All Jacked Up

1	All Jacked Up 3:32
2	California Girls 2:49
3	Full Time Job 3:24
4	Skoal Ring 2:50
5	He Ain't Even Cold Yet 3:58
6	One Bud Wiser 3:38
7	Politically Uncorrect 3:23
8	I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today 2:45
9	Rebel Child 3:49
10	Raining on Me 4:23
11	Not Bad for a Bartender 3:49
12	Good Morning Heartache 3:30

Barnes & Noble

By far the most interesting artist to emerge from the overhyped Muzikmafia in Nashville, Gretchen Wilson rode her breakthrough "Redneck Woman" single for all it was worth, and it made her a big star. Her debut album, Here for the Party, revealed unexpected depth -- a quality Wilson carries through on her sophomore effort. She again emphasizes her hard side, kicking things off with "All Jacked Up," an account of a barroom brawl between dueling dames that touches all the appropriate country-rock bases, via jittery fiddle lines, screaming guitars, and a wild-ass call-and-response background chorus. That'll appease the yahoos, but there are more provocative ideas afoot here. Crying out in her best Natalie Maines tone, Wilson brings to vivid life the frustrations of the unappreciated housewife/mom in "Full Time Job," supported by her band with fiddles, pedal steel, and snarling electric guitars. The steady, pulsing arrangement of "Politically Uncorrect" is the ideal backdrop for a litany of personal preferences that place Wilson squarely on the side of traditional values, and Merle Haggard ups the ante by tossing in his two cents' worth, in a song that the Hag of "Fightin' Side of Me" can profoundly relate to. What Wilson can really do with a lyric is exemplified by her low-key, whispery reading of the beautiful honky-tonk heartbreaker "I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today," a masterful performance of subtle but moving interpretive skill, which is topped by a terrific bonus track, a seductive take on Billie Holiday's "Good Morning Heartache," with guitar, fiddle, and brush drums cushioning Wilson's delicate, piercing vocal. It's a real "Wow!" moment -- this Redneck Woman is just beginning to reveal her true colors. David McGee

All Music Guide

Gretchen Wilson uses the title of her second album as a euphemism for wasted. "Next thing you know, the bartender's pourin'/Shots a flowin', got me stoned and...." -- the moral of the story is, don't pick fights or start trucks when you're "All Jacked Up." But the phrase is broadly applicable, too. "All jacked up" describes a malfunctioning engine as effectively as the roughshod look of an ill-advised one-night stand. Of course it's also a rallying cry for the blue-collar zeitgeist, like Larry the Cable Guy's "Git-R-Done" or the title of Wilson's breakthrough single, "Redneck Woman," and it's that constituency All Jacked Up sings to proudly. It's not its music that makes an impression -- this record was rushed after the phenomenal success of her debut, Here for the Party, with writing and recording squeezed in between continued promotion and performance, and while Wilson's always refreshingly brash as a vocalist, the arrangements are only satisfactory. No, All Jacked Up's lyrics, attitude, and message are its most important parts. In "California Girls" Wilson thumbs her nose at Hollywood excess and body image. "Ain't you glad there's still a few of us left?" she asks, "[Who] ain't afraid to eat fried chicken and dance to Merle?" Haggard himself guests on "Politically Uncorrect," a tribute to the soldiers, single mothers, third-shifters, and believers -- any group you can think of that's been marginalized and/or politicized in the culture war. And in the terrifically unapologetic honky tonk "Skoal Ring," Wilson "don't want a bunch of bling-bling," because the "berry blend on his lips still turns me on." All Jacked Up just keeps building on the themes of Here for the Party, swaggering boldly and nodding to the legacy of George Jones along the way. Wilson is pushing back against the weird plastic and flashbulb "norms" of American popular media with mud on her hands and simple pleasures on her mind. In "One Bud Wiser" she finds solace from a bad breakup in a cold sip of beer, while "Not Bad for a Bartender" is the sequel to Here for the Party's "Pocahontas Proud," with Wilson reflecting on her rise to fame with an air of thanks, amazement, and "it could happen to you" homespun encouragement. We're all in this together, she's trying to say; so let's get some drinks and celebrate the New Redneck. Johnny Loftus

New York Times

Even toned down, her persona has the spunk that country needs. Jon Pareles

Entertainment Weekly

A feisty follow-up that sticks to the debut's ballads-plus-bar-anthems blueprint while revealing a broader range. (A) Will Hermes