The “Choosin’ Texas” phenomenon is now starting to break out of the country realm into the wide consciousness, and puncture the zeitgeist. This week, the song went Top 5 in the Billboard Hot 100.
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.
We’ve run down the nominees for Album of the Year and Song of the Year. Now it’s time to give some love to the songs that simply get stuck in out heads and remind us of the sheer joy of music.
As predicted, the matter of AI artists infiltrating Billboard’s country charts and the music industry in general has gone from bad to absolutely catastrophic in the matter of a singular human-measured week.
Social media algorithms, AI-generated songs, astroturfed Tik-Tok stars, and all kinds of other hijinks make it harder to find authentic songs from real artists. But that’s all you’ll find on this painstakingly-curated playlist.
It’s a very real possibility that Zach Top doesn’t win a single trophy at the 2025 CMA Awards. But in some respects, it doesn’t matter if he does. He’s already won as a traditionalist on an independent label.
It’s not just that it isn’t country. It’s that it’s just not good. If this is who you want to integrate country music with, and use to highlight the genre’s Black roots, you will do significantly more harm than good in that pursuit.
Lo and behold, as elite media is praising BigXthaPlug to the hilt because they hate country and country fans, this dude is locked in the slammer once again on the day of his album release.
It’s even worse when country music’s institutions recognize artists for being country when these artists don’t even recognize being country themselves, and don’t even care for the recognition.
It’s just the ACM Awards. And it’s just their “New Artist of the Year” categories that are split into three separate awards. But the good guys won, and it does perhaps portend positive things for the future.
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.
When Saving Country Music was first founded in 2008, the idea that we would ever get to where we are today in country music seemed like a virtual impossibility, a pipe dream, and certainly an uphill battle to say the least.
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.
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.
Love or loathe ‘Yellowstone,’ it has been incredibly critical to the support and popularity we’ve seen flowing to independent country music. That’s why the launching of a new show called ‘Landman’ is important.
The rise of the independent country megafestival with support from ’90s country stars has been one of the biggest illustrations for how significant, sustainable, and broad-based the resurgence of roots in country music has been.
Started in 2019, the Grand Ole Opry’s NextStage program looks to highlight rising talent by featuring them more regularly on the Opry stage, and across the Grand Ole Opry’s various programs and properties.
Jon Pardi is calling it the “Mr. Saturday Night World Tour,” but let’s just go ahead an label it the “mainstream country that doesn’t suck and actually sounds country” tour. That’s been Jon Pardi’s calling card for a while now, and he even kicked it up a notch with his recent album “Mr. Saturday Night.”
Sad and scary news out of the Blackberry Smoke camp as word has come down that the long-time drummer for the band, Brit Turner, suffered a serious heart attack on Sunday, August 14th while at his home in Atlanta. Luckily, Turner was able to make it to the hospital on time, where he received a stent.
After Blackberry Smoke had finished playing and before Jamey Johnson took the stage, personalities from the local pop country radio station, New Country KX 96.9, came out to fill time between the set change. The crowd of mostly traditional country fans was not too impressed with the results.
Boy, this will be fun. And it’s kind of crazy to think that it’s never really happened before to this extent. But finally, these two titans of Southern music will be joining forces for a full blown 19-date tour, and with a couple of openers as well. This is sure to be a hot ticket.