See, this is the reason why showing concern of where and how songs are placed in music charts is so critical, and how making a simple mistake can cause dramatic reverberations throughout the music ecosystem where now you have long-standing institutions and entire genres of music being accused of outright racism.
When you hear certain albums from some of country music’s mainstream performers, it’s patently clear to large portions of the audience that these albums aren’t pop country, they’re just pop, period. But in the pop world when artist dabble in country influences, they tend to be more honest about how the end result is still pop.
It’s cool that the ACM Awards spectrum out their annual “Best New Artist” award to male, female, and duo/group categories to give up-and-comers that much more opportunity for recognition. But it’s also lame how they report who actually won on a random Monday with a quick email.
Announced Monday morning (3-25), country music duo Maddie & Tae will finally have an album of new music to peddle come April 26th when a 5-song EP called ‘One Heart To Another’ is released via Mercury Nashville. But there’s a reason why this release feels inappropriate, and more of a stop gap than a proper album.
If you’ve been paying any attention to country music over the last few years, you know to be paying attention to just about any performing songwriter hailing from Kentucky. It’s the state that has given us Tyler Childers, Dillon Carmichael, Chris Stapleton, Kelsey Waldon, and Sturgill Simpson just to name a few over the last few years.
Yes, Captain Old Farts & Jackasses has given traditional country fans plenty of reasons to give him a hairy eyeball over the years or curse his name under their breath (anyone remember the tractor rapping of “Boys ‘Round Here”?) But I’ll be damned if Blake Shelton hasn’t been on some prolonged traditional country kick lately.
“We are all the same. There is no difference anywhere in the world. People are people. They laugh, cry, feel, and love, and music seems to be the common denominator that brings us all together. Music cuts through all boundaries and goes right to the soul.” — Willie Nelson
Everyone has an opinion of who should be in the Hall of Fame. But few held the opinion it should be Ray Stevens. Sorry Hall of Fame. Love you, but this was a bad, bad pick. What a joke. Hank Williams Jr., Jerry Lee Lewis, Maddox Brothers and Rose, and a host of other performers were much more deserving.
As a country music fan, you just want to proudly be able to profess to people your appreciation for this music that you hold such a passion for. You want to believe in its institutions, and that the best and the brightest of a generation are foisted forward and given the greatest opportunities.
It’s time again to consider who might be in the running for the precious few spots as the newest inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame. At about this time, a secret committee commissioned by the CMA is going over their final ballots and whittling down the precious names to the few who will make it.
In this politically contentious time we live in, many members of the partisan media attempt to portray popular music artists in a political light even when it’s not pertinent to the situation, or even when the artist doesn’t want to be. But Dolly Parton continues to refuse to be played.
‘Austin City Limits’ has brought in popular country acts in the past such as Garth Brooks and Eric Church who don’t need the exposure whatsoever, but still have ties to the American roots scene in some capacity. But Kane Brown is uniquely unqualified and undeserving of this slot, and unhelpful to the mission of ‘Austin City Limits.’
Can we go back to the time when the biggest worry we had with The Zac Brown Band was that his song “Chicken Fried” was a precursor to Bro-Country? Remember that moment in 2009 when he took the stage at the CMA Awards and ripped into a badass version of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” and had us all pumping our fists?
Bloodshot Records was a stepping stone, and a repository for artists who were too ornery to be signed elsewhere. And that was what was cool about them. It was a punk attitude imprinted on country, and their verbiage about leading an insurgency inspired others to pick up the charge to take country music back, including this very website.
The heart welled up with excitement in many true country music fans when word came down that Brooks & Dunn had a new title on the way, only to be tempered by the fact that it’s a Reboot (nice double entendre there) of some of their old classics re-recorded with contemporary stars.
The ACM Awards announced their 2019 nominees on Wednesday (2-21), and it felt so liberating to not feel the need to immediately deliberate over the organization’s conclusions, and instead regard them with the tacit relevance they probably deserve.
Life rarely works out the way you plan it, and this is especially true when it comes to marriages and divorces. In the world of power celebrities, marriage is often its own occupation in leveraging the attention of the masses via celebrity gossip rags to make one’s popular culture brand more compelling to the wide population.
The bombshell moment for the asterisk era in music streaming is likely to happen at some point. It may be wishful thinking to think this Kane Brown lawsuit will be it. But it could be. And so this lawsuit is definitely worth watching.
“When we first came across PledgeMusic it looked like the perfect platform,” says Noah Alexander, lead vocalist and guitarist of the Plott Hounds. “It existed in the space between us and fans all over the world. It gave us a platform to draw attention to the creation of our new record. It gave us the platform to connect with our fans and invite them to be a part of the process.”
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the 2019 installment of the Saving Country Music LIVE blog covering the 61st Annual Gammy Awards. This could shape up as an important year in country music, with Brandi Carlie, Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price, Luke Combs, and others up for big awards over the evening.
All the information about the 2019, 61st Annual Grammy Awards you need in one place, including the performers, the presenters, the nominees, and the important narratives the night will present in country and roots music, and beyond.
To read the proclamations of the politically-charged entertainment media, the major expression of Kacey Musgraves’ career so far has been the song “Follow Your Arrow” with its pro-pot and pro-gay stances, which we’re told are incredibly evolved and forward-thinking for the stuffy and ultra-Conservative country music environment.
You shouldn’t have to tell anybody how country you are. It should be patently obvious in the first few bars of a song that an artist or song is country. Unfortunately though, with the loss of country instrumentation, the pervasiveness of electronic beats, performers feel the need to explain how they’re country.
It’s no April Fools Joke. Country music legend Loretta Lynn is gearing up to celebrate her 87th birthday this April 14th, and on April 1st, many of country music’s finest will be coming together to show tribute to the Coal Miners Daughter in a massive concert and birthday party at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.