Single Review: Brad Paisley – ‘American Saturday Night’

As I stated in my review from way back in June of the album that’s named after this song, I’ve always just been a casual fan of Brad Paisley. That’s why I was so surprised by American Saturday Night- it just clicked with me, not to mention it was a surprising quality album from a [...]

Album Review: Patty Loveless – ‘Trouble With The Truth’

When we were divvying up the albums that we wanted reviewed for this month, I called dibs on Trouble With The Truth because I knew I would be busy and it’s one of my absolute favorites. First I want to tell a short story: At the end of last year, I was working on my [...]

A swarm of new videos!

Head over to CMT’s website today, and there are 10 music videos that are premiering. Those would be “Southern Voice” by Tim McGraw, “I’m Alive” by Kenny Chesney & Dave Matthews, “White Liar” by Miranda Lambert, “Keep You” by Sugarland, “Consider Me Gone” by Reba McEntire, “That’s How Country Boys Roll” by Billy Currington, “Hit [...]

Single Review: Sugarland – ‘Keep You’

Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush of Sugarland tried to write an “emotional song about being numb,” and the product of this little exercise is their new single “Keep You”. (The music video premiers on CMT on October 2nd) What strikes me most about the song is about how it builds steadily. It starts off with [...]

Single Review: Taylor Swift – ‘Fifteen’

So far with Taylor Swift’s new singles, I’ve noticed a pattern. While the first and third singles (“Love Story” and “You Belong With Me”) from Fearless were both a little faster and remixed to pop radio, the other two (“White Horse” and “Fifteen”) are slower songs that stay within Country radio. Fortunately, the slower songs [...]

2009 album recommendations, album previews

2009 has been interesting, a crappy year for mainstream country music overall, but I would say a good year for other genres. Since the year is 75% over, I just wanted to share some of my picks from the year so far (inside country music and out) and a look at a few upcoming albums. [...]

Miranda’s “Revolutionary” EP

Okay, this is pretty cool. Most people already know that Miranda Lambert’s new album, Revolution, comes out in just a few weeks on September 29th. However, this is new: On September 8th (tomorrow), you can go to Best Buy and buy Dead Flowers, a small EP of a few songs:
“Dead Flowers”
“Take It Out on Me”
“I [...]

Single Review: Carrie Underwood – ‘Cowboy Casanova’

A while back I must have become a follower of Carrie Underwood on Facebook, because after returning from the library, I saw a notice of her new single on my news feed- and I decided to give it a listen. I enjoyed Carnival Ride at first, but after a while, I got sick of it [...]

Recommendation: Live songs & albums

So being the Sugarland freak I am, I went to Wal-Mart to get Live On The Inside the morning it came out- before they had even put it on the shelves. I had to find a worker to get the box of new CDs open to get me one so I could have it. Not [...]

Here comes semi-goodbye

I’ve been here since the beginning, namely this past December. J.R. asked me on the forums over at The 9513 if I wanted to be a part of a new blog, and I quickly said yes. I never expected that it would go anywhere, but we’ve seen some amazing growth- and it’s all thanks to [...]

Single Review: Miranda Lambert – ‘White Liar’

As of now, Miranda Lambert’s Revolution is one of my most anticipated albums of 2009, a list including the likes of Nelly Furtado’s Mi Plan and Patty Loveless’ Mountain Soul II (Interesting bunch, eh?). “Dead Flowers” was seemingly a step in a new musical direction for Miranda, but “White Liar” is more country and all [...]

Album Review: Reba McEntire – ‘Rumor Has It’

First of all, let me explain how I came across this Reba album. Rumor Has It came out in September of 1990, one year before I was born, so I found it much later. In December of 2007, right after I gave my dad Reba: Duets for Christmas, we went to my grandparents for the [...]

Single Review: Lady Antebellum – ‘Need You Now’

Reading the other day, I was surprised that Lady Antebellum was already promoting a new album- after three hit singles from their debut album. Lady A’s trade mark is slick pop-country, like their most recent hit, “I Run To You” (Read the review here), something that can be good if done right.
Thankfully, their new single [...]

Single Review: Jamey Johnson – ‘My Way To You’

After constantly hearing amazing things about Jamey Johnson’s sophomore album, That Lonesome Song, I had to buy it. I enjoyed most of it, but it didn’t quite blow me away like I thought it would. Now, hearing about his new single, I heard similar hype, but I didn’t quite believe it all. From what I [...]

Recommendation: Songs of marital discord

Yesterday while driving around from one place to another, I decided I needed some real country music, so I popped in Lee Ann Womack’s There’s More Where That Came From in my car’s CD player. I only got this CD last August, but it became an instant favorite the first time I heard it, just [...]

R-r-r-r-remix time!

Remixes are a foreign concept in country music- in my opinion, good country music shouldn’t ever have to be remixed in any other way. A remix makes me think “What, it wasn’t good enough the original way? Why is this better?” Usually country songs, if remixed, will be remixed for pop radio, like Taylor Swift’s [...]

Completed collections

A few weeks ago, while chatting to Country California’s C. M. Wilcox on facebook, I expressed my goal for the summer. Due to Patty Loveless releasing her next album, Mountain Soul II, on September 29 I made my goal to get all of her studio albums before summer ended. So far? I’m almost done, I’m [...]

Album Review: Sarah Jarosz – ‘Song Up In Her Head’

I have a few things in common with Sarah Jarosz, a new addition to label Sugar Hill’s roster. We both:
- love to listen to music in the car
- are 18
- are National Honor Society members
- just graduated from high school
- are going to college in the fall (Me in Utah, her in Massachusetts)
- love bluegrass [...]

Recommendation: Songs about being lonely

As we all know, most of the best country music is culled from experiences of heartache and loneliness. A lot of my friends thought Taylor Swift’s “White Horse” was too sad of a song — they ain’t seen nothing yet! I love a good sad song.  It’s some cheap therapy for my own bad times, [...]

Single Review: Brad Paisley – ‘Welcome To The Future’

In my recent foray into Twitter, I became a follower of Brad Paisley. Here’s the first message I saw from him, accompanied by a picture of Pac-Man on an iPhone:
My in flight entertainment this evening. Welcome to the future.
I was puzzled by the meaning of this picture until I heard the song “Welcome To The [...]