Country Song of the Week: Kerosene

I mentioned Miranda Lambert a few posts ago. She is one of the best things going in mainstream country right now. I remember seeing her on CMT with her innocuous first single "Me and Charlie Talkin". I figured she was the latest in a long line of label-created Shania clones that get a little exposure on CMT based on their looks alone and then quietly disappear. Then I saw the video for the brilliant "Kerosene" and saw her on "Austin City Limits", where she name-dropped Steve Earle and Buddy Lee Miller. It turns out she is a singer-songwriter with undoubted skill and a wild streak, more Gretchen Wilson than Carrie Underwood. This performance of "Kerosene" from the CMAs a few years ago shows why she is among a handful of up-and-coming country artists that can succesfully straddle the divide between alt.country and the mainstream, combining killer songwriting with a love of 80s rock show pyrotechnics.