Album Review: Trailer Radio 'Country Girls Ain't Cheap'

NYC’s Trailer Radio return with their “metro-twang” on their second album, Country Girls Ain’t Cheap, on which the band breezes through some seriously genuine - often dysfunctional and incredibly humorous - country tunes about wild women, murder and Jesus.

Front woman Shannon Brown and company kick off the ten song project with the downright funny and intensely catchy “Granny’s Got the Baby” (‘Cause Mama’s Doin’ Time) about the members of a family who straddle the line somewhere between two extremes as she sings, “ain’t got no hedge fund, but we ain’t section eight.”

The blending of humor with honky-tonk ready tunes continues on the stomping “Country Girls Ain’t Cheap” in which she lets potential suitors know that she’ll be the fun girl for the night, but if you want to make a play you best “show me the deed to your double wide.....better have a few grand in your IRA,” the cleverly written ballad “Woe Is Me,” which reminds that sometimes no matter what remedy you try, sorrow still wins, “I tried to mend my self-esteem with brand new shoes….but you can’t buy love with a credit card now I’m limping everywhere I go, because the blisters on my heart match the blisters on my toes.”, and the roots rocker “Dirt Queen” which pays homage to Appalachia’s favorite daughter who doesn’t want to settle down.

The tale of a place you may (or may not) want to eat at can be found on the witty “Jimmy Jack’s Diner,” “Three Diamond Rings” answers - in super amusing stories - why she hasn’t found someone to settle down with, while the laugh out loud bluegrass fueled “Jesus Loves You (But I’m On The Fence)” is a disastrous tale of a marriage to a man who is a “lower life form than a fly on the wall.”

The album is rounded out with the heartbreaker “The Bottom of Her Boots,” and “Tar Beach,” (the place you’d totally hang for a hell of a time), before closing out with “Big Day for Steffie” a rockabilly tale of a woman who may have gone a little too far after taking “a toke too many.”

Trailer Radio merges traditional country with believable stories and a hefty dose of humor (and heart) that’s a hoot and a half. It’s smart, sassy, and hits the musical sweet spot. 

​Purchase Country Girls Ain't Cheap here

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