He’s country music’s wrestling heel. He’s an incessant internet troll, a living meme, and an embarrassment to himself and everyone around him. If he was a hockey player, he’d be a goon. But he’s not willing to fight.
COUNTRY music ladies and gentlemen, and in such a concentrated form, significant density, and voluminous quantity, it could almost counterbalance the entirety of mainstream country’s Bro-era output.
Margo’s back, reunited with original producer Matt Ross-Spang, and just released perhaps the best album since her debut, maybe the best album of her entire career, and maybe one of the best country albums so far this year.
Zach Top illustrates the timeless appeal of true country music. He isn’t just making music that’s curiously popular for its older sound. He’s ushering in an entirely new era for the country music genre.
Many can capture the sound. Few can deliver it so effortlessly like it’s what they were born to do. Country music might’ve just found its next great traditionalist star.
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.
Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country is the bold exploration of the vast outer regions of what is possible in country music, while still lovingly delivering all the twang you could ever want.
If you’re a traditional bluegrass fan, is it a sad development that the Millennial Queen of Bluegrass has gone pop? Yes, it is. Is it as bad as you feared when she first announced it? No, it’s not.
Tyler Hatley and Justin Clyde Williams along with Matt Parks have mustered up a really good introduction into their songwriting universe in North Carolina. It’s one you find compelling, and want to experience in-person.
With ‘Dollar A Day,’ the grandiose promises Crockett is prone to slipping into are fulfilled. With 15 tracks, a variety in sound, and a grand scope, it’s everything what you want an album to be, from Charley Crockett or anyone else.
“We’re Only Human” captures an acclaimed songwriter evolving with his music, and challenging an audience to evolve with him.
Together they offer up a straightforward bluegrass album under the duo name Pitney Meyer that warms your cockles, and does for bluegrass what Mo Pitney did for traditional country previously: make you hopeful for the future.
Listening through Rhinestone Requiem, the boldness of its audio flavors, and the passion brought to the songwriting, it gives you a sense that Sunny Sweeney is just now hitting her peak.
There’s something about hearing Whitey Morgan’s music that makes you feel 100 feet tall and bulletproof. It’s everything that makes up Outlaw country concentrated into its most pure form.
“Snipe Hunter” by Tyler Childers is nowhere near as good as some of the hyperbolic proclamations being bandied about profess, and it’s not even close to the colossal letdown that others are alleging.
While other top level names in independent country continue to present you with polarizing twists and confounding turns, the consistency of Cody Jinks is incredibly comforting.
By utilizing jazz cords, surf tones, and making unintuitive turns, Chasen Wayne takes country music and the intrepid listener into uncharted territory, though with plenty of familiar sounds and guideposts.
“The Mirror” is a Trisha Yearwood album. It’s an album that feels inspired, passionate, and purposeful. It’s the best album Trisha Yearwood could make in this season of her career.
It doesn’t even feel apt to characterize Tami Neilson as a “musician” in the conventional sense. She’s a force of nature, a Category 5 Typhoon blowing in from the archipelago, a volcanic eruption of power and talent.
When the news came down that Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton would be releasing a song together, it was hard to not get a little excited, irrespective of your level of excitement for either of these artists.
‘Ain’t Rocked in a While’ is a loud, rambunctious, greasy, uninhibited affair that puts songwriting second to finding a groove and laying down in it. It’s garage rock deep fried in a vat of ’70s sweat.
Releasing ‘Little Crosses’ in the dead of summer is smart timing for Stamm and Co. This is a summer album full of serious heartland rock, songs that stoke sentimental memories, and a little bit of recklessness.
Those who take the time to dig for the best in music are handsomely rewarded via the experience of this album, and before the rest of the world and the music business get their opportunity to get their greasy mandibles on it.
It’s never been easy to pigeon-hole Parker McCollum, or summarize his music career or sound in a concise sentence. He’s a Texas artist with mainstream impact. He’s an independent-minded performer with commercial impact.