Week ending 11/14/09: #1 albums this week in country music history

1984: Willie Nelson – City of New Orleans (Sony)
1989: Randy Travis – No Holdin’ Back (Warner Brothers)
1994: Mary Chapin Carpenter – Stones In The Road (Columbia)
1999: LeAnn Rimes – LeAnn Rimes (Curb)
2004: George Strait – 50 Number Ones (MCA)
2009: Taylor Swift – Fearless (Big Machine)

Classic Rewind: LeAnn Rimes – ‘Blue’

From the 1996 CMA Awards:

Discussion: Crossover roots?

Last week, this article about Taylor Swift’s crossover success got me to thinking about not only Swift, but other country stars who have met with major success in pop and adult contemporary markets.  It’s a mixed bag among the genre’s most steadfast supporters, while we welcome all the new listeners and fans to the format, somehow [...]

Album Review: George Strait – ‘Livin’ It Up’

George Strait’s winning streak, which began in the 1980s, showed no signs of abating as the 1990s began. The Country Music Association named him Entertainer of the Year for the second year in a row in 1990, and that same year he released what went on to be the biggest hit single of his [...]

Album Review: Reba McEntire – ‘The Last One To Know’

In 1987 a controversy surrounded Reba McEntire; not unlike the controversy that surrounds LeAnn Rimes and her husband today. The singer has never spoken much about her divorce in interviews. What the public knows for a fact is that Reba filed for divorce from Charlie Battles, her husband of eleven years, and two years later married [...]

Album Review: LeAnn Rimes – ‘This Woman’

Around the same time as Faith Hill released “Mississippi Girl”, her big return to country, LeAnn Rimes released her first single from This Woman called “Nothin’ ‘Bout Love Makes Sense”. It too, was supposed to be Rimes’ big return to country music after the pop records I Need You and Twisted Angel. It succeeded in [...]

Single Review: Montgomery Gentry – ‘Long Line of Losers’

Driving home late from work the other day, I heard a song on the radio and I was shocked — it sounded country! I heard some wonderful dobro work and what sounded like Montgomery Gentry, and I recognized it as their new single, “Long Line Of Losers”. Even further, I liked the song! Coming off their [...]

Signature songs from superb singers

This past year, Taylor Swift had a massive hit in “Love Story.” I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It went to #1 on 3 charts worldwide, including the American and Canadian County charts as well as Australia’s all-genre chart. Beyond that, “Love Story” went into the top 5 on U.S. Billboard’s Hot 100, Pop 100 [...]

Special spotlight – 9 to 5: The Musical

Last week I had the opportunity to go to New York City to tour and visit, for the first time in my life. We did all the usual tourist things, but my favorite part? Going to see the brand new musical, 9 to 5. It was in the Marquis Theatre, right on Times Square, right [...]

Single Review: Caitlin & Will – ‘Address In The Stars’

Season 2 of Can You Duet starts this June. And the first season winners Caitlin & Will still don’t have a single at radio yet.  The song ‘Even Now’ was released to iTunes last year – and was slated as a radio single for this year. But apparently, the radio programmers decided this tune was [...]

Emotional truth: sentiment and sentimentality in country music

Emotional truth is at the heart of almost all truly great country songs.  There is a very fine line in country music between the true tearjerkers, for which the genre is justly known, and the cloying sentimentality which outsiders sometimes ascribe to the music. Not, I have to admit, always completely unfairly – if the strings [...]

Secret Collaborations

Recently I’ve bought many Trisha Yearwood albums, namely Hearts In Armor, Inside Out, Real Live Woman and The Song Remembers When, in that order (the last one hasn’t arrived yet). The other day I was listening to all of my Trisha music on shuffle (which adds H,HatPoL and Jasper County to the previous albums) when [...]

Can You Beat Us? – Grammy Predictions

So finally after all these polls about the Grammys, we’re going to have a little contest using the results! I thought we could see who will guess the most winners! We have the predictions of all the writers here at My Kind Of Country, as well as all of the top choices as voted by [...]

Poll – Grammy For Best Female Country Vocal Performance

Here we have another entry in our Grammy poll series, this time for best female country vocal performance! In my opinion, this is a fairly strong category. I apologize for having so many polls close together, but the Grammys are fast approaching and there are still some country categories left!
As usual, check out the Grammy [...]

Chris’s End of 2008 List: Top 30 Singles

This is my 2008 top-30 singles post! First, about my singles list, I attempted to avoid songs that could still impact the charts more, songs like Miranda Lambert’s “More Like Her” or Little Big Town’s “Good Lord Willing”. I made some exceptions as you’ll soon see, but I tried to keep it to songs that [...]

Album Review: LeAnn Rimes – ‘Family’

At the age of 26, LeAnn Rimes is already somewhat of a veteran in the business. Her first album Blue was released in 1996, when she was only thirteen years old. Her debut single, the traditional “Blue”, a song written for Patsy Cline, showed an incredibly talented 13 year old singing like a forty-something woman [...]