Wide Open Spaces

Dixie Chicks, The

album cover

Thinking Girl's Country Pop

On the title track of this multiplatinum breakthrough, Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines champions the dreams and aspirations of young American women. Defending a girl's right to dream (while at the same time voicing concern about the vanishing wilderness), she proclaims "She needs wide open spaces, room to make her big mistakes."

In the staid world of mid-'90s country, when high-gloss Shania Twain was the closest thing to a "rebel" girl, this stance was a bit unusual. The three Chicks—Maines, Emily Robison, and Martie Maguire—did things their own way, and sang proudly about it. They railed against the sexist expectations of Nashville, which they knew well (Maines's father is Lloyd Maines, the veteran pedal-steel guitarist and record producer). They wrote their own songs (half of this album is original material). And eventually they made their own trouble, by questioning President Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq.

But it's the sound of the Chicks that makes these declarations of independence so unshakable. Whether sharing man trouble or affirming the rebellious impulse, the three singers braid their voices together into breathtaking harmonies that shift around, on a quest for new loveliness. It's a stunning, shimmering sound, and it enlivens songs written by the Chicks, and those penned by a small crew of California tunesmiths in the Jackson Browne mold—this version of J. D. Souther's "I'll Take Care of You" is definitive. And, in another refreshing departure from Nashville practice, there's no filler: Each of the twelve songs on Wide Open Spaces is stunning.

Genre: Country
Released: 1998, Monument/Sony
Key Tracks: "I'll Take Care of You," "There's Your Trouble," "You Were Mine."
Catalog Choice: Home.
Next Stop: Gretchen Wilson: Here for the Party.
Book Page: 226

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