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.
Cross Canadian Ragweed and Oasis have reunited, and Jamey Johnson has announced his first new original album in 14 years. In fact, Johnson hasn’t just promised a new album, but a series of them.
Taken as a whole, F-1 Trillion is much more of a contemporary version of pop country than it is anything else, with committee-written songs, little heart, substance, or soul. But this album is supposed to be fun, and Post Malone succeeds.
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.
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.
Country music legend Keith Whitley is gone, but he’s a long way from being forgotten. If anything, the strength and influence of his legacy has only increased over time, and that was illustrated at the Two Step Inn fest.
You don’t really need a conventional album review to help navigate you through or understand Ernest’s 26-song treatise, Nashville, Tennessee. What you need is a road map, a sherpa, someone to point your nose in the right direction.
Every year as the nominations for country music awards come and go, it’s hard to not fall into a perfunctory attitude about them due to the cyclical and predictable nature of the nominees.
2024 is shaping up to be a bumper crop year for incredible country songs, and ones coming from a wide array of performers in a myriad of different approaches to the country genre. Keeping your ear to the ground…
Country music is on a winning streak. And though it may have been the Kansas City Chiefs who hoisted a trophy at the end of the 2024 Super Bowl, country fans scored a victory too as the steel guitar made an appearance.
Boy didn’t the idea of Post Malone making a big country album or releasing country songs seem like a sexy idea over the last few years. Back in 2020 when he was running around in T-shirts from Tyler Childers.
It turns out that the people of country music chose Morgan Wallen to be the inaugural People’s Choice Country “Artist of 2023” and other major awards. But you would have no clue this happened by watching the awards.
If you want to hear true traditional country in its most pure form in 2023, listen to Jake Worthington. We’re talking Mark Chesnutt, Daryle Singletary country, where you can’t fit an index card between the true definition of “country music,” and what Worthington turns in here.
One of the hottest up-and-coming artists in all of country music is now signed to the roster of one of the hottest labels in all of country music. Announced Wednesday afternoon (3-29), West Virginia native Charles Wesley Godwin has signed to Big Loud Records, which is the home of Morgan Wallen.
For the last dozen years or so, one of the most contentious battles within the realm of commercial country music has centered around the incursion of hip-hop influences into the genre, and specifically the use of verses that are rapped as opposed to sung, and electronic beats replacing organic drums.
Over the Christmas/New Year holiday, Morgan Wallen’s “You Proof” set a rather landmark achievement by becoming the first radio single in country music history to spend 10 weeks at #1—a record that despite the song’s country lyricism as a heartbreak drinking song, can only be regarded as dubious.
A couple of weeks ago, HARDY announced a new album called ‘The Mockingbird and THE CROW’ to be released on January 20th, 2023, and released three preview songs with it. One of them is called “here lies country music,” and similar to ERNEST’s “Flower Shops,” it’s a straight ahead traditional country song.
Headlined by Zach Bryan on Saturday, and the Turnpike Troubadours on Sunday, other fast-rising names such as Charles Wesley Godwin, Flatland Cavalry, 49 Winchester, and Larry Fleet also round out the lineup. Greenville Country Fest also makes sure to include some native Carolina blood.
Jamey Johnson kicked some dust up and had quite a few of his fans fist pumping Friday night, August 12th when he took the stage in Lincoln, Nebraska as part of the Lincoln on the Street event, and berated the local radio station, New Country KX 96.9. The radio station brought out three of their on-air personalities.
Well now, it appears that Nashville has a new toy. His name is Jelly Roll, and a pseudo “country” song of his called “Son of a Sinner” has been slowly creeping up the country radio charts, causing the usual suspects who love to pontificate about paradigm shifts in country.
“Tomorrow Me” is not a world beater. Luke Combs songs rarely are. But it’s just the latest sign that country music continues to trend more country, and more quality. Luke Combs has been a focal point for this trend since the start of his career.
Who could have predicted that the hottest new things in country music would be pudgy songwriter dudes with mononyms. No, this isn’t HARDY. He’s the dorky-looking one with the glasses. This is ERNEST. Their rise is almost as improbable as the other hot trend…
Many independent country music fans and Americana nerds will never admit to it, but the simple fact is that mainstream country music has been on a painfully slow, but palpable improvement track since about 2015 when Bro-Country hit its peak.
The Grand Ole Opry is currently facing sharp criticism for allowing Morgan Wallen to perform on Saturday night’s Opry on January 8th. The first detail that everyone must understand is that Morgan Wallen was not a scheduled performer for Saturday evening’s Opry.