Hello once again all of you fans of Ray Stevens!! By now I'm sure you've gotten your copies of the current Ray Stevens album, Say Whut?. I don't know if you prefer to purchase physical copies of a CD or if you prefer purchasing digital downloads. I used to prefer having a physical copy of a CD but as time has gone on I've distanced myself from that point of view. Does this mean I no longer care if a CD is available? No, I always hope that a CD of music is available simply because I like the data that comes along with the CD. With a CD you get a compact disc, of course, but you also receive printed information such as musician, songwriter, and publisher credits which usually do not accompany your standard digital download.
As I touched upon in a few blog entries prior to this one this is what you might consider a modern-day classic album from Ray Stevens. It has 11 tracks and although it's widely being promoted as a comedy album there are a couple of songs on here that I wouldn't categorize necessarily as 'ha! ha! laugh out loud' comedy. Some people may define those particular songs as social commentary. What are those songs? Well, from my perspective, I'd define "Where Are All The 12 Year Old's?", "Everybody's On the Telephone", and "Don't Be Woke" as social commentary. The main track, as I call it, which debuted as a music video blends comedy and social commentary, "Since Bubba Changed His Name to Charlene". The songs strike a chord with a common sense crowd and with those who simply want to laugh or forget their own problems and concerns. The album, in CD format, can be purchased on Ray's official website. The majority of music consumers/listeners no doubt have already added the album or tracks from the album to their online music libraries. YouTube remains the most easily accessible online platform to hear his music. By easily accessible I mean you don't have to be word specific in search engines as you do at Amazon. After a month of availability, for example, you go to Amazon and type in Ray's name and the title of the album and you won't get an accurate search result until you click additional information. As of this writing if you type in 'Ray Stevens Say Whut' over on Amazon you're going to get a result page that shows his Frank Sinatra tribute album. That one is called Ray Stevens Sings Sinatra...Say What?. What Amazon customers/visitors will have to do is click the fine print that says 'search instead for Ray Stevens Say Whut?'. When you click that secondary link it's only then that Ray's current album will show up in the search results over there. Fear not, though. For those that prefer to listen to their Ray Stevens songs on Amazon here's a link to the music player page for Ray... when you click HERE it'll take you to Amazon where you'll see all of the digital albums by Ray that are available. You'll see Say Whut? among the selections. If you're new to Ray you'll be able to get to know his unique style rather quickly given the decades of songs/albums available.
Meanwhile, over on YouTube, the organic views of the audio tracks from Ray's current album indicate that they're reaching people without much advertising. One of the tracks, "If It Walks Like a Duck", has more than 3,000 unique views with absolutely no publicity. The same can be said for the track "I Dropped My Wallet in the Toilet" which has more than 2,000. One of my favorites from the album, which hasn't gotten as much response so far, is "The More You Cry". Yes, I admit that what makes it one of my favorites is the traditional country music flair heard throughout the music arrangement but it's also a very funny story song. As is the case with most, if not all, comedy albums from Ray it has a diverse cross section of comedy...from the observational humor of "Everybody's on the Telephone" to the absurd humor of "If It Walks Like a Duck" to the laugh out loud comedy of "The More You Cry" and "Put Your Old Boyfriend's Name Right Here". There are a couple of songs on here that don't fit comedy or social commentary... those are "Cupholders" and the audio track below, "A Boy Fell from a Tree", which features, to my ears at least, a smooth jazz music arrangement.
Closing out this blog entry is the audio track, "The More You Cry".
