Dierks Bentley is a second-tier Nashville star, and he works awfully hard at it. On his seventh studio album, you can hear him laboring. He strains his thin singing voice on ballads like the title track, a sappy plea for American unity. He staggers through his country-dude paces, sounding unconvincingly good-ol'-boy on hard-partying anthems like "Am I the Only One" and "Tip It On Back." Bentley's last album, Up on The Ridge, was an excursion into alt-country-style bluegrass; it was awkward, but his heart was in it. On Home, Bentley's Music Row collaborators occasionally give him good lines to sing (the cheeky "Diamonds Make Babies"). But in a country field crowded with smooth pros, Bentley is sweaty and workmanlike.

Listen to "Home":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.