After a music year dominated by Taylor Swift, we’re now in store for… another music year dominated by Taylor Swift, with the next album of all-new material which she surprise-announced at the Grammy Awards in early February being released in the spring. We’re not sure if eighteen years it’s too soon to call 34-year-old Swift a “veteran… Read more
Photo Credit: Trevor Pavlik In case you hadn’t noticed, country music is enjoying a “boom” moment – earlier this summer, country songs occupied all the top 3 spaces on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time ever – and then, it happened again. But whether this phenomenon was to the genre’s benefit or not… Read more
Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen Even by the standards of Ruston Kelly’s previous heavy and confessional music, the task before him while creating The Weakness was particularly stark. Between finishing writing his previous album – 2020’s Shape & Destroy – and now, he endured a high-profile breakup with Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves and was continuing to… Read more
Photo Credit: Ashley Osborn In recent years, two distinct roads have emerged in the country music landscape. That less traveled is occupied by the likes of Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers, The Highwomen, and Jess Williamson. These are singers who embody country’s music original promise – of heartfelt, homespun, hugely evocative songs – while updating the… Read more
Photo Credit: Dave Hogan via HBO Tina Turner, one of the most important and iconic figures in music in the late twentieth century, died on May 24th at age eighty-three. While a highly influential performer in R&B, Tina fully embraced rock ‘n’ roll and explored a variety of other music styles including dance and even… Read more
Photo Credit: Louie Banks In 2017, Shania Twain ended a fifteen-year gap between albums with Now – re-introducing herself to the public with a newly mature sound that attempted to show she’d evolved without losing her signature charm. That album’s best songs did just that (“Home Now” and “Life’s About to Get Good”), but the… Read more
Photo Credit: Kristín Braga Wright Though you wouldn’t necessarily know it from listening to country radio, women have spent the last few years carrying the genre on their backs. While Sam Hunt has been delivering toxically masculine lyrics over awkward genre fusions and Walker Hayes has been making bro-country Applebees jingles, Margo Price has been… Read more
Photo Credit: Michael Schmelling The best song on Amanda Shires’ eighth solo album, “Everything Has It’s Time” is a kaleidoscopic collection of memories jarringly placed alongside dispatches from the present day. The song captures love in a state of irreversible disrepair and in doing so heart-wrenchingly captures all that has been. “There was a time… Read more
Photo Credit: Sarah Doyle Badged “Irish alt-country,” this might turn you off. That would be a mistake. CMAT’s hilarious debut is one of 2022’s most remarkable achievements. 26-year-old Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson describes herself as a mix between Dolly Parton, Katy Perry, and Weird “Al” Yankovic. If that sounds like an unbelievable fusion, nothing could be… Read more
Photo Credit: Beth Garrabrant (All Photos) Taylor Swift’s re-recordings have, so far, been largely successful – beyond achieving their central aim of giving Swift back control of the masters of her first six albums, they’ve earned her another No.1 with “All Too Well,” as well as jumpstarting an overdue critical re-evaluation of her earliest works…. Read more