The future looks bright for Texas music, and that’s partly due to the promising prospects of groups like Flatland Cavalry. Led by singer and songwriter Cleto Cordero, the Lubbock-based band gives your ears something to feast on when you’ve worn out your Turnpike Troubadours records for the moment.
We took the time to celebrate some of the Best Songs Released in 2018, as well as some of the Best Albums, so now it’s time to place a clothespin firmly on our noses, slip on some elbow-length rubber gloves, and go digging through the cesspool that is radio country to dredge up the absolute worst offenses.
The Americana Music Association has released the Top 100 Albums and Songs for 2018 according to the amount of radio play each album and song received. The annual report gives listeners a glimpse into the albums, songs, and artists that gained traction in the format over the year, and is a good tool to see what you missed.
Naming the best live performances of a given year is not the same exercise as naming the best songs, albums, or artists, because it is specifically dependent on the experiences of the individual making the list. But it’s still an important exercise.
“ ‘Organic’ is a good word,” Gary Allan says. “I feel like somebody needs to stick out and turn this thing back toward something more organic. Country music used to be the most organic stuff out there, and now it’s become super pop-influenced. We used to influence pop. Now I feel like we’re being influenced by pop.”
As we get near the end of the year and the amount of new releases begins to slow down, it allows us to look forward at what might be ahead for 2019. One artist and album that is already emerging to be on the lookout for is Charles Wesley Godwin’s ‘Seneca’ that is due to be released on February 15th, 2019.
If you didn’t have a physical copy, or perhaps matured during the streaming era of music, then you’ve possibly never experienced what is considered one of the greatest works in country music history—‘Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music’ by Ray Charles.
The one thing you can point to that makes a song decidedly not country is the presence of electronic drums. The human operated element of country music is one of the last great differences between country and the rest of popular music, and more frequently electronic beats have been creeping into the pop country soundscape.
Christmas is officially cool again after years of American popular culture being too cool for Christmas. But there was never a time when Christmas and music was cooler in America than in the 1950’s. JD McPherson proves himself uniquely qualified to tackle the difficult task of recording a Christmas record.
Cute, Florida Georgia Line, cute. Call your latest album Can’t Say I Ain’t Country and act as if this somehow insulates you against what any country music fan worth their salt already knows inherently. I can, and will say you ain’t country if I damn well please, as will the rest of us.
Yes, Country Music Hall of Famer Alan Jackson will tour in 2019, and we’ve now got the dates to prove it. After announcing a few dates earlier this week, he let some more loose on Thursday (12-13), with more to come soon. Starting on January 25th, he’ll be heading out on an arena tour that will see him hit multiple stops.
An artist like Ashley McBryde doesn’t need radio. It’s radio that needs an artist like Ashley McBryde. Radio shouldn’t play McBryde just because she’s a woman. They should play her because she’s real. Ultimately, “Girl Goin’ Nowhere” may fail at radio. But Ashley McBryde is going somewhere regardless.
Once again speaking to the commercial prowess of hard pounding country music honky tonker Cody Jinks, the Ft. Worth native recently did something usually reserved for only the top echelon of mainstream country musicians—he topped the Billboard Country Boxscore chart for top grossing tour revenue.
I get it, you take to the internet to read insightful and incisive reviews on records you may or may not purchase or stream. But on this particular project, I really don’t know what to think about it, or what to tell you to think about it. More specifically, I can see it both ways, and think that both sides of the argument are right.
Like many underground roots bands, Sean K. Preston and the Loaded Pistols aren’t just country. They mix in a healthy dose of rockabilly, surf, blues, and serve it all with a dark punk attitude, punctuated with a grit and a growl which makes going to the concerts, or getting a snoot full of the music a more frenetic experience.
Oh you’ve got to love watching the contortions of the fawning media trying to convince the masses that Kane Brown is some kind of country music revivalist because they believe his “diversity” is good for the genre. Recently ‘Variety’ named Kane Brown’s song “Heaven” a quote unquote “pure country smash.”
Tyler Childers has a new haircut (high and tight), and a bunch of new tour dates he’s just released for 2019. Most important to note is that the new headlining dates will sell out, and probably immediately. Tyler Childers has sold out basically every show he’s played in the latter half of 2018.
Americana artist Ryan Bingham announced that he will be hosting and curating an inaugural festival in legendary Luckenbach, TX called The Western Music Festival. The only problem is Ryan Bingham and Live Nation are holding the festival on the same weekend as the 32-year-old not-for-profit Old Settler’s Festival.
George Strait has an album of new music on the way for the first time in four years, and it will be called Honky Tonk Time Machine. This was the country legend’s pronouncement from the stage of the T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas this weekend as he played a round of residency shows.
Some benefit concerts are humbled to have whomever they can get to grace their stage and contribute their talents to the cause. When it comes to the over 30-year-old Tibet House US Benefit Concert held annually in New York City, it’s a humbling experience for the artists asked to play due to the prestige of the opportunity.
Like Ralphie from ‘The Christmas Story’ waiting for his Little Orphan Annie secret decoder pin to arrive in the mailbox, we’ve been dutifully checking our email inboxes and social media feeds for any news on new music coming down the pike from the King of Country Music himself, George Strait.
The nominees for the 2019 Grammy Awards were announced Friday morning (12-7), and some of the things we anticipated happening have happened. But the biggest takeaway, and surprisingly so, is Brandi Carlile earning six total nominations, including all-genre nominations for Album, Song, and Record of the Year.
If you love to get your Everly Brothers vibe on, there’s just about no better modern alternative than brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey, known collectively as The Cactus Blossoms. These Minneapolis-based blood brothers have announced they have a new album on the way called ‘Easy Way.’
This story has been updated. The big news in country music on Wednesday (12-5) was how for the first time in the nearly 30-year history of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, there wasn’t even one woman represented in the Top 20. By Billboard’s charting methods, this is true. And regardless of whatever other clarification points proceed […]
