chart. There were two charting singles among its tracks: "What Do You Know About Love" at No. 26 and "I Want You to Want Me" (a cover of the 1979 Cheap Trick hit) at No. 49 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Also included are two duets with Buck Owens, who was a big influence on Yoakam's musical style. It was also  Yoakam's last studio album for the Reprise label. After that album's release, Yoakam left Reprise for Warner Bros. in 2001. Background. In the Nineties, Yoakam had been a musician who dabbled in movies, but by 2000 he was absorbed in a film project of his own called "South of Heaven - West of Hell". This left his music career in the lurch in the latter part of the decade, with his releases becoming more sporadic. Yoakam and producer-guitarist Pete Anderson had helped revitalize the genre of country music in the late Eighties and early Nineties, scoring a triple  platinum high point with "This Time" in 1993. However, with the release of "Gone" in 1995, Yoakam’s commercial stock took a nosedive, and his growing preoccupation with acting left Anderson perplexed, with the producer later reflecting in 2003: While Yoakam nursed his acting bug, country radio’s youth-obsessed fixation continued and the singer developed a strained relationship with his label Reprise. The sole hit during this period was a cover of the Queen song “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” which hit #12 on the country singles chart and rose to #64 on "Billboard"’s Hot 100. The song  appeared on the 1999 compilation "Last Chance for a Thousand Years: Dwight Yoakam's Greatest Hits from the 90's", which was followed by an acoustic album of remakes the following year, and these two releases lend credence to the notion that Yoakam was consumed to a degree by his film-making aspirations. As biographer Don McCleese put it, if the singer “had sounded a little distracted on the offhand "Tomorrow’s Sounds Today", he was plainly preoccupied with "South of Heaven – West of Hell" – a film written, directed, and produced by Dwight Yoakam, starring Dwight Yoakam, with music by  Dwight Yoakam.” Recording and composition. Yoakam's 1998 release "A Long Way Home" was a return to a more country sound, and "Tomorrow’s Sounds Today" takes this approach even further; in fact, it is arguably his straightest country studio album since 1988’s "Buenos Noches from Lonely Room". Like "A Long Way Home", this LP has a brighter musical atmosphere than the “noirish streak” that ran through previous works like "This Time" and "Gone". On the first single “What Do You Know About Love” the narrator is cautiously optimistic over a new love, admitting “My heart’s so often  been wrong,” while on the opener “Love Caught Up with Me,” the narrator surrenders completely with the lines “Baby, I couldn’t hide, no matter how hard I tried…” Pete Anderson’s guitar work on “Free to Go” evokes the Allman Brothers over a Johnny Cash rhythm as the song ponders the elusive nature of love. Anderson also displays some fine fretwork on the rocking “A Place to Cry,” but for the most part Yoakam and Anderson keep it country, emphasizing Gary Morse’s pedal steel and returning to their roots, as if they sensed their partnership was nearing its  end. In his AllMusic review of the album Hal Horowitz writes: Further cementing the full circle vibe are the two duets with Buck Owens that conclude the album. Yoakam coaxed Owens out of semi-retirement in 1988 and scored his first #1 country hit with their remake of “Streets of Bakersfield,” and they return to the Tex-Mex flavour with “Alright, I’m Wrong” (Anderson’s only writing credit on a Yoakam LP) and the spirited “I Was There.” Perhaps trying to capture lightning in a bottle after the recent hit with Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” Yoakam  tried his hand at another 70's rock classic, Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me,” but it was not as successful. Reception. AllMusic praises the LP, opining, “With "Tomorrow's Sounds Today", Dwight Yoakam has fashioned a contemporary roots-conscious country album whose qualities, like the artist's distinctive style, are timeless.” However, in his book "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere", ex-"Rolling Stone" writer Don McCleese takes a dim view, calling it “an album of retrenchment, one that reinforces Yoakam’s persona as a county artist rather than extending it, with too many of the cuts sounding  like retreads.” Track listing. All songs written by Dwight Yoakam except where noted. Personnel. From liner notes.