Rolling Country 2019

Ooh shit: radio *readY* I meant to say.

via fact checking cuz

An average of 18.4% of songs across the yearend country airplay reports from 2000 to 2018 were by women;
• Women have been gradually filtered out of the top positions of the yearend reports, with 10% in the Top 20, 7 % in
the Top 10 and no #1 songs;
• Total annual spins for male artists in the Top 150 of the yearend reports increases from 5.8 million in 2000 to 10.3
million in 2018, while spins for women decrease from 2.8 to 1.1 million resulting in a 9.7 to 1 ratio by 2018;
• An average of 19.6% of songs across the weekly airplay report from 2002 to 2018 were by women, this number
includes 8.8% current songs and 10.7% recurrent songs;
• Like the yearend reports, women are filtered out of the top spots of the weekly reports, with an 8.8% average of
songs in the Top 10 between 2014 and 2018.

there's a trumpian aspect to these radio stats in the way the last few years of complaints have basically just made mainstream programmers dig in and play men even more and women even less -- while being completely open about what they're doing. huge respect to writers like marissa moss and groups like woman nashville who refuse to give up the fight.

Moorer's set on a recent Mountain Stage (prob archived on that public radio show's site by now) was pretty close to the album, incl. instrumental and other poise, with good comments between and on and sometimes a little past the songs (quotes collaborator Mary Gauthier to the effect that AM's just like Blanche Dubois--now that's what calls for another songwriting session)(also, "All I Wanted [Thanks Anyway] is about and to her father, not Steve Earle like I thought, oops).
She also contributed some vocal support to husband Hayes Carll, whose performance was otherwise mostly solo---which, with and without her, was more effective overall (though also shorter) his current album, What It Is, which I've listened to on bandcamp. In the studio, his voice tends to go tepid, and certainly can't compete with those stiffly rockin' beats, which seem a little rusty somehow--but in the second half, or maybe starting a little before (gets to be a little hard to pay attention), he slows it down, and then not, but either way grows some sensuous hooks, doing his his more vivid observations and speculations more justice than previously.
A country folkie who has no prob with (better) rockin' beats, kind of a modern day Mary McCaslin, is Caroline Spence, whose 2019 Mint Condition sparingly updates her 70s Neil-Emmylou buckskin diaries, with recurring bits of nocturnal Beach House keyboard harmonies, for inst. More on her later maybe. RIYL Lee Ann Womack.

vote here if you like---gotta be from their list, but it's pretty long and varied, incl. stuff I hadn't heard of:
https://www.nodepression.com/vote-for-your-favorite-2019-roots-music-albums-in-no-depressions-year-end-readers-poll/?mc_cid=20c1744423&mc_eid=b850f832a1

Listening again to Willie Nelson's Ride Me Back Home, struck again by its nobody-but-him best tracks, no matter who wrote 'em, though there are several worthy new Willies, mostly collaborations with now long-time producer Buddy Cannon--but now also with some misgivings, Title opener seems a tad too sentimental by the middle, which is where I tend to find myself starting to Web surf, 'til he snaps back into another foreground, then starts to recede again---as so often in the past, he has this way, of repeating, seeking to effortlessly, seamlessly display shading: "Still Is Still Moving To Me," amen: great when it works, but not so much on this set, where he can seem like a singing statue of himself (not the worst thing to hear), as the faithful musos swirl around him, adeptly sustaining most of the actual listening interest, as on several albums by much lesser artists this year.
Several lovely keepers, many lovely moments, even in the background, but there are many fine Willie albums, incl. in recent years, so I'm judging this again those--kinda thinking it might be more Hon. Mention than Top Ten (gotta finish that Scene ballot)--but looking again at the track list, maybe I'm too picky? Will listen some more.

They're pretty much all keepers, one way or another, esp since I bought'em---but may never play his take on "Just the Way You Are" again: it's done well, but why?

"I don't want clever conversation, I never want to work that hard. I just want someone that I can talk to," or not, and it's okay, most likely. Maybe this selection is his song for family friend Woody Harrelson, who plays dominos with Willie all night long at the Nelson domicile in Hawaii, as reported by Rolling Stone.
I'll prob keep this in the Top Ten, not so much out of deference (I hope), but because if you want a fresh fix of Willie, you'll just have to wait for the man himself (not for long, certainly not in this decade, although having only one new album this year has been a tad worrisome). Promise of the Real know to avoid or minimize direct comparison, literalist similarity; Phosphorescent has managed some effective quasi-channeling, but doesn't have the WN range, in any sense.

One of the evergreen Imaginary Categories on my ballot: About Half Good (60-45%), which can be about half Good! (so Good that it could turn into an Hon. Mention, although I don't know if that's ever happened.) Case in point this year: Maren Morris's Girl, which sometimes ski jumps the sonic canyons, especially via the exhilarating "Gold Love," and Brandi Carlile materializes, to ditto effect, though that reminds me that mebbe MM stretched this set's potential resources a bit thin by putting for instance and especially the aforementioned Emily Dickinson freak-in "Old Soul" on The Highwomen, though that would not have been such a high Half Good (if not otherwise as exciting as this set at its best). Put the best Morris tracks from that one and Girl and last year's duet with Thomas Rhettm and omg---as for the other half or so of this, she says she went soundchasing all over, "to Brazil and shit," but pop goes the country R&B nerf could have used---more ABBA studies maybe? ABBA and Atlanta.

Then there's also About Half Good that can be good in a way might as well be below 45%, speaking of nerf. I've been a Miranda stan since she was on Nashville Idol, coming in third (first place: Buddy Jewell, second: John Arthur Martinez), and her albums just got better and better, as did her Austin City Limits sets, and I've thought of her as the John Lennon of Pistol Annies, sexistly enough, but as I was led to observe while absorbing the assier home truths of Angaleena Presley's American Middle Class, "You can't help what you think." But Wildcard increasingly and alarmingly seems trivial, yet overworked, like maybe she's trying too hard to sell herself as having a Good Damn Life, and even as a pretty bitchin' brainful blonde bombshell of assertive skills and vivid turns---all ofwhich used to be a given, a starting point, not the whole point, turning around and in on itself, getting rather schematic in the process.
I may come back to Jesus after x more listens, and I know some people enjoy it, but right now, y'all can have it---Wildcard my foot.