Surprise Appearances and Powerful Moments Grace The Hook Episode 9
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You never know who is going to show up to The Hook, or what’s going to happen. That’s part of the fun. But each week it seems someone with a name behind them in music shows up unexpected, and something happens that helps reset your mind.
Saving Country Music’s 2025 Breakout Artist of the Year
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It’s performers who can unplug, primarily rely on wood and wire to create their music, who can excel in the live context, and illustrate the pinnacle of human potential who will survive the technology Apocalypse.
Saving Country Music’s 2025 Essential Albums List
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This year, using the term “essential” has never felt more important. As AI threatens to upend the music industry in the new year, it’s critical we underscore just how essential music is to all of us.
Stu Phillips, Grand Ole Opry’s Oldest Member, Dies at 92
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When Buck White of The Whites passed away in January of this year at the age of 94, Stu Phillips officially became the oldest living member of the Grand Ole Opry. Phillips was an Opry member for 58 years.
No Lauren Watkins, the LAST Thing We Need is Bro-Country’s Return
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Lauren Watkins. Girl. Love ya, really do. But this is barking up the wrong tree. About the last thing that planet Earth needs is the return of Bro-Country as a popular music form—and for so many reasons.
The Saving Country Music 2025 Single of the Year
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With Single of the Year, we’re simply looking for the toe tappers and boot scooters—the songs that unlock the joy in music. That doesn’t mean that a Single of the Year cannot be meaningful or momentous though.
Billboard Must Address AI on the Charts NOW
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Afraid of “gatekeeping” accusations, Billboard seems content with AI encroaching onto its charts without the company in any way addressing it directly at the moment.
50 Years Ago: An Epic Round of Country Songwriters Ensues on Christmas
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Along with Guy Clark and his wife Susanna, Rodney Crowell, Steve Young, Richard Dobson, dobro player Jim McGuire, Billy Callery, and a very young but hungry Steve Earle all sat around the table.
Album Review – Lukas Nelson’s “American Romance (too)”
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There’s one way to remove yourself from the overbearing shadow of a maternal or paternal legacy in music, and quell the criticisms of privilege. You can just be so damn good, you blow past all that banter.
The 2025 Christmas Country Playlist (UPDATED)
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If you’re looking for that perfect Christmas playlist that specializes in country music, and is dedicated to new songs or new versions of old classics released this calendar year, then you’ve come to the right place.
The Saving Country Music 2025 Album of the Year
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After a rigorous nomination and voting process compiling ten select albums and a host of honorable mentions, something nearing a universal consensus has centered around one album in 2025.
Amish Couple Ben & Rose Become One of 2025’s New Breakouts
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One of the biggest breakout performers in country music in 2025 is perhaps one of the most unlikely in the genre’s history. Nobody could have predicted that an Old Order Amish couple could become a viral sensation.
Album Review – Brad Paisley’s “Snow Globe Town”
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It turns out that Brad Paisley has just the right amount of Christmas cheer, classic country nostalgia, sheer talent, and elfish mischief and humor to compose a country Christmas record that’s well above serviceable.