The long, arduous wait for new music from Hayes Carll appears to be coming to a close. After an extended pause between 2011’s ‘KMAG YOYO,’ Carll and Thirty Tigers announced a partnership in May of 2014, with a new album set to be released in “early 2015.” Even at that point, the wait of some eight or nine months seemed like it would take forever. Then early 2015 came and passed, and still no new Hayes.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now live in a world where not even King George remains relevant on country radio. Isn’t that the sad, ever present revelation of the living—that time marches on, and no matter how important something was in the past, the present moves forward, callously at times, and the greatest of efforts are relegated to moments of fond reminiscing.
Kenny Rogers officially announced his retirement on September 25th, along with a final farewell tour, as part of an interview on NBC’s Today Show. At the time, Rogers cited wanting to spend more time with his 11-year-old twin boys, and not being able to get around the stage due to limited mobility as the primary reasons he was deciding to call it quits.
You may not be able to find a more insular, inbred, and ass backwards institution in the entirety of the North American economy than country radio. Run by good ol’ boys in the pockets of big labels, and mid level corporate bureaucratic bean counters who bark orders from on high to hundreds of stations, the idea of country radio either serving the communities they broadcast to or artists died decades ago.
Being willing to go where a song takes you is the challenge in the heart of every music lover. Hopefully one of these songs released in 2015 will take you some place you want to be, or somewhere you’ve never been before. These songs were selected on their own merit, not from the strength of the artist or album from where they came.
The release date for the Hank Williams biopic I Saw The Light may have been pushed back from November 27th to March 25th, 2016, but at least we finally have a proper trailer for the once highly-anticipated movie. Most of the high hopes that the film could create a resurgence in interest in the life […]
It’s all R&B. Like, all of it. If it’s American and mainstream, chances are it’s better categorized as R&B than anything else. It doesn’t matter what genre of music you’re talking about. Of course R&B sounds like R&B, but so does hip-hop these days. Modern rock? Yeah, it’s pretty much just R&B. Country music? That may be the most convincing case.