Burning A Hole In My Mind. Connie Smith. 1967. RCA Victor.

 The subjective experience of perfection in popular music only came about with the introduction of the 45 rpm single in 1949 by RCA Victor. We’re told from a young age that there isn’t anything that is perfect so when we are witness to perfection, we’re dazzled and captivated, and, developed world capitalists that we are, we must somehow possess it. Produced by Bob Ferguson, Connie Smith’s Burning A Hole In My Mind isn’t only a minor Nashville Sound masterpiece, but, it, like any perfect work, pushes against genre conventions while simultaneously capturing the mood of the era with Smith’s genuine feel for expressing mid-60s ersatz sophistication in the manner of her pop romantic peers Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, Sandie Shaw. Though Smith doesn’t sing with the dynamism of those stalwarts, the strength of her vocal charm is readily apparent; perfection isn’t the absence of flaws, but their organization into a cohesive narrative. One crucial element holding this perfection in place—and, one could even argue, the very soul of pop romanticism itself—is nuance, that artistic agency that works against gravity to pull the best records into the stratosphere, and that on Burning A Hole In My Mind also functions as a metaphor for the poise required to keep your shit together while under the duress of heartbreak. For the remainder of the sixties, and throughout the following decade, country and rock and roll followed expressive parallel paths, both musics exuding American energy that adhered closely to their working class origins. Then, during the Reagan eighties, record labels became demographic-obsessed, and countrypolitan, locating its fan base with white conservative evangelicals, began to lean heavily towards mashed potato schmaltz. Country music has since entrenched itself in platitudinous monotony, discouraging personal idiosyncrasies and originality. So monolithic has it become the ostensible soundtrack to a global empire that it is doubtful if we’ll ever live to see again the powerhouse genre that once produced Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. We now live in a vast conspiratorial irreality in which a nation’s public relations masquerades as an emerging mass entertainment complex. Tickets available only through a Byzantine litigation process. 

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