Ashley Monroe’s much-anticipated new album Sparrow will be arriving on April 20th via Warner Bros. Nashville. Produced by Dave Cobb and recorded in Nashville’s historic Studio ‘A’, the record is said to take a very Countrypolitan approach to the music. Songwriting contributors were just revealed along with the full track list.
When you think of the modern country music landscape, you think of a clear delineation line between the independent and mainstream. However the songwriting credits for Miranda Lambert are the one clear exception. Looking through her list of collaborators, it’s pretty incredible.
Earlier this week, Rolling Stone published an in-depth report about the prevalent culture in country radio systemically looking the other way when young artists—mostly women—are taken advantage of, harassed and often expected to be receptive to inappropriate behavior by older men in the radio industry.
Kentucky has always been the fertile crescent of country music. It just happens to be that lately it has kicked its output into overdrive, and more than any other state at the moment, it’s Kentucky’s sons and daughters fueling the country music insurgency turning the mainstream on its head.
“I’m gonna do one by myself, because I can,” Miranda told the crowd. “I want to do this on behalf of all the girls that are not being played on country radio right now. If you really love us, you will call and request any female that has a song out and something to say. This is one of those called ‘Tin Man.'”
Uncaged, unhinged, and at times even inappropriate, Wrangled is Angaleena Presley making the record she wants to, be damned of the bridges left aflame and the apple carts upset. It is an unusual record, in both sound production and theme. But it also remains solidly country, Angaleena country, where no recess of the unsettled mind is off limits.
You’re not quite sure exactly what message Angaleena Presley is trying to drive home when you first pull up the track. But things get turned up a big notch when Nashville resident and hip-hop artist Yelawolf, who is a well-known critic of arena rap and corporate country, goes careening into a tirade.
List making either before or after events has become a dubious enterprise of mainstream outlets just looking to troll the fan bases of independent performers to get these performers to dutifully post the coverage to their social network feeds and drive unique views to the outlets while little if any true discovery for said artists by new fans actually occurs.
Acting as a guide through both the explanation of the roots of country music and the streets of Nashville, Justin Townes Earle and many others try best to define “country” for a foreign audience in the film. The Country Roads DVD also includes an entire Justin Townes Earle concert performed at Pace University on October 26th and 27th of 2012 called “The Spirit of Woody Guthrie.”
The virtual disappearance of female country music stars on American radio is a dilemma that has now stretched out for nearly half a decade. Now the senior director of music programming at SiriusXM is looking to try and do something about the problem and hopefully create interest around some of country music’s undiscovered and worthy female talent.