There is no need to mince words here or parse expectations. Alex Williams debut record Better Than Myself is traditional country music. And if it needs any qualifiers, it would be that it leans more toward the Outlaw style. There’s no compromise, no songs getting intro’d with a drum machine beat. It is true country music in every sense.
What we know for sure is that Dot Records is no longer a label, at least for now. What we don’t know about is the fate of some of the artists that called the label home. Maddie & Tae, Drake White, and Staind frontman turned country artist Aaron Lewis have an uncertain future.
Despite the rumors and speculation, and Saving Country Music once naming him the “Country Music Antichrist,” apparently Scott Borchetta is indeed a mortal after all. We’re still trying to sift out what exactly has happened to the Big Machine Label Group’s Dot Records, which has apparently bit the bullet.
Celebrating the #1 record in country this week with his Big Machine Records debut Sinner responsible for 39,000 copies sold, Aaron Lewis continues to try and walk a difficult line between being a major label country artist, a traditionalist who wants to talk smack on the industry, all while wearing the baggage of being the successful frontman of the rock band Staind.
If you want your musical experience in life to be the most fulfilling and enjoyable, then you have to be without prejudice when approaching music. There are many reasons on paper that one might decide they would never like the country music of the Staind frontman turned occasional country crooner Aaron Lewis.
On the Bobby Bones Show Thursday (9-15) morning (listen at the bottom), Bobby spoke to Aaron Lewis after his recent blowup at pop country artists, and what did he do? Aaron backpeddled and admitted he was playing to the crowd. Then Bobby Bones finished his segment with Aaron Lewis on Thursday by bringing up Saving Country Music in a strange context.
But this is the thing about Aaron Lewis and his anti-country stance: Normally this type of thing would solicit high praise from an outlet like Saving Country Music. And hey, I will give him credit for taking a stand. But Aaron Lewis, a dyed-in-the-wool rock gone country guy, is not the one to be delivering this message, I’m sorry.
Aaron Lewis, the frontman for the emo noise band Staind, whose been dabbling in country music for years now, has just signed to Dot records—a division of the Big Machine Label Group—and will be releasing a new record called Sinner on September 16th. And as part of the announcement, Aaron has released a country protest song called “That Ain’t Country.”
Last time I was paying attention to Tyler Farr, he was touching off a firestorm for singing about parking his truck in his ex’s yard and whipping beer cans at her window. Then Colt Ford and the cast of Duck Dynasty showed up in the video, machine gunning out rolls of toilet paper at this poor chick’s abode just because she finally figured out Tyler Farr had a big bag of nothing and gave him the boot.
Aaron Lewis only had one task Sunday Night, ONE TASK! … before the upsurging Kansas City Royals took on the San Francisco Giants. And despite the patriotism he crammed down our throats in his first country single “Country Boy,” he couldn’t even get the dern Star Spangled Banner correct when singing at AT&T Park. “What so proudly we hailed were so gallantly streaming.”
On November 12th, artists from across the country and Southern rock world will be coming together to pay tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd in a unique way. Not your typical tribute concert, and not your typical tribute album, One More For The Fans! — Celebrating The Songs & Music of Lynyrd Skynyrd will be a combination of both ideas taking place on the stage of the famed Fox Theatre in Atlanta.
We’ve seen these moments more and more at concerts, especially country music concerts where an artist has to stop everything down because someone in the crowd is acting completely inappropriate, but this instance may take the cake. Recent country music convert Aaron Lewis was manning the mic as part of his other gig as the frontman for the angry emo rock band Staind….
On Friday, Jan. 24th, Aaron Lewis was playing a show at the Thirsty Cowboy in Medina, Ohio, and during his set he decided to take the recent #1 song “Redneck Crazy” by Tyler Farr to task. “I fucking hate this song,” Aaron Lewis told the Thirsty Cowboy crowd. The alternative version called “Redneck Crazy Revisited” was written by a songwriter named Zach Woods.
It was looking like Lewis was falling right in line with the procession of other country music outsiders fleeing to the country genre in the twilight of their careers to find commercial strength. But when his full-length album The Road was released in late 2012, it was actually a pleasant surprise to hear just how country and non-commercial it was.
In 2013, stories of entertainers that “go country” are routine occurrences instead of reasons for surprise, intrigue, or outrage, because country music has officially become the default repository for talent fleeing the collapse of mainstream rock or the place to find strength in the twilight of a dying entertainment career. Here are some of the most notorious “gone country” moments over the years.
All of a sudden hip-hop influences are dominating the top of the country music charts, asserting just as much influence, if not more than indigenous country influences, with a bevy of new country rap tunes from numerous artists ready to be released, and mainstream artists lining up to try and be a part of the trend. How did country music get here?
es, Aaron Lewis, the ultra-emotional singer from Staind that done “gone country” a couple of years back has a new album called The Road, and I have to say, this was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. The Road is a hard country, steel guitar, half-time, waltz beat, honest-to-goodness honky tonk album with some surprisingly good moments.
As frequent readers of Saving Country Music will attest, over the years we’ve christened fun little nicknames for some our favorite pals of pop country. If you ever wondered where these names came from and why, here’s the explanation behind some of our favorite terms of antipathy. Tim McGraw – The Perfume Magnate, Kid Rock – The Wet Cigarette . . .
Isn’t Arron Lewis bored yet and ready to return to butt rock? Apparently not, as he told The Tennessean late last week he’s planning to release a “very country” album in June. What does “very country” mean? If his previous song “Country Boy” is any indication, it will be songs with laundry list country lyrics, and that’s exactly what you get with his new single “Endless Summer”.
Have you ever wondered who actually listens to those songs they play on pop country radio? Here are the six primary Archetypes, or as Music Row refers to them, “target demographics”, that make up the audience of the pop country world: The “Affliction T-Shirt “New Outlaw” Doucher”, “Bored Suburban Soccer Mom”, “Glitter-Faced Pop Country Girl”…
Those previous positive statements I made about Justin? Well it looks like I need to back pedal pretty hard from them, because this album is awful. In my opinion, and I appreciate the gravity and the certitude of what I’m about to say, but in my opinion, Outlaws Like Me is the worst country music album I have ever heard, EVER.
About two months ago, Saving Country Music introduced you to a would-be pop country star named Michael Jackson Montgomery in the aftermath of drama between Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter Miley. Shortly after releasing the demo, Michael Jackson Montgomery contacted SCM directly, offering to release more demo’s “when appropriate,” and yesterday he sent us another one called “The Letter ‘B'”.
The latest new low is this “duet” by Colt Ford with the aforementioned Kevin Fowler called “Hip Hop in a Honky Tonk.” You can probably guess the premise. 2011 might be the year that the two 2 supergenres of hip hop and country merge into a monogenre as the lost and creatively bankrupt music industry continues to contract, offering no contrast, no creativity, and no choice. What could be a finer example than this.
I have no doubt that Aaron Lewis is a proud American, and that he is a “country boy” in the sense that he lives in the country. After all, he wouldn’t shut the hell up about it for the 5 minutes of this song. I have no doubt that he likes to dress up in camo and run around his land playing GI Joe, driving around in a boy toy surplus army truck like Sergent Slaughter. But none of this makes a rock song country.