It’s been 10 years since Country Music Hall of Famers Brooks & Dunn hit the road for a proper national tour. That will all change this summer and fall when the duo hits the road on the REBOOT 2020 Tour. Who will the opening acts be? According to the duo, there won’t be any. But there will be “special guests.”
“We feel like it is beginning to turn back to the traditional,” says Mary, the wife of Randy Travis. “It’s almost like fashion and everything else, there is an ebb and a flow. There are so many young artists that study Randy, and study some of the traditional [style], and they’re singing it.”
We keep talking about how one of the hottest trends currently in mainstream country music is actual country music, and listening to Scotty McCreery, he concurs, and wants to help to keep things trending in that direction. And with undeniable appeal of his deep, twangy voice, it would be more than welcome if he does.
All country albums, regardless if they emanate from a major label or receive radio play, are considered for Saving Country Music’s Album of the Year nominations. But not every year does a mainstream album make it. Even though one didn’t make it to the top of the heap in 2019, we had a bumper crop of quality mainstream country releases.
Luke Combs is not the William Faulkner of country music. He’s the Grisham, or the Clancy. Ripe for mass consumption, easy to get into, riveting in moments, it’s a much more healthier alternative to a People Magazine or some trashy romance novel for a long flight, but it’s not exactly material for the Pulitzer Prize.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have another name you should make sure to include in the mix whenever speaking about the wild resurgence of independent music shaking up mainstream country, and it’s the Southern rock and country band out of east Texas known as Whiskey Myers. Releasing their fifth record on September 27th…
Add Sturgill Simpson to the list of things in society that are extremely polarizing, right up there with politics, religion, LeBron James, pumpkin spice, and whatever else people get worked up about, with half the world professing something or someone is utter and unequivocal garbage, while the other half can’t contain their enthusiasm.
It’s not that that the previous works by Jon Pardi haven’t helped define that hard country edge of the mainstream, because they have. But on his new record Heartache Medication, this is not country music by close approximation, or considering it on a sliding scale based off the output from peers on Music Row. It’s By God country.
If you’re wondering what you might look forward to listening to in the final portions of 2019 in country and Americana music, let this be your guide. Here’s all the information Saving Country Music has been able to compile on the most anticipated upcoming releases, along with a more extensive catalog of releases to have on your radar.
Even ceding the argument that the album concept is dead for many listeners these days (which is not true at all for core, grassroots fans), there still doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of reason to release a large handful of your songs before an album’s street date, aside from that just seems to be what everyone does these days.
Mainstream traditionalist Jon Pardi’s third album Heartache Medication isn’t out for another two months yet (September 27th), but the California native continues to not just say, but do all the right things to get you excited for what he has in store. “There’s a big void to fill in country music, to be more country, or traditional.”
Jon Pardi continues to prove himself as one of the most staunch traditionalists in the country mainstream, and though you can be assured that his upcoming record ‘Heartache Medication’ will have a handful of songs that will pander to radio play, his latest release from the album “Ain’t Always The Cowboy” will not be one of them.
You’ll have to wait all the way until September 27th to hear Jon Pardi’s new record “Heartache Medication” in its entirety. But we now have the track list, cover art, and songwriting contributors for the new record, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff to unpack.
It’s honky tonk and heartbreakers coming at you hard and heavy in the latest additions to the Saving Country Music Top 25 Playlist. Charlie Marie and “Rodeo” don’t relinquish the top spot, but nipping at her heels is Tyler Childers with his much-anticipated lead single off his upcoming new album.
New music is coming from traditional-leaning mainstream country artist Jon Pardi, and he promises it will be loaded with fiddles and steel guitar, and exactly what country music’s twang lovers crave. “When I wrote that song, I knew the fiddle was going to count it off and we’re going to have a fiddle intro…”
Jon Pardi continues to prove that more traditionally-styled country music can be wildly successful in the mainstream when give a chance, and now he’s got more Platinum hardware to prove it. Jon Pardi’s album California Sunrise has now been Certified Platinum by the RIAA.
The heart welled up with excitement in many true country music fans when word came down that Brooks & Dunn had a new title on the way, only to be tempered by the fact that it’s a Reboot (nice double entendre there) of some of their old classics re-recorded with contemporary stars.
William Michael Morgan has sent us selling our stock, and then buying it all back again just in a matter of a couple of weeks. The first taste from his upcoming and unannounced sophomore record was a song called “Tonight Girl.” And then here comes “Brokenhearted.”
Nobody’s talking about it, but Jon Pardi is quickly developing into a serious modern country star. It’s for these reasons that Capitol Nashville has decided to release a 5th single from the record, which is a feat and a victory for any album in itself. A 5th single means a label perceives continued strength from a title and an artist.
There are big changes in the latest update to Saving Country Music’s Top 25 playlist. They start with four new songs added from four stellar new releases. It’s also worth noting that two songs that have appeared on the playlist for the longest have been replaced, while the songs from two other artists have been refreshed.
Everything is better with a little bit of Alan Jackson. Even if it is just a full-sized cardboard cutout of him from the 90’s with a mullet pouring out of the back of his cowboy hat stuck in the corner of a record store, his mere presence reminds you of a time when popular country music didn’t completely suck.
Michelob Ultra is the Cleveland Browns of Beers—the Sam Hunt of Suds—and with no disrespect to any of the low carb readers or listeners out there, I don’t think America’s most notorious “ultra light” beer is exactly what Tom T. Hall had in mind when he penned his ode to the amber goodness in 1975.
While in the independent realm of country music, 2017 went down as a record year for quality projects, the mainstream was downright abysmal pretty much across the board for both songs and albums. There actually were quite a few pretty good songs, but most struggled to gain traction in the charts.
Carly Pearce gives one true hope for the future of women on country radio as her debut single “Every Little Thing” hits #1 on the radio charts this week. And the success Aaron Watson continues to have with his song “Outta Style” doesn’t stop, which was unthinkable from a truly independent artist in previous years.