Here we go folks, our annual gathering of old souls and independent-minded country fans to collectively commiserate and contemplate what the hell has happened to our fair genre known as country music as the pomp and circumstance of the CMA Awards transpires right before our shocked and disgruntled eyes.
ABC’s Wednesday night drama Nashville just entered its second season, and though like many network television dramas, the drama can feel over-the-top and contrived, the show’s impact on a wide range of issues that fall under the charge of Saving Country Music is undeniable, if not unprecedented. Though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the show, it’s still important to understand Nashville’s impact.
Country music in 2013 feels like the best of times, and the worst of times. While a few top male performers perpetrate untold atrocities on the integrity of the genre, the rise of independent music and infrastructure in the marketplace is now almost to the point where it equals its corporate counterpart. Quality songs and worthy artists are beginning to see more and more support…
The dream of most every musician who has severed all ties to the civilian day job world and made that scarey plunge of becoming a professional artist is to eventually be discovered by someone who can help them make their dream into at least a stable, sustainable reality. The fairy-tale story of some unsigned, but unquestionably deserving artist getting discovered at a random show rarely comes true, but it did for Austin Lucas.
Everywhere in the independent music world you’re seeing songwriters who have struggled for years finally starting to get singed to record labels and releasing career-caliber albums. Whereas other sectors of the music industry seem to be gripped by the fear that digitization and streaming may ultimately doom the business of music, talented songwriters are benefiting from the search for the next writer to break out.
I don’t know if it’s a bigger commentary on the state of social networking, or the serious depravity of truly meaningful modern songs that the most talked-about country music composition in the last week has been a version of Dolly Parton’s legacy recording “Jolene” put on a record player at a slower speed setting than normal, making it sound like it is sung by a man, and striking a deep 70’s era half-time groove.
Much ado has been made about Rolling Stone giving accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rock star treatment by putting his mug on their latest issue. Though it’s a free country with free press and I would fight for the right of Rolling Stone to put whatever they want on their cover, here are some simple, friendly, alternative ideas of what could have graced the front of Rolling Stone’s July 2013 issue.
Exquisitely antiqued and strikingly original, old school country singer and native Canadian Lindi Ortega is the northern emissary for country music’s current female revolution. A class act all around that is regarded just as highly for her self-penned songs as her heavenly (or devilish) voice, Lindi is a creative maelstrom that sends the room spinning from her ability to expose the most blinding beauty from life’s inherent darkness.
You know how you may root for a hometown sports team for years even though they’re terrible, and then out of the blue when they start to get good you don’t know how to behave because you’ve identified with losing for so long? Well that is what is happening in 2013 with many of the artists Saving Country Music and so many loyal fans have been following for years.
2013 has come on strong here recently for quality albums, with some real contenders for the coveted “Album of the Year” distinction released just in the last week. Any “Best Of” album list for 2013 is also going to reflect the leadership and creativity displayed by country music women, which has become one of the year’s underlying themes so far.
I’m not sure if how light the selection is for potential Song of the Year candidates at the halfway marker says how anemic 2013 has been so far for top flight songs, or how fortunate we were in 2012 to have such a strong field. I could only find five true candidates. But despite the lack of quantity, quality is certainly represented in these five songs, and 2013 promises to come on strong…
Former Dixie Chick Natalie Maines has a knack for allowing her words to precede her. She left country after her quote about George W. Bush torpedoed the trio’s career, and ever since she’s been lobbing grenades back in country’s direction, including yet another in a new Rolling Stone article that represents her as “declaring war on Nashville.”
We’ve talked about 7 Men Who Could Immediately Make Country Music Better, now let’s take a look at 9 women who could do the same. It’s been well documented that here in 2013, the women of country are outpacing the men when it comes to the quality of music–women like Kacey Musgraves who’ve seen breakout commercial success.
When it comes to country music, it is the best of times, and the worst of times depending on if you’re talking about male or female artists. While it’s easy to focus on the awful, inane music from mainstream country’s male-dominated ruling class, there is an inspiring sect of female performers attempting to emerge from the heavy shadows of towering males and their tiring musical pap. So why the gender gap?
Forget all your stuffy old outmoded notions of what Nashville is. Right now Nashville is the center of the music universe in so many more ways than what is represented by the few city blocks of old houses and mini-rise office buildings on Music Row. Right here, right now, Nashville is the place to be for independent music. It’s Haight Ashbury circa 1965. It’s Guy Clark’s kitchen in the movie Heartworn Highways.
Before this album, I’d been mostly opinion neutral on Holly Williams. Being the granddaughter of Hank Williams, the daughter of Hank Jr., and the sister of Hank3 appointed her music the respect of more than a cursory look. She was neither here nor there, and with a lack of scene support her career sort of drifted. The Highway, released on her own Georgiana label, changes all of that.
If you’re not down in Austin yourself participating in the biggest music festival / music conference / music convention in the world known as South by Southwest (SXSW), it can almost seem like social media is working to taunt you for not participating as the event transpires between Tuesday and Saturday. We don’t want to revel in what you’re missing, we want to make it an opportunity to discover new music…
Part promotional tool for these showcases and artists, part tips to SXSW goers, part personal itinerary, part letting folks know what I’m clued in about so other folks can let me know what’s cool that I am missing, this is Saving Country Music’s SXSW 2013 living itinerary. SXSW is so expansive and so convoluted, there is no way one person can know everything, or let alone see and hear it…
“Country must evolve” is the way it is sold to the country music public when pop and hip-hop influences are invited into the country music fold. What these folks fail to point out is that country has been trying to evolve for 30 some odd years right under their noses. Are you looking for true progress and evolution in country music? Look no further than this list of women.
Like most fictional characters in popular culture, the characters of ABC’s new drama Nashville are probably based more on stereotypes than real-life folks. But for fun, let’s see if we can’t match up who the real-life inspiration is for the principals of the Nashville cast, and through the experiment see if the show really does represent all aspects of the Nashville music scene.
On Tuesday night Brad Paisley popped out of the crowd at the Grand Ole Opry and surprised everyone by presenting former Hootie & The Blowfish frontman turned pop country star Darius Rucker with an invitation to become a member of the iconic country music institution. Here we are, handing Hootie country’s most coveted invitation with a lifetime guarantee when there’s so many other artists out there so much more deserving.
Though Americana may be a less-institutionalized and much smaller genre that tends to have better music and promote artists that are easier to respect, sometimes it can seem almost as exclusive as Music Row. So here is a list of artists that even considering Americana’s heavy requirements, could make it big and improve the Americana world if only given a chance.
This Saturday, April 21st with be the 2012 installment of Record Store Day, the annual event started in 2007 to help the struggling independent record store. 2012 will go down as the year when country came busting through the Record Store Day scene with full representation, with so many projects being released taking stock of it all can be dizzying. So here is your 2012 Country Music Record Store Day Field Guide.
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the 2012 Official Anti-ACM’s Saving Country Music Live Blog! The way this works is as the night proceeds we will leave our ACM observations from the broadcast in a timeline below. You are strongly encouraged to participate by leaving your comments below as well. Think of this as a commiseration party, where folks who feel country is on the wrong path and find a collective of like minds.