Country duo Sugarland has released the first single from its upcoming third album, and that’s totally exciting. But before I explore the new song’s sassy corners (and they are sassy, y’all!), I need to talk about the duo’s first two records. I’ve got some secrets to spill, hollers to holler, etc.

For one thing…  I keep forcing Sugarland to win me over.

I have been huge fan of their lead singer, Jennifer Nettles, since 1998, when she was still an underground rocker in Atlanta who fronted Soul Miner’s Daughter. At first, that’s what made me resist her major-label country career: I felt like one of my musical secrets had been revealed to the world, and I wasn’t happy about it. I mean, I had seen her perform in tiny Atlanta clubs. How dare she go out and get more famous without asking me first?!?

Plus, how could anyone make the transition from bluesy rock to commercial country and still come out cool?

(The answer to that question is after the jump)

But then I actually listened to Sugarland’s music. Turns out, it’s great, and as with so much contemporary country, it makes ample room for the aforementioned bluesy rock. This lets Jennifer Nettles show off her roof-shaking voice, which is never, ever wrong. 

Also? That music on their first album, Twice the Speed of Life, is really uplifting. A deep vein of kindness runs through the songs, so that even a sadder number like “Small Town Jericho” is about realizing how much you love your family.

(By the way: That link to “Small Town Jericho” also includes a dorky tribute to the show Jericho. I love YouTube.)

Flash-forward to now, when almost every song on that album is riding high on my iTunes “most-played” list. You’d think that would have made me embrace their second album, Enjoy the Ride, when it came out two years ago, right?

Wrong! So, so wrong. I got the album on a physical CD, and when I threw it into my boombox (so retro!) I basically wrote off the first two songs and then stopped listening. I liked “Want To,” the first single, but I decided that’s where I was stopping. “They’re too commercial now,” I said. “They were a trio on the first album, but then Kristen Hall left. As a duo, they’re just kowtowing to the trends of country pop.”

Or whatever. Sometimes, I have a hard time getting over myself. (I should point out that my boombox is so old that it has a Soul Miner’s Daughter sticker on it. That may have helped me get my nose in the air.)

Thankfully, I saw the amazing video for “Stay,” in which Jennifer Nettles, staring directly at the camera, pleads with her lover to leave his wife. While lip-syncing, she breaks down crying, and it’s remarkable to see her get so connected to her material. (Watch the video here.) 

The song itself is also beautiful–spare and acoustic and built on Nettles’ supple, wounded vocals. But it’s at the end of the album, so I had never heard it before.

When I finally went back, I discovered several great songs. Enjoy the Ride is less consistent than Speed of Life, but it still delivers goodies like “One Blue Sky,” an epic about a Texas town surviving a flood, and “County Line,” which rocks my face, pure and simple.

Once again, what shines through about Sugarland is how sincere they are. Their songs never have obnoxious laundry lists of “authentic” Dixie totems, which many country songwriters use to turn Southern culture into a cheap commodity. (When Gretchen Wilson sings about being a “redneck woman,” for instance, it doesn’t matter if she is one or not. She’s so self-conscious about it, with her perfunctory odes to Tanya Tucker and tobacco, that she seems phony.)

Jennifer Nettles (and her partner Kristian Bush) root all their songs in emotions, then select details that honestly enhance them.

Take “One Blue Sky,” which you can listen to below…

We don’t hear generic paeans to the noble Christian souls of the flood survivors, the way we might in a song from Toby Keith. Instead, we hear about people praying desperately for help. “How long til our dreams run dry?” asks the chorus, “Don’t know, but we’re stayin’/ On our knees, we raise our eyes/ Holdin’ on and prayin’/ to find/ one blue sky.”

The music crashes down in this song like an ocean wave, dark and propulsive, which enhances the sense of longing. 

The track is even more powerful because the verses tells specific stories about people affected by the flood. There’s Annie Vickers, who is boarding up her windows and whose cat is stranded on high ground. There’s Miss Wilson, who thinks she’s getting screwed by an insurance adjustor. And there’s the narrator herself, who doesn’t understand why nobody is answering her letters. 

Combine all this with Nettles’ soulful vocal, and you get a remarkable yarn. I keep listening to it over and over, particularly the part where Nettles tells Annie Vickers to “take whatever she can” from her flooded house and “leave the rest for the crows.” She repeats the line about the crows, and that’s what the drums first explode under her rich, throaty wail. So, so stirring. 

So with the arrival of their third record, I’m finally giving Sugarland the benefit of the doubt. I’m actually expecting rocking, sweet-natured fun; complex ballads; and blistering vocals. 

In other words, like Patti LaBelle, I’ve got a new attitude. I’ll put it to work next week, when I review their new single, “All I Want to Do.”