They called it the “Beyoncé Bowl,” and it was promoted as Beyoncé’s first live performance from her supposed “country” album, Cowboy Carter. But Cowboy Carter is not a country album, and the performance wasn’t live.
All the nominees for the 2024 Saving Country Music Album of the Year deserve nothing but praise for being catalysts for the country music revolution we’re currently enjoying. But only one can take the prize.
Welcome to Saving Country Music’s most comprehensive guide to music in a given year, The Essential Albums List. It includes the “Most Essential” Albums, and then other albums reviewed and deemed worthy.
There are few if any other musical outfits who have so consistently shown a gift for unlocking the sheer unmitigated joy in music through a combination of talent and toil.
Singer and songwriter Kiely Connell first burst into the music consciousness in 2021 with her excellent debut album “Calumet Queen.” Her voice was so striking, and her songs so emotive and cutting, she made a lasting impression.
Put Hudson Westbrook in your growing list of younger performers finding surprising success with more classic sounds, and helping to set true country music on a promising trajectory.
The Saving Country Music Artist of the Year is someone who rekindles our spirit and hope that country music will be something future generations will also enjoy, and in it’s most genuine form.
Music isn’t just here to fill empty moments of time, and distract us from the mundane actions that make up the majority of our days. The best of music inspires the best of us as people. It rewires our brains.
Imagine an alternative universe where Dolly Parton didn’t become a big star, and despite her incredible talent and portfolio of songs, she was a 30-something somewhat unknown singer/songwriter struggling in relative obscurity.
You can’t save country music while ignoring commercial country. One of the ways we address the mainstream is by highlighting the best albums in the mainstream in hopes they help influence country moving forward.
If you’ve already composed your “Best of 2024” list, you better have done it in pencil and not ink, because Ty Smith & The Minor Offenses out of Oklahoma will be butting in line here momentarily and demanding to be near the top.
Every guy wants to be him. Every lady wants to be under him. He’s Riley Green, who’s built that following through a more organic, grassroots approach as opposed to radio play.
J.R. Carroll is known by many as the guy with the glasses and ponytail up there playing keyboard for Zach Bryan. On “Dark Cloud,” Carroll proves to be worthy of devoted attention all on his own.
If you’re a fan of genuine throwback classic country music, you’ll find very little to fuss about, and lots to favor in the songs of steel guitar player turned frontman Ben Vallee’s debut album aptly titled “Introducing…”
Cody Jinks is not some throwback country hipster in thrift store duds looking to recreate the Golden Era of country music in a club in east Nashville. He’s a former heavy metal guy who moved towards country later in his career.
Alright, we ran down the nominees for Album of the Year and Song of the Year. But it’s time to give a little love to the songs that simply get stuck in out heads and remind us of the sheer joy of music.
Similar to Zach Bryan, it’s hard to understate how massive Sam Barber has become. That’s not all that’s similar about Zach Bryan. You listen to ‘Restless Mind,’ and you could easily be convinced it’s a Zach Bryan album.
A Song of the Year is not just a “song.” It’s a form of artistic expression that can change a life, that can change someone’s perspective, or that can change the world. It’s something that must be able to give you goosebumps.
With a hearthy and woody baritone voice that envelops you like the sense of home, Tyler-James Kelly forwards a debut album full of moments of reflection and tribulation, balanced by sincere expressions of gratitude.
It’s time to engage in one of the most important exercises all year: determining who and what will be crowned the Album of the Year in 2024. The point of this exercise is not to devolve music into a competition.
Instead of exploiting a moment when Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn still have tread left on the tires to give it another shot with original songs, we get a second installment in their Reboot series.
From the eastern slope of the Big Horn mountains in Wyoming, Tris Munsick and the Innocents offer a portal from the mundane to the rugged and adventurous through country songs with Western flair.
There are few things more titillating than word coming down that two of your favorite performers are teaming up in the studio together. Where sometimes these pairings can be a bit deflating, ‘Hayes and the Heathens’ delivers.
Whether you’re intimate with the James Hands catalog or not, you’re happy to see an album like this being made, especially knowing Ags Connolly’s story. Ags went from a starry-eyed fan of James Hand to a friend.