| Paydirt | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Dash Rip Rock |
| Cover: | dash rip rock Paydirt.jpg |
| Released: | 1998 |
| Genre: | Cowpunk |
| Label: | PC Music[1] |
| Producer: | Fred LeBlanc |
| Prev Title: | Dash Rip Rock's Gold Record |
| Prev Year: | 1996 |
| Next Title: | Sonic Boom |
| Next Year: | 2002 |
Paydirt is an album by the American band Dash Rip Rock, released in 1998.[2] [3] It was the band's first album to be distributed by a major label.[4] Dash Rip Rock supported the album with a North American tour.[5]
The album was produced by former member Fred LeBlanc, who also cowrote the songs. Kyle Melancon took over on drums, replacing Chris Luckette.[2] It was the band's intention to make a more radio-friendly record; they had decided to pull back from national touring if Paydirt was not a success.[6] Some of the album's songs were already band live staples.[7]
The song "King Death" was written in tribute to Country Dick Montana.[8] Tab Benoit contributed guitar to "String You Up"; "Singin' the Blues" is a cover of the Marty Robbins song.[9] [10]
The Washington Post called the album "a Dixie-fried, swamp-soaked version of NRBQ."[11] OffBeat wrote that the band "has largely abandoned the hard rock, punkabilly and song parodies of recent years in favor of a triumphant return to their countrified pop roots."[12]
The Los Angeles Times wrote: "With Paydirt, this notoriously rowdy and raucous trio counterbalances its own typical tendencies by tempering the raunch with brisk smart-pop offerings and even some serious, wistful and lovely jangle-rock numbers far more redolent of R.E.M.'s sober Athens, Ga., classicism than the whiskey-drenched roadhouse mayhem Dash has been bootlegging out of New Orleans for nearly 15 years." The Times-Picayune deemed the album "a collection of mostly mid-tempo, crisp guitar pop."