Singer Brad Paisley performs during the Inaugural Ball at the
Walter E. Washington Convention Center on January 21, 2013 in
Washington, DC. President Obama was sworn in for his second term
earlier in the day (Mario Tama)  In an age of milquetoast,
pickup-truck-obsessed himbos, Brad Paisley is one of the few
country artists to regularly wrestle with race and class, and
what happens when those issues intersect with some of Southern
culture's darker impulses.  He's almost certainly the genre's
only superstar to take pride in telling his audience things they
don't want to hear. But country fans can be hidebound and
criticism-averse, and while Paisley's observations usually come
in the form of affectionate nudges and not sharp elbows, even he
can't get away with too much.  Paisley, who recently told an
interviewer that his musical nerve went in and out like the
tide, has lately alternated socially conscious albums with less-
complicated crowd-pleasers. His new disc, "Wheelhouse," (out
April 9) is the follow-up to 2