If you’re a fan of the sensible but traditional country songs of guys like Cody Johnson and Randall King, Wynn Williams released the album in 2025 that should’ve been on your radar, by maybe wasn’t.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Many country music artists have claimed to be “Outlaws” over the years. Only two have produced .22 pistols and shot at people’s heads to prove it: Billy Joe Shaver, and Johnny PayCheck.
Hank Williams III founded the The Reinstate Hank movement back in 2003 in an effort to get the Grand Ole Opry to recognize his grandfather who was kicked out for drunkeness and missing rehearsals in 1952.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and others might be reluctant to tell his story, but Clint Black isn’t. He’s planning to release his memoir, “KILLIN’ TIME: My Life and Music” via Harper Influence.
As the world feels like it’s unraveling and spinning out of control, a attentive spin through Heart Talkin’ helps slow everything down, and remind you to savor the important moments in life, however fleeting.
Rob Reiner’s role in a Reba McEntire video was probably the least of his accomplishments in his storied career. But it illustrates just how much he’d become an unlikely cultural icon both in front and behind the camera.
Jim Stringer wasn’t just an Austin musician. He served as the connective tissue that held together Austin’s enterprising country music scene for over 30 years. The was the long-time frontman of the AM Band.
He was the Bruce Springsteen of Texas, the country icon of punk, the rock ‘n roll heart of country, and the envy of any singer, songwriter, and guitar player out there that knew their stuff. He was Joe Ely.
Irrespective of the definitions, the point of highlighting the best “mainstream” albums each year is to reward artists and the industry when they get it right within the closest proximity to Music Row.
Not since the height of Austin music in the ’70s have we heard songs so indicative of the original spirit of the Austin scene. That’s what the Shinglers throw down on their new album “Hit The Head!”
As part of Zac Brown’s Sphere show is imagery that some are characterizing as Satanic to the point where a legitimate moral panic has set in with scores of news articles and Christian exposé’s about it.
Make sure to get MerleFest on your radar in 2026, set to happen April 23-26 in Wilkesboro, North Carolina with a stellar lineup that was just announced in full this week.