“If I ever meet that guy from Saving Country Music he is gonna see just how Country I really am!” says Mark Wystrach of Midland, while calling Saving Country Music’s coverage of the band “lies” and “click-bait.” But it was never about how “authentic” Midland was. It was about their attempts to unnecessarily embellish their back story.
Now there is an entirely new reason to consider transitioning from ad-based streaming to a paid account, and it’s based off the greater commitment paid subscribers show to the music they listen to as opposed to the free-siders. Announced on Thursday (10-19), Billboard has made it known they are tweaking the way their charts work in 2018.
Pony up you cheapskate. It’s a mere pittance to sign up for a premium account through Spotify, Pandora, or whomever, and you get a commercial-free experience, sometimes with better audio quality, and the creators and industry that served you that music will get a little more money compared to the commercial-supported side.
Tonight, Florida Georgia Line’s fleet of buses and semis will be set up in the parking lot of the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena in Florida, and Nelly, who less than a week ago was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in his bus as it idled in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Washington State, will be taking the stage with them.
One year ago, I posted the same picture of Rhiannon Giddens, with her fingers touching and her eyes shifted to the side like she’s about to hatch some devilish plan, and I told you, the sainted Saving Country Music reader, to watch out for what she had in store. “We’re not screwing around anymore here folks,” I said.
Sam Hunt’s historic, and likely insurmountable reign at the top of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart with his terrible, non-country song “Body Like A Backroad” has finally ended, but only after forever besmirching country music’s history books, and relinquishing the spot to another decidedly non-country “country” performer and song.
The Southern rock side of the country music space is blessed with some serious stalwart bands that have been around for years. At the same time, just like with every genre of music, the flux of bands breaking up and legends passing means there’s always room for fresh faces and new perspectives on the music to help keep it vital.
I understand. For those of you who are for strong new gun regulations that could potentially help prevent the massacre like we saw in Las Vegas, the idea of mainstream country music’s top artists coming out against the NRA is a salivating, sumptuous idea. But it’s never going to happen.
Steel guitar and accordion have always had their place in the sound of the Turnpike Troubadours, even if they weren’t featured full time. When fleshing out songs in the studio, or when lead guitarist Ryan Engleman started playing some songs behind the steel rig a few years ago, it added another dimension and dynamic to […]
You know me. I’ve made an entire career out of exploiting any and every minuscule chink in mainstream country’s armor, and rearing back and reefing pop country’s worst offenders right square in the short pants for any perceived slight. And specifically, Jason Aldean has been a favorite target of Saving Country Music.
There is something very distinctly American about the mass shooting, isn’t there? It’s like apple pie and Chevrolet pickup trucks, just not as wholesome, obviously. Though there are cultures and countries throughout the world that are decidedly more violent and more unsafe to inhabit, there is something interwoven…
According to numerous reports, Tom Petty was rushed to the hospital Sunday (10-1) night when he was found in his Malibu home unconscious, and not breathing, having suffered from cardiac arrest. They were able to get a pulse on Petty as he was rushed to UCLA Santa Monica Hospital where he was placed on life support.
“I feel like we manifested [Midland], because this is our playground…,” says Shane McAnally. “When these guys walked in and were a vehicle for those kinds of songs, and also quite capable of writing them as well, it was like ‘Weird Science,’ like, it wasn’t our design, but it’s almost like we put into a machine what we wanted, and out came Midland.”
Dolly Parton, appearing in the capacity of one of the primary cast members for the 1980 smash comedy 9 to 5, took the stage with fellow leads from the movie Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, to hand out the evening’s Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries award. Lily and Jane decided to use the platform to launch into our fair President.
On Episode 97 of Chris Shiflett’s Walking The Floor podcast, the Foo Fighters guitarist and part-time Americana solo performer interviewed Chris Stapleton, and the topic of Saving Country Music came up in the context of criticizing music in mainstream country.
Each year the release of the Stagecoach Festival lineup is a point of intrigue as people sift though the names and remark on the font sizes, and see who has been tapped to play the 3-day event in Indio, CA in April. As arguably one of the biggest country music festivals all year, the artists booked say a lot about who is rising in country music.
For many country fans, the way you would deal with the death of a close friend or a loved one would be to put a Don Williams record on. So what are you supposed to do when Don Williams is the one who has died? The memories are so rich and the voice is so familiar, it’s like Don Williams is part of your family.
Today, September 8th, 2017, would have been the 85th birthday of Patsy Cline—one of the most iconic, influential, and immediately recognizable voices in the history of country music. But she died tragically in a 1963 plane crash near Camden, Tennessee that also killed country starts Cowboy Copas, and Hankshaw Hawkins.
Imagine finding something that you believe very well might be your true life’s purpose and passion, only to have it snatched away from you via physical ailment. That is the story of Josh Killian from Kennesaw, Georgia, an amateur steel guitar player turned founder of the new nonprofit called Steel Resolve.
Jason Isbell is not country. He is decidedly Americana. But Jason Isbell deserves his nomination for Album of the Year by the CMAs just as much as anyone has ever deserved that distinction. When songwriting is as good as Jason Isbell’s, it transcends genre. Every genre wants to call it their own.
Look, Steely Dan is not for everyone. Let’s face it, it’s sort of a weird band that’s too jazzy to be progressive rock, and too rock to be considered jazz, that was slotted into the slosh pit of the classic rock space by Clear Channel some 35 years ago, and asked to fend for itself among legacy AC/DC and Lynyrd Skynyrd cuts.
In wanton disrespect of the Labor Day holiday (aren’t journalists laborers too?), the Country Music Association announced their nominations for the 2017 CMA Awards on Monday (9-4) morning, with Miranda Lambert leading all nominees with five total nominations.
You knew it was going to happen. With American society fully submerged in politically-charged waters, and the media looking for any narrative they can use to stir dissent among the population to instill a sense of dependency on media outlet’s drip of “news” and perspective, a natural calamity is the perfect opportunity to pit people against each other.
Chris Young is the newest invitee to the Grand Ole Opry? No offense the the feather-haired one, but they may as well have invited a fern. It’s not necessarily a bad pick, but it just doesn’t elicit a change in the pulse rate enough either way to make the new invitation do what all new invitations to the Grand Ole Opry must…