Tanya Tucker

Already a hardened veteran at age 19, Tucker had the muscle to really tick off Nashville with this hard-rocking 1978 release. It was a big hit, and Music City was quick to rip off the very bluesy, honky-tonk sound they were castigating. What's funny is how people wish Nashville made albums that sounded as "country" as TNT.

Tanya Tucker's first rock & roll record, TNT, isn't the all-out hard-rock album the title and
the ads promise: it's far too slicked up, overworked and cautious. But it's not the all-out
disaster a lot of people were expecting either. Among noncountry audiences, Tucker is
usually thought of as not much better than a novelty act. Despite its shakiness, TNT
certainly explodes that notion. Tucker is still too callow to be a particularly soli... More >

The problem with Tanya's crossover is her functional but rather tiny brain--if only she had some real idea of exactly what she wanted to become, her pipes would put it across. Despite the heavy hoopla, the rock move here comprises three of the '50s classes that have always been her meat, and all that distinguishes this from earlier MCA Tanya is that Jerry Goldstein, her new intellectual adviser, has contributed three unusually bad songs. (Grade - C+)