“I can’t stand to see outdated rock-and-rollers coming in to play country music. That really pissed me off,” Clay Walker told The Modesto Bee recently. “We have great singers, great country musicians. There’s no reason we have to dilute it by letting people in the format that don’t have any business being in the format.”
The brain child of songwriter Rob Snyder, The Revival is celebrating its two year anniversary next Tuesday, May 19th. A songwriter in-the-round setup with just acoustic guitars, The Revival is a place to not just be seen, but heard, and one of the few places you’ll find true songwriters still playing inspired songs mere steps from Music Row proper.
The Chapel Hill, TN product has just released a new record called Suffer In Peace through Columbia Nashville, and it includes a duet with Jason Aldean that’s sure to be tapped as a single. In the first verse of “Damn Good Friends,” Tyler Farr (or the songwriters Brent Anderson, Chris DuBois, and Neil Medley) seem to admit to a little bit of drunk driving.
The reason why these reality TV singing competitions, dancing competitions, and talent shows have worked so well over the last 15 years is because they tap into the innate desire of every human to be plucked out of the morass of obscurity and get the chance to become a superstar. The children of America and beyond are ingrained with a rock & roll fantasy that some day they can become famous.
Well well well. So Florida Georgia Line has decided to go on the offensive when it comes to the significant criticism the duo is fielding as the face and premier franchise of Bro-Country. The faltering of the trend has put the Big Machine cash cow on unsure footing it seems, and they’re out to do something about it. In an interview with Dan Rather that will air Tuesday evening (5-12) on AXS TV….
His first album in nearly four years, the Nashville resident is looking to make a statement with Love Story, and just like Saving Country Music hypothesized in the review of the album, Yelawolf wants to do battle with the terrible rap-infused country that has made it to the very top levels of the mainstream. Or at least offer a better alternative.
What makes the queen bees of the Texas country power quartet The Trishas so special is that if you separate the four ladies out individually, they all still have enough magnanimous sway to amass an impressive listening audience by themselves, and songwriter Jamie Lin Wilson is a perfect example of that. Remaining restless and hungry through a hiatus in The Trishas…
Last week, lost among the shuffle of a slew of bad news stories on the country music front was the news that mega concert promoter Live Nation had purchased a 51% controlling stake in the largest independent music festival in the country—Manchester, Tennessee’s Bonnaroo. The specifics of the deal looked very similar to the deal struck in December of 2014 when they purchased Austin’s C3 Presents.
Disregard that discussions about Bro-Country now feel like old hat ever since the trend trailed off except for a few last vestiges of outdated-feeling singles working through the system, Brantley Gilbert has decided he’s fed up with all the fuss about Bro-Country and has released a single saying as much. The song criticizes complaints about Bro-Country by listing off many of the same common tropes of the trend.
2015 is apparently the year to get paid in country music, and no stone is being left unturned, and apparently nobody is immune. From mainstream country artists who we once thought were the few remaining renegades with integrity that are now releasing trendy R&B singles, to some of our favorite country heroes’ faces, names, and songs ending up endorsing products or stamped on packaging.
A collective rolling of eyes ensued when the ACM’s announced earlier this month they would pair some of today’s country music spares with legends from the past as part of their “Party For a Cause” concert centered around the ACM’s 50th Anniversary. Punctuating the ridiculousness of the duet roster was the unfortunate marriage of country legend Dwight Yoakam and country/EDM star Sam Hunt.
As My Morning Jacket readies to release a new album called The Waterfall, frontman and songwriter Jim James spoke to Rolling Stone about the prospects of the band ever having a big radio hit. But the question would be, where? Jim characterized pop radio as “such a waste of time,” and then had some pretty scarring words for country.
Words were failing me in my efforts to articulate in any sort of composed and accurate manner what type of depravity country music is currently ailing from, and just what angst I feel about the current state of affairs in the genre. The 50th Annual ACM Awards left me despondent, reeling, and listless from the lack of hope for the future of the country format. And then I saw a picture of Sam Hunt’s hair.
There’s very little that transpired at the 50th Annual ACM Awards that could be salvaged as memorable. But one especially memorable moment transpired when Lee Brice took the stage and started playing Randy Travis’ “Forever and Ever, Amen.” And when Randy Travis himself emerged from the crowd, standing under his own power, and being acknowledged by a standing ovation, it was hard to not feel the emotion.
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to Saving Country Music’s LIVE blog of the 50th Annual ACM Awards being held at Cowboys (AT&T) Stadium in Arlington, TX. To celebrate its 50th year in business, the ACM Awards are going all out and offering an extended telecast, and Saving Country Music will there to offer blow by blow commentary on the night’s festivities for the sane minded and true country listener.
All the information on the 50th Annual ACM Awards in one place, including the presenters, the performers, the collaborations, the nominees, special awards, and other things to watch for. Merle Haggard tribute? Will Garth Brooks lip sync? And how the ACM Awards suckered Taylor Swift into showing up.
“Moving to New Zealand is career suicide!” was one of the responses country music singer/songwriter Tami Neilson received when she announced she was leaving her native Canada to live in a place where country music was generally synonymous with two words: achy and breaky. But after 5 years of being in a long-distance relationship with her Kiwi boyfriend (now husband) it was time for them to finally live in the same hemisphere.
Kip insisted to Saving Country Music that he did not know about the appearance, and that it was a lapse in communication with his management that caused the misunderstanding. “Yes they called my team and asked if I’d come by and I would have been glad to,” Moore says. “They helped promote the show and I would have been glad to. That part is my team’s fault which they own…”
The announcement of the Tim McGraw benefit concert blended in with all the regular country music news on Monday—a day usually reserved for the distribution of such press releases, until the conservative news outlet Brietbart picked up the story with the headline, “Country Stars Tim McGraw, Billy Currington Headlining Gun Control Fundraiser.”
Well so much for entertaining the idea in your country music brain that if Miranda Lambert had her way, she’d go all “Gunpowder & Lead” on the purveyors of Bro-Country for their sexist and objectifying behavior if she wasn’t such a classy chic who would rather let her music do the talking. Miranda removed any and all doubt about how she feels about Bro-Country, at least in what she’s willing to portray to the public.
In a move that is so patently and unflinchingly Garth, the recently-unretired superstar says he might lip sync at Sunday night’s 50th Anniversary ACM Awards show in Dallas at Cowboys (AT&T) Stadium. There’s so many different ways this missive from Mr. Brooks can be taken. So Garth Brooks is a lip syncer?
The calamitous and disturbing plan of the Academy of Country Music to pair up some of country music’s worst stars of today with country music heroes of the past just keeps getting worse. Though a few of the collaboration ideas seem kind of cool, some of them are downright sinister to the hearts of traditional country fans who revere the past greats, and revile the new artists who are stomping on the traditions of the genre.
Whether you have already purchased your tickets or are planning to soon, or you’re sitting back and laughing at the idea of a bunch of “Outlaws” setting sail in a luxury liner outbound for the Cayman Islands, don’t lie to yourself and say that this isn’t something that you wouldn’t love to participate in if you could swing it. Out at sea with some of your favorite country artists surrounded by the beauty of the Caribbean?
Joe’s comments come as similar sentiments have been offered up by other artists, but Joe also communicates the concern about where country music could be headed now that Bro-Country is getting close to the end of its life cycle. Since Bro-Country pushed away many of country music’s core constituents, and now Bro-Country isn’t even around to help fill the gap, it has put the industry on shaky footing.