The ACM Awards continue to spiral towards irrelevancy. That said, there are some interesting names in the nominations for the 2025 ACM Awards released Thursday.
By labeling a performer “Queer Country,” you’re not breaking down barriers, you’re erecting them with country music’s more conventional and conservative fans.
Cowboy Carter’s Best Country Album win wasn’t earned, it was compelled. Unequivocally, Beyoncé told us herself about her 2024 album Cowboy Carter, “This ain’t a country album.” But apparently, Grammy voters disagree.
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.
Some of the observances and sentiments Oliver Anthony shares are true, and things you might be inclined to pump your fist in agreement over. A few of the things he says are categorically false and misleading at best
Beyoncé’s 2024 album Cowboy Carter was supposed to be the biggest phenomenon in country music in 2024. But after taking a step back from all the bluster, it’s easy to conclude that Cowboy Carter’s impact was marginal at best.
The Grammy Awards are supposed to be the one place where the critically-acclaimed, criminally-overlooked, and lifers of a respective genre get the recognition they deserve from a non-profit that puts the art first.
In a moment in popular music when everyone wants to declare themselves country, here’s a musician who’s more country than he is anything else, but due to his respect for country is actually speaking the truth.
In a move that can only be characterized as unprecedented and perhaps even career-defining, Zach Bryan has refused to submit his recent album ‘The Great American Bar Scene’ to the Grammy Awards for 2025 consideration.
The NFL spent little time building anticipation in who might perform at this year’s Super Bowl in February of 2025. On Sunday, September 8th, they announced that Kendrick Lamar will be this season’s Super Bowl entertainment.
Nobody is listening to Cowboy Carter. It was the most lauded release all year by the press, is supposedly supported by the biggest Stan army in the world, and sits at #133. Meanwhile, Zach Bryan has 3 albums in the Top 20.
Beyoncé does not consider herself a country artist, and she does not consider her 2024 album Cowboy Carter as a country album. Full stop. Saying that Cowboy Carter is a country album is a canard sown out of whole cloth.
Clearly the crowd in attendance thought the duet was killer. Most of the reception has been positive. But there has also been quite a few criticizing Tyler Childers for agreeing to the collaboration.
Post Malone’s “country” album “F-1 Trillion” isn’t even out for another month, and he’s already dominating the narrative at a time when country music was finally dominating much of the narrative in popular music all on its own.
It’s not Beyoncé, but Shaboozey who has seeded the song of the summer with “A Bar (Tipsy),” and released the album that has shown the resonance and stickiness “Cowboy Carter” failed to.
It was supposed to be one of the biggest events in music in 2024, if not one of the biggest in music in the last many years. Most definitely it was going to be the defining moment in country music in 2024, if not in country history.
Country music doesn’t need Post Malone to be cool like it did back in 2020. Post Malone, Shaboozy, Jelly Roll, and Beyoncé, it’s these artists who need country to be considered cool as we head into the summer of 2024.
Alright. So it goes without saying that this really isn’t a “good” song, and that it’s not especially “country” either, aside from a few tokenary and surface inferences. But regardless, according to Billboard, it’s the #1 song in country.
As strange as it may sound, the term “saving country music” or “save country music” has been said and written more in the last few months than at any other time in history. This begs a deeper discussion about the term.
Every once in a while, a reset of perspective on the ultimate purpose of Saving Country Music is in order. Now is one of those times. Saving Country Music was founded to tackle critically important topics to the country genre.
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter is officially the #1 album on the Billboard Country Albums chart. This is despite Beyoncé explicitly stating in a March 19th statement, “This ain’t a Country album,” and later underscoring this statement.
I saw Jason Aldean perform on the 2024 CMT Awards, and now I’m a RACIST! Aldean performed in front of the 27-story University of Texas Tower in Austin, and murdered it harder than Charles Joseph Whitman.
This Rolling Stone list of the 25 Best Country Soul Albums has so many holes you could strain your spaghetti with it, while simultaneously including some titles that have no business being there.
“She clearly was not trying to showcase the talents of black country artists in a real way, which I’m sure is extremely disappointing to the black country folks busting their asses to make it.”