POP REVIEW : Country’s Cyrus: Heart of a Rocker

If Billy Ray Cyrus really were a country singer, he’d have some achy breaky vocal cords to go with that famously damage-prone heart.

As much as Garth Brooks might dip into pop sources and styles in achieving across-the-board popularity, the catch in his voice and the sudden dips and broad bends in his phrasing are as unmistakably country as his cowboy hat and boots.

Cyrus, the rookie whose album “Some Gave All,” sparked by the hit “Achy Breaky Heart,” took an unprecedentedly brief (for a debut release) two weeks to hit the top of the Billboard pop chart, is nominally a country act. But at the Crazy Horse on Tuesday, Cyrus looked like a bar rocker (sneakers, muscle shirt and ponytail), moved like a bar rocker (hip-shakin’ all over, unless he was striking dashing poses) and sounded like a bar rocker.

He eschewed catch-in-the-voice colorings in favor of a husky approach that, with its unforced masculinity, reinforced the ardor his athletic build and Mel Gibson-like face elicited from female fans who shrieked their affection loudly and often. Cyrus made sure to give them ample opportunity, taking long pauses to soak up the noise.

Musically, the 30-year-old Kentuckian’s attachment to country tradition was only tangential. Like the early Eagles or Lynyrd Skynyrd (whose rambunctious rocker “The Breeze” Cyrus performed in his 70-minute early show), country was a point of reference, but no foundation. Only one song, the humorously sloshed “Where’m I Gonna Live?,” provided a fix for those in need of good old honky-tonk.

To the extent that Cyrus is “country,” it’s more in his manner than his music. He wasn’t out to sell attitude, rebellion, or what Todd Rundgren dubbed “the ever-popular tortured-artist effect.” He was there to please and to be liked, to playfully flash a nipple at a woman who kept calling for him to take off his shirt, and to be properly, humbly thankful to the fans who’ve made him a hit.

Cyrus’ performance had some of the appeal of good, basic bar rock (it was tuneful and well played) but also some of the drawbacks (his music was conventional, pleasant on the surface but with little sustaining substance).

After opening slowly with two unreleased songs that didn’t make a strong first impression, and a rocked-up version of the bluegrass standard “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” Cyrus got down to playing material from his album that was unrelentingly catchy. His five-man band displayed no dazzling individuality, but it was always effective, and occasionally pretty hot (especially on the Skynyrd tune and a good, brawny rendering of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ”). Backing vocals were a strong suit, enabling Cyrus to achieve that mark of barroom professionalism: exact replication of his recordings.

Cyrus played his “Achy Breaky” ace well, using it at mid-set to rev up the action. It was a good, unassuming move, implying that his gaily lurching signature hit was just part of the concert’s larger framework.

But Cyrus couldn’t resist reprising “Achy Breaky Heart” as an easy, crowd-pleasing show-closer. Like his concert as a whole, that second run-through was fun, but not very original or daring.

Cyrus has looks, hooks, energy and likability on his side. As long as the hooks keep coming, so may the hits. But unless he can probe deeper and get beyond the stock sentiments of his first album, those hits won’t linger in a demanding listener’s heart--achy, breaky or otherwise.