Hi, everyone. Rhinethonysone Cowboytano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Orville Peck album, Stampede.

Here we have a brand new LP from country singer and songwriter, Mr. Orville Peck, one of the most interesting up and comers in the genre at the moment, with an ear for showy and dramatic production, as well as a voice that any hardcore Elvis fan should love, along with loads of lyrics with blatantly queer overtones. Orville is truly one of one on the current day mainstream country scene.

He graduated off the indie circuit pretty hard off of his last full length LP, 2022's Bronco. The record had its share of flaws, but overall, it was still a very impressive showing of Orville's singing and songwriting chops, as well as the vocal range that he has mustered over the years. He has really improved as a singer with project after project. Now, after all of the success he has seen up until this point, becoming country's new It Boy, he is now taking advantage of that shine and attention on this new LP here, which is a bit of a concept project loaded with wall-to-wall features. Just a wide variety of guests helping Orville create an array of originals, variations, covers.

So obviously, all of these appearances make the record, but there are also some points at which they break the record, too, because, yeah, some crossovers on this thing are proof of the phrase, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

I mean, look, there are a fair amount of collabs on this LP that make a lot of sense on paper and in execution. One of the best examples being the opener, "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other", featuring none other than Willie Nelson. It is a campy tale and ballad of closeted cowboy love, parts of which sound eerily similar to, "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys." I think that's obviously intentional. It's a cheek, coy, and charming little crossover with Willy, but most importantly, it's totally factamundos in terms of its sexual and gender politics. I mean, all in all, aesthetically and conceptually, it is 110% what makes Orville Peck, Orville Peck. You have a shimmering, lush take on classic country production, his amazing vocal range, the theatrics, the very specific brand of storytelling.

However, not every collaboration on this record is quite as strong or brings as much chemistry to the table. There are some artists in the mix that, unfortunately, for lack of a better phrase, don't really match Orville's freak or are a bit basic, plain, vanilla, or just them matching up with Orville comes across that way.

What comes to mind is the "Hurtin' Kind" featuring Midland, or "How Far Will We Take It" featuring Noah Cyrus, as well as "Ever You're Gone" featuring Teddy Swims. As much as I do typically like his voice on a solo track or two, tracks like these, to my ears, feel like collaborations in name and in name only. There's not a whole lot of what seems like creative chemistry or vocal chemistry going on. Some of these tracks could have either been done solo or with a totally different singer entirely, and you would have gotten much the same results.

Then deeper into the record, there are some tracks where Orville is working with some total legends over ill-conceived ideas, and it's like watching oil and water mixed together, like the track "Chemical Sunset". What is this? Some creepy vaudville vagabond jazz ballad number? I'm sorry. Just no, no, this is not working

There's also "Death Valley High" featuring Beck, and I'm not quite sure this one works either as, I don't know if this pop, rap, country, rock fusion, that is usually Beck's bag, compliments Orville quite as much. Even if I do think the big showy, Vegas-sized, Elvis-esque chorus on the track is pretty good.

There's also a cover of Elton John's "Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting", featuring Elton John, which just doesn't rock nearly as hard as the original, and hearing a version that is produced to high heaven in the way this one is only serves as a reminder of that.

There's also "Midnight Ride" featuring Kylie Minogue, which on paper, I think, is one of the better song ideas on the record. This pop country disco dance combination with a killer chorus and spaghetti Western guitars, too. But Diplo is also in the mix on this song, and I can tell what he brings to the track aesthetically. And honestly, every touch he throws into the cut only makes it sound like some dated, stale pop leftover from the 2000s, which is so unfortunate because the song at the core of this one is so good. It should have just been treated with more care.

With all of those critiques out of the way, though, I will say very few of these songs I think are truly, genuinely awful. Most of them are quite listenable. Meanwhile, there are a ton of others that are actually, genuinely great. Total bangers. Hilarious bits. Captivating ballads. Like "Back at your Door", which is an amazing acoustic duet featuring singer-songwriter Debbie Dawson. And yeah, it's a track of getting back together and the vulnerability and desperation of that. And the vocal chemistry on this one is just thick.

There's also "Miente Me", which is a Latin crossover that goes off without a hitch. "Papa Was A Rodeo" is a surprising inclusion as it is a Magnetic Fields cover of all things, with Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway. And while it does sound wildly different from the original, the very wholesome country folk fusion going on in the instrumental, I actually think complements the tune really well. And yeah, I mean, I think the performance really brings home an emphasis on the song's lyrics about having difficulties making connections because you're traveling, you're moving. Papa was a rodeo, essentially someone who didn't stick around. But then at the end of the track, you both learn that the two love interests in the song both had that same background, that same upbringing. So they're actually able to make that connection in the end.

Then further from here, "You're an Asshole, I Can't Stand You (And I Want a Divorce)" with Margo Price is incredible and hilarious for reasons that I don't even really think need explaining as far as the title goes on this track. It's pretty much what you see is what you get. I guess what I will say is that the track is as funny as you would hope it would be given what it was named.

Then from here, I'll say that the record has a very, very, very strong finish with three soaring country power ballads, "Where Are You Now", "Conquer the Heart", and then finally, a pretty note-for-note version of the Larry Weiss country classic, "Rhinestone Cowboy", which doesn't really reinvent the wheel on the song too much, but it's a pretty fitting ending for this record, and it's at least very well-executed.

I mean, look, overall, given what I had heard in the lead-up to this record as far as teasers, this album did confirm the fears I had going into it a little bit. It is a mixed bag. Some of the collaborations are not that great. There's just really some boring ones on the tracklist. I don't know what to say. I mean, if they somehow got left off onto an EP or something, or maybe were just thrown on at the end as deluxe tracks, the core album itself would have been a lot better for it.

But still, don't let the lowlights on this LP distract you from the amazing, incredible, and what I think are career-defining highlights. Work that is so good that it makes me even more excited to hear what he will do down the road on his next truly solo-focused effort.

But yeah, Stampede, pretty decent, solid collab-centric album, which I am very much feeling a light seven on.

Anthony Fantano. Orville Peck. Forever.