It's hard to be a fan of the Flying Burrito Brothers. First of all, there's the name. It's very hard to get people to take you seriously when you suggest the flying burrito brothers made one of the best country albums of all time.* Nor did their fondness for Nudie suits:
These are people begging not to be taken seriously.
Then there's the music, which is all excellent: well-constructed compositions, good lyrics, a sincere delivery that manages to convey its sincerity and not reduce it to corn-pone stereotype (*cough* Ryan Adams *cough*) and not oversoul it (*cough* Nashville country *cough*). The construction of "Hot Burrito #2" (oh goodness--and the song titles. there are few songs as serious and moving as "Hot Burrito #1," and typing that clause made me die a little inside) is nothing fancy: mostly a I-IV chord progression, with some minor seconds thrown in to spice things up. What I like is the descending guitar line that puts a different rhythm on top of the regular country shuffle, and implies the existence of chords otherwise not in the song. And the fuzz pedal steel--how this didn't become the biggest thing ever, I've never understand--that allows the song to build at the end, after they've run out of lyrics and (it seems clear to me) there's no set idea on how the song is supposed to end.
*The Gilded Palace of Sin, however, is a great name for an album, especially a country album.
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