Allison Moorer

The Hardest Part

(MCA Records)

Country is probably the most misbegotten genre this side of rock ’n’ roll. The genre is destroying its own roots for the sake of mainstream conformity.

The Nashville machine that produced the Tim McGraws and Shania Twains of the world should probably have Hank Williams spinning in his grave, but it’s simply business as usual.

Country audiences seem pretty cool with it, and record executives are no doubt dizzy that Faith Hill can do Pepsi commercials along with that annoying little girl with Joe Pesci’s voice.

The machine pours out entertainers whose success relies on their looks and the audience’s undiscerning taste.

Which brings us to Allison Moorer, whose style is nowhere near manufactured enough to be part of the Garth Brooks-esque pop/country genre. However, that’s not saying much.

Moorer’s record sounds like a country record. It even has real instruments on it. Her songwriting is competent, but uninspired. Moorer wrote the album with producer Doyle Primm.

She tells tales of loneliness and loss, but she lacks the emotion to be really touching.

The fiddles and pedal steel are just here to make it a country record. Without them, most people would mistake the album for pop-rock.

Moorer does put some decent songs together, such as “It’s Time I Tried,” which has old soul music instrumentation, and “Think it Over,” which is a decent, up-tempo country-rock effort.

She’s a competent singer, but she just doesn’t have the soul to pull this album off. It could have been saved by a great voice or by good songwriting, but as a thoroughly middle-of-the-road record, it just sits there doing nothing.

It’s a record that dodges the worst clichés but doesn’t do enough on its own to succeed.