accessAtlanta

COUNTRY
Gretchen Wilson
"All Jacked Up." Epic. 12 tracks.
Grade: A-

Kristin Barlowe (ENLARGE)
Gretchen Wilson's unrepentant country sound is influencing the music scene.
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Gretchen Wilson isn't just here for the party, as she proclaimed in the title track of her multiplatinum debut album. She is the party.

There hadn't been a female solo artist at the top of the country singles chart in more than two years when Wilson stormed to the top with "Redneck Woman" in 2004. She's arguably the hottest thing going in country music.

The folks in Nashville took notice of the success of her hard-drinking, bad-girl honky-tonk and yee-haw Southern rock. You can hear the aftershocks in the work of nearly every major female country artist with a new album this year. They're all letting their roots show, packing on the fiddles and pedal steels and leaving the pop to the Britneys and Mariahs.

"All Jacked Up" is Wilson's victory lap, and there's no doubt she's keeping it country and sticking with a winning formula. She's still knocking back a few ("All Jacked Up," "One Bud Wiser"), commiserating with the hard-working wives and mothers of the world ("Full Time Job") and, as she threatened last time around, kicking "pretty little butts" (in "California Girls," which gives Paris Hilton a resounding smack upside the head).

She does take time out for a little well-earned self-congratulations on "Not Bad for a Bartender," singing "I served cold beer, warm whiskey and rotgut wine/ Now I'm up here on the stage/ Everybody knows my name." She's no selfish diva, because the tune turns into a pep talk for all the redneck girls like her. "And if there's hope for me/ Know there's hope for you."

Wilson's not just the fist-pumping cheerleader for the average Jill, though. She's putting spirit back in country music.