It was a mixture of surprise, astonishment, and supreme happiness when someone reached out and said that Tony Martinez was finally releasing his debut album. Truth be told, Tony should probably be dead.
We’ve run down some of the best songs and the best singles in country music in 2023. Now it’s time to dredge up the worst of the worst, which in 2023 sees multiple songs attempting to rework older songs.
So Jake Owen is still a thing, huh? I thought he’d be managing a Chipotle in Murfreesboro at this point. But the summer drunk song season is here, and so the perennially tan one is back to drop another deuce.
Sam Hunt was scheduled to headline the Boots & Hearts Music Festival Friday, August 5th in Burl’s Creek, Ontario in Canada, but he will no longer be attending after he announced he is not being allowed into the country. Jake Owen has instead been tapped as the Friday night headliner.
Unless you were there in person, you missed it. But now we’ll all get the opportunity to see the tribute concert that transpired on April 6th, 2017, when a hefty list of musical talent all assembled at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville to pay tribute to the legendary Merle Haggard.
We’d love to think that legendary golf pro Phil Mickelson hauled off and told Jake Owen “Go fuck yourself” recently for putting out garbage country music songs like “Beachin'” or for saying he’s collaborating with Lil Nas X on a hip-hop song. But the truth of the matter is the spat had to do with Phil’s primary occupation, not Jake’s.
We took the time to celebrate some of the Best Songs Released in 2018, as well as some of the Best Albums, so now it’s time to place a clothespin firmly on our noses, slip on some elbow-length rubber gloves, and go digging through the cesspool that is radio country to dredge up the absolute worst offenses.
Travis Tritt’s “team” has been revealed, and regardless of where this show goes, how many people watch, and who wins, Tritt has done a superb job picking out his contestants. I don’t think Hank done it this way, but if someone’s going to win, hopefully it’s Tritt’s hopefuls, 4 of which who’ve been featured on SCM recently.
When we first got word of a new reality TV singing competition coming down the pike via the USA Network called “Real Country,” and that the judges were going to be none other than pop country pretty boy Jake Owen and the Queen of Crossover Shania Twain, it was worth a chuckle to say the least.
Country music still needs saving ladies and gentlemen, and is still searching for the absolute statistical rock bottom when it comes to quality and substance in songs. Defining the “worst” has officially reached new parameters. So let’s cover our ears, pinch our noses, and set these stinking piles of refuse up to ceremoniously knock them down.
Jake Owen ain’t Jack. And he ain’t no Mellencamp either. It appears the years of prolonged exposure to radioactive bronzer treatments have finally all but officially fried his brain. Yes this song makes me nostalgic. It makes me nostalgic for a time in music when new songs from country artists weren’t complete and utter shite.
You may not know them personally, or maybe you do. Or maybe you even count yourself as one of them. But somewhere out there are swaths of country fans who swear off all that effeminate country crap from from folks like Sam Hunt and Luke Bryan, and swear they only like the real stuff. You know … like The Cadillac Three.
Upon first listen, this new Jake Owen single is a superior candidate for an unabashedly scathing review. What, is he trying to rap again for goodness sakes? And though there may be a message, there’s really no story. At it’s heart, “Real Life” is yet another example of replacing rhythm for melody, and lists for story. So much for all of Jake Owen’s rhetoric about bringing more substance to country music.
Sam Hunt is a Sturgill Simpson fan now, so says Sam Hunt in a tweet he fired off on Wednesday (5-13). Apparently the rising “country” music superstar was vacationing at Weiss Lake in northeastern Alabama this week, and Sturgill Simpson was a significant part of his soundtrack. “Sun burnt, dehydrated, ready for summer, and a Sturgill Simpson fan. Successful lake trip…”
Well so much for entertaining the idea in your country music brain that if Miranda Lambert had her way, she’d go all “Gunpowder & Lead” on the purveyors of Bro-Country for their sexist and objectifying behavior if she wasn’t such a classy chic who would rather let her music do the talking. Miranda removed any and all doubt about how she feels about Bro-Country, at least in what she’s willing to portray to the public.
The Sturgill Simpson love continues to pour in from different sectors of the music world, and now extends to songwriter and guitarist John Mayer, who is apparently “jealous” of the Kentucky-born country music performer. One of his biggest fans in mainstream country has been Keith Urban, and in a recent interview, when asked about Sturgill, Urban said “He’s the best.”
As the college football consciousness of the country zoomed in on Arlington, TX and the first official National Championship game ever played at the collegiate level Monday night, Zac Brown Band was tapped as the entertainment for ESPN’s College Gameday presentation leading up to the big game. Zac Brown Band played Jason Isbell’s much-appreciated but fairly obscure song for fallen soldiers.
The hope of fans of any independent music artist is that they will be able to achieve a sustainable career, and that their music will find wider appeal amongst the listening public. When an independent artist succeeds, it’s important that we pay attention to what lent to that success so hopefully more worthy artists can achieve similar results, and to ask what that success might mean.
The downward spiral for mainstream country music continues as evidenced by the following list of some of the most horrible offerings of 2014. With how terrible these selections are, you could consider this not only the worst songs of 2014, but arguably a list of the majority of the worst songs in the history of country music. And with such a crowded field, only the worst of the worst were selected.
Despite a rough start to Keith Urban’s week last week when one of his concerts in Mansfield, Mass. descended into a 55-arrest, 22-taken to the hospital & rape allegations kind of night, you could make the argument the country music superstar won the week. Keith Urban made it a point to speak out about what happened at the concert. Then by golly, Keith Urban took of his personal time to write an op-ed…
The rumors of a drunken interlude between Miranda Lambert’s knuckles and the face of Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger have been lurking out there for a couple of years now, transferring mouth to mouth amongst the unclean masses like an unwelcome oral herpetic strain. Nothing had ever been confirmed though, leaving a few to speculate that the whole incident was mere urban myth.
The middle point of 2014 finds so called “bro-country” in full throat, with its death grips around the neck of the country music genre and threatening to throttle the very life out of it with no prayer for resuscitation. As you can expect, the assailants are the usual suspects of putrid country music specimens selling out to the lowest common denominator for commercial success.
Jake Owen, my man. You know I love you for calling out country that’s all about “fuckin’ cups and Bacardi and stuff like that” and giving my man Tony Martinez a big break on your “Days of Gold” tour. But “Beachin'”? Really? What’s going on here folks is now that Kenny Chesney has been put out to pasture by the country music powers that be, somebody has to step up and fill the void.
We’ve seen these moments more and more at concerts, especially country music concerts where an artist has to stop everything down because someone in the crowd is acting completely inappropriate, but this instance may take the cake. Recent country music convert Aaron Lewis was manning the mic as part of his other gig as the frontman for the angry emo rock band Staind….