Rolling Country 2023

Ha, so true! I don't know McKenna's work well enough to identify which songs but I hear it most clearly on the chorus of "Carolina" and on "Books & Records." My comment read as more pejorative than I meant it -- he traverses a lot of different territory, songwriting-wise, and it's actually rather impressive that it all works quite well.

Will do a bit of self-promotion and share the consensus picks from the panel at Country Universe for the Top 10 Albums and Top 20 Singles of 2022.

New Shania Twain single out this week immediately reminds me of how great Laura Bell Bundy was / presumably still is, and how her "Giddy On Up" was so ahead of it's time that, 12 years on, it's still a hell of a lot better than Shania's "Giddy Up."

At least a little bit intrigued by "Bets On Us" by Cheat Codes f Dolly Parton. It's in the same realm as those Avicii - Dan Tyminski collabs from several years back, but I'm not sure it does anything novel in that regard.

Thanks! I don't keep up with singles so well, but some intriguing picks there, also here: https://www.countryuniverse.net/2023/01/06/the-best-albums-of-2022/

Not seeing Lainey Wilson or Amanda Shires here

Both got a couple of stray votes but didn't make the consensus lists...

Surprising! Lainey Wilson is damn good again, ditto what I've heard of the Shires, thanks for reminder to check out whole thing.

(Also: Willie, Miranda, Ingrid Andress, Pillbox Patti, Billy Joe Shaver trib among the missing albs---good to see Kaitlin Butts and Akeem on there though)

I'll say I liked both of them well enough but didn't have either in contention for the 20 albums I voted for personally for our poll. Among the country / Americana circles I run in, the Shires album was pretty divisive, but Wilson has popped up on a lot of other year-end lists I've seen.

Good news about Wilson. Also good to see Sunny Sweeney on the CU Top Ten, though I haven't quite made up my mind about hers, or sev others.

ReallY?! Divisive? In my circles it's her best album; to my ears her other albums had strong intentions and weak songwriting.

xpost.

Yeah, I'd say it's a pretty even split among the writers I run with; either they agree with your take on it or find it to be her least successful. It hasn't gotten much love on a lot of other year-end lists I've read, either. Sampling biases play into all of that, for sure.

I am behind on my listening but I caught up on Hailey Whitters ‘Raised’ and dow, I think I def align with your earlier assesment re her triteness

Like, her songs are well phrased & hooky as hell but i can’t find any “there” there other than fishing & drinkin, highschool & hometown, raising hell and raising babies

like a corny uncreative two-dollar Maren idk

But I fucking LOVE Ashley Monroe’s Lindeyville, I have listened to that a few times now & it’s so good. Vivid characters & the worldbuilding is so well thought out, and of course the songs are so damn good. Love her!

oh and I am fully Margo Price pilled - we’re seeing her in SF in Feb

Oh cool! Her Perfectly Imperfect At The Ryman is a really good live album---the "imperfect" part to me is mostly when she's using Ike & Tina's arrangement of "Proud Mary," but otherwise ace.
You mean Ashley McBryde, not Monrow--wish she was on there too! Lots of Ashleys these days, and I have trouble with all the Lukes and Zachs nd Zaks.
Lindeville is so far seeming kinda uneven to me, but this is awes:
Ashley McBryde w Pillbox Patti: "The Girl in the Picture"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfe93xj6ly4

Also! McB's contribution to the John Anderson trib, "Straight Tequila Night"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgH09g7hVmw

The Sierra Ferrell track on that comp is fantastic

ugh yes Ashley McBride lol thx sorry

def too many ashleys & whatnot

Why do parents do that? To protect their children from ridicule for abnormal names maybe, so rooms full o' Heathers, Ashleys, Lukes, Zaks, Justins, Dylans, though some of those may be decade-markers?
Yeah I like most of the Anderson trib though Brent Cobb and Jamey Johnson aren't quite up to snuff (their bands try to get them there), & could live w/o The Brothers Osborne's cover of Anderson's cover of "You Can't Judge A Book etc.". And where's "Swingin'"?
But several people I don't usually give about one way or the other surely rise to the occasion, and yeah Ferrell and McBryde are among those who do better than that, keeping to their high standards---also cool to have a good prev. unreleased Prine that is not just a demo.

Thanks for the heads up on that Ashley McBride album... lots of Brandy Clark on there!

Haven't heard the new Margo Price but I've heard it's great. Honestly, though, I still have so much trouble with all the great artists with first or last or both names that with M. Margo Price, Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, Morgan Wade, Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, Ashley McBride, Ashley Monroe ...

Margo’s new album is great imo. This might sound kinda basic, like a lot of music is like this, but thing I love about her is that her songwriting is excellent & the musicianship is too, so with each song there’s so many layers of interest … and she expresses herself in creative uncliched ways & the sounds are not just the same old sounds idk idk

it’s good!

<taps sign>

The Margo Price c/d

xps Mike and the Moonpies!

Folks, so excited for our first #StatesofCountry show of the year at @sidgoldsreqroom Weds Jan 25 celebrating the music of Minnesota with some experts @liannesmithee @salmaas @MarcellusHall https://t.co/NSlKRMg12I see you there? You betcha! pic.twitter.com/PR9n0PfFvl

— Laura Cantrell (@LauraRCantrell) January 20, 2023

Laura Cantrell in NYC for first of a monthly series celebrating country music from different states. For some reason she’s starting with Minnesota

Sids is a fun room to do that in.

Once in a lifetime lineup: pic.twitter.com/sEODAhlWqc

— Andy Langer (@Andylanger) January 24, 2023

Whoa

cool

Does xgau's EOY list usually have this much country on it?

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/deans-list-2022

Delighted to see Willie's album as high as it is. It is a gem.

lol, top 84.

Yeah, he's pretty reliable for including country and country-adjacent stuff and has been for a good long while. Also delighted to see his high ranking for the Willie Nelson album. And, fwiw xp, he included Amanda Shires in his t20 but also didn't go for Lainey Wilson.

Yeah, he's been useful re country since early 70s (pro tip for Consumer Guide look-ups: they Merle Haggard *and* Merle Haggard and the Strangers: maybe duh, but took me a while). He's being pretty obtuse about Lainey, though.
I can see why your friends are divided on Shires: good songs, and I think I got basically the right idea before finally checking lyrics, but then I saw lots of important detail that weren't coming through. There are exceptions, esp. that one time she adds a little echo and then goes to double-tracking: THANK YOU JESUS. If she only would (more than could) deal with her vocal limits as well as she does everything else here.

He's okay on country; as usual he prefers sexually aggressive women. If they code as "genteel" for him, he's out the door.

Lee Ann Womack's recorded some of the best albums of the last 20 years by anybody but he doesn't care.

Oh yeah he's ridic on her.

deal with her vocal limits as well as she does everything else here. Well sometimes the weak link voice does seem like evidence of brave vulnerability, "Here I am..." But the most striking moments tend to pass, and she's still singing. On the other hand, I've listened to it more than any other album in 2022 or early '23---and not hate-listened, but it's----maddening at times.

most striking moments re vocals, that is; otherwise, the tracks can thrive. I'm learning, being taught, to listen around the voice, as with some ancient Tom Waits and Henry Rollins albums.

I mean sometimes it works anyway, or the voice even does its bit all the way through: one for my Singles/Tracks list will be "Empty Cups," referring to her hands. I picture them as red solo cups, and think also of the Toby Keith song.

Will prob put it in Honorable Mentions---the singing is the one thing that keeps me from full acceptance/enjoyment.

So it's got me in semi-detached art appreciation, like this year's Charley Crockett.

2022's Charley Crockett, that is.

xp Xgau

as usual he prefers sexually aggressive women. If they code as "genteel" for him, he's out the door.

Alfred's spot on here.

It's why, in addition to Womack, he completely missed the boat on the genre's mainstream women in the 90s and aughts. Rarely gave the time of day to anyone on the Yearwood/Loveless/Tillis/Wynonna/Rimes axis and ends up with massive blind spots because of it. Was weirdly dismissive of a lot of the women of the 90s alt-country boom other than Lucinda and Iris, too.

But hey, he quoted me by name in a review once for being over-the-top in my praise for Miranda Lambert in the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, so what do I know.

Speaking of Iris: Two new singles out in advance of her new album. Both are fantastic.

Can't wait

I don't usually post in the rolling country thread but wanted to alert yall of this new Esther Rose album https://www.brooklynvegan.com/esther-rose-announces-new-album-safe-to-run-for-new-west-shares-chet-baker/

Never heard of her before but a friend of mine hosted a camping trip a few months ago which had a bunch of different musicians playing etc. she ended up playing a set along the Rio Grande and it was probably the highlight of the whole thing for me. Completely blew me away. Nice to see her getting some recognition on BV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDXRedvaIK4

Thanks!
Willie won Grammys for A Beautiful Time and "Live Forever," title track of that good xpost Billy Joe Shaver trib----new album out next month:

Amongst the nearly 150 albums that Willie Nelson has released, he has a number of amazing full-album tributes to songwriters from Kris Kristofferson and George Gershwin to Ray Price and Cindy Walker. Adding to that list is a new studio album dedicated to songwriting legend Harlen Howard who has scores of country hits including a number that crossed over to pop and even R&B charts. A member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall Of Fame, Howard wrote hits for Ray Charles (“Busted”), Buck Owens (“I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail”), Conway Twitty (the title track), Bobby Bare (“The Streets Of Baltimore”) and so many more. Produced by longtime collaborator Buddy Cannon and featuring a murderers’ row of crack Nashville musicians, I Don’t Know A Thing About Love is an amazing addition to Willie’s unparalleled catalog.

Featuring cover art by Micah Nelson (Willie's son), I Don't Know A Thing About Love was produced by longtime musical collaborator Buddy Cannon and debuts 10 studio performances. The band on the album includes Willie Nelson (Trigger, lead vocals), Larry Paxton (bass, tic tac bass), Lonnie Wilson (drums), Bobby Terry (acoustic guitar, electric guitar), James Mitchell (electric guitar), Mike Johnson (steel guitar), Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Jim "Moose" Brown (piano, synthesizer, B3 organ, Wurlitzer), Wyatt Beard (background vocals), and Melonie Cannon (background vocals).

I Don't Know A Thing About Love will be released March 3, 2023

I've been catching up with the 2022 digital debuts of quite a few Roger Miller albums, but I'll start the mentions with a prequel I just now listened to: the 2020 Early Recordings (1957-1962, where I was immediately struck by the early tracks' unabashedly twangy, forthrightly honky-tonk settings for the post-Hank blue verve of his ballad singing--and even sometimes interspersed with well-timed bit of Milleized(more falsetto, in little leaps) Jimmie Rodgers blue yodel---all of which is eventually followed by a few lint tufts of more discreet, post-Eddy Arnold sadness, which Miller has no particular knack for, as is proven again and again on some of the 2022 reissues (even when his ballad-writing is on point, with crisp "Invitation To The Blues" and "Tall Tall Trees," which was a Top Ten hit for Alan Jackson in the 90s---could def see AJ doing a good Miller tribute.)
(The Bear Family import edition of this collection adds a disc of covers, which I haven't heard, so could be that Miller's writing was already ahead of his singing, re drinkin' & cryin' vehicles on the slow side of life.)
There are also quite a few with rowdy Roger appeal, often Louisiana-flavored country with persistent Jerry Lee-type piano punctuation, leading through New Orleansian party favors at times--with a different kind of refreshment, even on a ballad, provided a few times by Roger and acoustic guitar, that's all. My current fave is a perky version of mountain classick "I Traced Her Little Footprints in the Snow." She left in summer with no footprints, but he found her by cracky, and "now she's playing in that angel band," where he hopes to join her someday--but what's really cool to him, sounds like, is that he traced her!

Back to 2022: Roger and Out(1964) and The Return of Roger Miller(1965), largely from the same sessions, are poptastic realness, calling on all creative resources to jitter and jolt and josh and clown himself through all manner of country and Roger sadness, anxiety, ritual guilt trips x pity parties, a lot of it just barely drive-by noticeable, but close enough. Also, for instance, "John Q.," with veteran Roger marching again through whut-whut, even gnarling over drums like pirate ancestor of the Pogues.
These one-two hitz-laden punchbowl punches are his most peaky and tweaky---as in olde term "tweaker," speed-enthusiast; he was taking regular doses of Vitamin A then---also with some from those same sessions, The Third Time Around(1965) and Words and Music(1966), especially, are not quite as good, but certainly have their keepers.
Then the title track of Walkin' In The Sunshine has a 1967 buzz of surprise, shows he's keeping up with the pop possibilities, as he turns out to have a Roger way with Jamacoid, Johnny Nash-in-Nashvile sing-along, bounce-along, not-too-cuteness, and most of the rest is okay, esp. in afterglow of the hit.
Waterhole # 3 (The Code of the West)(1967) is a skippable soundtrack he didn't write, and his singing lacks conviction at best.
A Tender Look At Love(1968) is as bad as you might suspect from title: all ballads, and all covers, I think (I don't want to think about it).
Roger Miller(1969) lets fly with the Sir Dougadelic "Shame Bird" (RM ain't one!)
Roger Miller 1970 sucks except for the Tommy James and The Shondells-worthy picnic vision ov "Crystal Day," wheee.
Ken Tucker really liked the long-lost commercial flop A Trip To The Country (1970), and you can hear why in his archived Fresh Air coverage, but I think it's mostly pretty boring (here is where Miller under-undersells "Invitation to the Blues").
Making A Name For Myself(1979) is appropriately, self-assuredly, expertly ambitious, kicking off with "The Hat," in which a Miller prime time street personage admires and would like to have your hat (for a start?), pass it over and he'll tell you why---ok? He's cheerful and serious.
Then, with input from some Steely associates, he makes himself at home in actually sexy (heretofore not a Roger-associated attribute, that I've noticed) mid-to-late 70s R&B lanes, like Aretha and Al Green might approve, but still sounding just like himself--then my favorite, "Pleasing The Crowd," I'd swear is an Allen Toussaint-Dr. John visit, though still Roger as hell, as the jaded old showman sez tough shit kid and then rallies whomever, including himself, judging by the ever-building reluctant intensity. (My favorite reissue, next to the '64 and '65 joints)
Roger Miller (1985) is most notable for openers and closers from his Huck Finn musical, Big River: real good, and I'll have to check out the Original Cast Recording for the whole thing, though he's not on it (he did perform in it live for several months after John Goodman split).

could def see AJ doing a good Miller tribute album, I meant.

A couple more things: even in the early 60s, scat-singing flipster Roger wants to make it even clearer that he isn't just for hipsters: he points out that it takes all kinds, including squares---several years before Merle's great line, "A place where even squares can have a ball!" Roger's talking about boring, necessary jobs, but with no push-back topicality---indeed, talking about what it takes to make the world go round leads him yet into another whirl.
Much later, a song about "Arkansas,", which sounds like it's gonna be rhymed with "Yee-haw!", but never quite does, is nonetheless a celebration of a place he ain't never been, but maybe he is about to, finally! Like his Granpaw always said they would. Relatable.

Oh yeah, the only way I've found The Return of Roger Miller is via this person's playlist http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLasAIHkjrlj_9FpkyGg1T7W8J_qtNqsmm Which is missing a couple of tracks on the reissue, but they can be rounded up on YouTube.

Oh wow, I didn’t know all those albums were streaming now. I only know Miller via comps so I’m happy to check out the albums. Will compare my notes against yours, dow

New Vincent Neil Emerson album out today.

Yeah, he sez “There’s a few country-inspired songs on this one, a few stripped-down acoustic songs, and a few songs inspired by that 60s folk rock movement.”
Produced by Shooter Jennings, w input from Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell. For inst,

Emerson wrote “Man From Uvalde” after the horrific and tragic mass shooting in the city of Uvalde, Texas, and he was initially hesitant to include the track on The Golden Crystal Kingdom. “It's a daunting thing to try to dive into social issues in songwriting because I wasn’t sure how people would really take it,” Emerson says. “I recorded a rough demo version of the song, and I sent it to Steve [Earle]. I just wanted to get his thoughts on it and see if it was worth anything. He got back to me, and he said he really liked the song and thought it was great. He gave me a few ideas and ways to look at the subject differently, and it really helped me finish the song. That encouragement gave me the confidence to include it on the album.”

atch Vincent Neil Emerson On Tour:

NOV 10, 2023 - Elkton Music Hall - Elkton, MD

NOV 11, 2023 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY

NOV 15, 2023 - World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA

NOV 16, 2023 - The Southern Café and Music Hall - Charlottesville, VA

NOV 17, 2023 - Motorco Music Hall - Durham, NC

NOV 18, 2023 - New Brookland Tavern - Columbia, SC

NOV 19, 2023 - Charleston Music Hall - Charleston, SC

NOV 21, 2023 - Eddie's Attic - Decatur, GA

DEC 9, 2023 - Antone's Nightclub - Austin, TX

For more information, please visit vincentneilemerson.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHC9f5ICNJ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpuHTXjR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQVNLI9IFDk

That second one was supposed to be title song, try again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpuHTXjRZw

enjoying Florry! happy if this thread has room for non purist country adjacent stuff

LA Times on Grammys nominations snubbing country music. NY Times also said similar

The Grammys had many paths to acknowledge country music’s outstanding year. Luke Combs had a massive crossover hit with a cover of Tracy Chapman’s beloved “Fast Car.” Zach Bryan topped the streaming and Billboard charts with a thoughtful, ferocious album that featured a hit duet with Grammy fave Kacey Musgraves. Lainey Wilson just cleaned up at the CMA Awards, a victory lap after a decade in the Nashville trenches. And Morgan Wallen sold out stadiums and easily outstreamed Swift and SZA, to name two powerhouses.

And yet country came up almost totally empty. Jelly Roll and the War and Treaty got nods for best new artist, but otherwise, the genre was shut out in the four general field categories. Overall, Combs has one nomination, Wilson has two, Bryan has three and Brandy Clark has six — almost all in country and adjacent genre categories. Voters might still be ignoring Wallen for his N-word indiscretion, but it’s now clear they don’t seem to care much for country as a whole, even in a banner year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/arts/music/grammy-awards-snubs-surprises.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Did Brandy Clark get 6 noms for the milquetoast s/t?

given that wallen was snubbed at the CMAs & was generally treated like an ancillary figure throughout the proceedings, the lack of grammy nominations isn't very surprising. but i figured zach bryan would get looks in the major categories. and you'd think the grammys would love any opportunity to celebrate tracy chapman. it wouldn't surprise me at all if the grammy voter base was not really slanted towards engagement w/ country music esp if you tried to isolate the young, country focused voters among the academy. can't imagine that's a legion of any sort

Grammys rules also play a rule per Caramanica in NY Times link above:

If there were one song with the best chance of bridging contemporary country to the Grammys, it would be Combs’s cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” which went to No. 2 on the Hot 100 and earlier this week won song of the year at the CMA Awards, making Chapman the first Black winner in that category. But in part because of Grammy rules — it isn’t eligible for song of the year because Chapman was nominated for her original in 1989 — Combs’s version has been relegated to just a single nomination, in best country solo performance, a snub that feels unexpectedly pointed. JON CARAMANICA

The Billboard Music Awards had no qualms about giving Morgan Wallen a bunch of trophys

Top Male Artist &
🏆 Top Hot 100 Artist
🏆 Top Streaming Songs Artist
🏆 Top Country Artist
🏆 Top Country Male Artist
🏆 Top Country Touring Artist
🏆 Top Billboard 200 Album “One Thing At A Time”
🏆 Top Country Album “One…

Not saying it's good, just noting it

Last night they let the liquor talk

heard "watermelon moonshine" on the radio. it's nice but i can't help but note that it a lesser version of "strawberry wine" which is one of my favorite country songs ever

Had to school myself and look up your fave, but yeah you're right

Not saying it's good, just noting it

― curmudgeon, Monday, November 20, 2023 9:31 AM (five hours ago)bookmarkflaglink

you should do some research into how they choose the winners of that show

They use Billboard data, not surprising and yeah I know Wallen is popular

From NPR music newsletter:

Garth Brooks has a new album…for Bass Pro Shops customers

by Stephen Thompson, NPR Music

...there remains about Garth Brooks a little-known fact: On Nov. 7, he released a new album. Titled Time Traveler, the record came out with notably little fanfare — a TV appearance here, a Billboard profile there, and that’s about it. News articles about the record have begun to pop up as word has spread, most of which focus less on the music than on the method of distribution: The only way you can get Time Traveler is to buy it on CD, as part of a seven-disc box set sold exclusively at Bass Pro Shops.

You can’t stream Time Traveler — not even via Amazon, which has otherwise-exclusive rights to Brooks’ catalog. You can’t even buy it as a single disc, though fans who’ve lost track of Brooks’ recent work might be glad to catch up on the box set’s remaining contents: everything the singer has released since coming out of retirement in 2014. (That’d be 2014’s Man Against Machine, 2016’s Gunslinger, 2019’s three-disc live set Triple Live and 2020’s Fun.)

If you’re wondering how one of the biggest stars in the world wound up releasing an album via Bass Pro Shops outlets, consider another fact about Garth Brooks: The guy really, really hates streaming. And, since he’s amassed the fame and fortune to do (and not do) pretty much whatever he wants — and remember that this is a guy who, at the height of his power, released a 1999 album under the guise of a brooding, soul-patched pop-star alter ego named Chris Gaines — Garth Brooks has decided to release albums his way, leaving heaven-only-knows how much money on the table in the process.

So, you might ask, what about Time Traveler itself? Is it any good? In the spirit of reportorial intrepidness — not to mention 30-plus years of accumulated goodwill toward the singer and his work, plus a fondness for physical media — I plunked down $30 plus shipping and ordered a copy from Bass Pro Shops, no doubt to the great confusion of my search engine’s algorithms. (It’s worth noting here that $30 for a seven-disc box set, even a bare-bones one, is a good deal, especially if you haven’t heard Time Traveler’s recent predecessors.)

What I found was an album that’s pretty deeply uncompromising in its own way. It’s not a lavish production, but it nods in directions that place it well outside the mainstream of modern bro country. “Rodeo Man,” a duet with Ronnie Dunn — no stranger to duets with guys named Brooks — would’ve fit right in on Garth Brooks’ terrific early-’90s best-sellers. “The Ship and the Bottle” pairs the pop-curious country star with country-curious pop star Kelly Clarkson, culminating in a vibe that would have made Jimmy Buffett proud. Dispensed with maximum agreeability, “Only Country Music” celebrates the greatest loves of Brooks’ life. And “The Ride” covers a 1983 hit from a country star whose iconoclasm exceeds even Brooks’: David Allan Coe.

Time Traveler closes with a track called “We Belong to Each Other,” which calls for national unity while celebrating our shared humanity. And, though none of its sentiments should qualify as revolutionary — “We belong to each other / We are sister and brother / Born to love one another” — it’s a far cry from the seething revanchism of Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” or the omnidirectional resentment of Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” both of which topped country charts in 2023. It’s a reminder that we need more Garth Brooks in our lives and on our radios, and that there’s nothing wrong with venturing into Bass Pro Shops to get it.

Shared in the EOY list thread -- Holler's Top 25 of 2013. Have not yet heard about a third of these (including the #1) but like a lot of what I have. Cannot for the life of me make my way into the new Isbell record, and I've tried repeatedly. Ian Munsick is a huge headscratcher for me, too. But very happy to see Brit Taylor, Kelsea Ballerini, and Charles Wesley Godwin who all had excellent releases this year that I don't believe I've commented on here.

The link would help

https://holler.country/lists/hollers-albums-of-the-year-2023

The way a whole lot of people who ought to know better have bought into Megan Moroney is absolutely maddening to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JY5pC7a2Ew

Loving this, discovered via this list:
https://www.stereogum.com/2244742/the-10-best-country-albums-of-2023/lists/year-in-review/2023-in-review/

Nice song there - Jordyn Shellhart “Who are you mad at”

Rest of the album didn't do much for me, unfortunately. Kacey with the edges sanded way, way down.

Bandcamp's best country (and "country-ish") of 2023:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2023/the-best-country-music-of-2023

That's an excellent list. Margo Cilker, Drayton Farley, Brennen Leigh, Nick Shoulders, and Bella White would all make my top ten.

like them all, but Bella might just land in my top 5 ... that album is entrancing.

The Nick Shoulders is a ton of fun. Hope to catch him when he comes through here next year.

Margot Cilker “Remember Carolina” is so frickin great. such a great song about travelling and being in a band

“How could I forget Texas, where everything says ‘Texas’”

Speaking of which---RIP one of the original Dixie Chicks:
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/laura-lynch-dead-dixie-chicks-1235850102/ Good article.

Observes that the "We're ashamed to be from Texas" blasphemy would not have happened if she were still the sole lead singer during Iraq War, because she and Bush were mutual admirers (and he used to catch Chicks shows), But since she evidently got dumped for not having Natalie's charisma, I suspect that they would not have been such huge, mega-Diamond-selling targets with Laura---more likely ignored by most of the media, as some other lower-profile dissenting country artists were.

such huge, mega-Diamond-selling targets with Laura-

I didn’t know the Chicks had that whole backstory, that’s interesting.

I thought had read somewhere that Laura had quit the group as she was worn out from touring , not that she was dumped by rest of group

Oops, I was wrong. She might have been tired of touring but it was a music decision by rest of group

In 1995, Lynch, then 37, was replaced by Maines, then 21. “We thought we needed to make a music decision now,” Maguire told the Dallas Morning News in November 1995, describing the change as “the passing of the baton.” “It can’t really be characterized as a resignation,” Lynch said then, acknowledging that age was a factor. She quit music and focused on raising her daughter.

The band went on to mainstream stardom with 1998’s “Wide Open Spaces,” which won best country album at the Grammy Awards.

Lynch told the Associated Press in 2003 that she didn’t regret missing out on the fame and that she had fond memories of leading the band through its hectic, hardscrabble early days.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2023/12/24/laura-lynch-dixie-chicks-death/

And now Chicks toured with Maren Morris. This article is about Morris and her distaste for Nashville industry, and about her doing a tour with the Chicks

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2023/12/21/chicks-maren-morris-country-music/

But while the Chicks’ fate has been successfully used as a fear tactic for years, it has also had the opposite effect: The band is an inspiration for a new class of outspoken country stars who don’t want to just shut up and sing. The timing of Morris’s “departure” from the genre — as well as her serving as an opening act for the Chicks on tour this summer — was a fitting, full-circle moment symbolizing how the treatment of the trio still looms over country music...She debuted “The Tree” live in concert when she opened for the Chicks in Ottawa on the day her Los Angeles Times interview published.

“Thinking about the last few shows we’ve had with the Chicks, the meaning behind this song, how I got to where I was when I wrote it, where you just burn the whole ... toxic thing down …” Morris trailed off as she introduced the song to the cheering arena. “I would not have been able to write this song or get to this place of peace if the Chicks had not been in my life to do it first.”

Luke Combs cover of Tracy Chapman “Fast Cars” is pleant enough

― curmudgeon, Sunday, June 11, 2023 3:44 AM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pleasant

― curmudgeon, Sunday, June 11, 2023 4:02 AM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

such a good song, it's hard to screw it up ... and he doesn't.

― alpine static, Sunday, June 11, 2023 7:31 AM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

late to this particular party, have to agree that this is a very decent cover and... weirdly, while it's objectively lesser in every way than the original, it's really hitting some emotional notes with me - as if the kind of... I'm looking for the word here... simplicity? that Combs brings actually elevates the song?

happy to be reminded of this masterpiece of songwriting anyway

deference, i think, is the word you're looking for. he just plays it as best he can w/o doing all sorts of shit to "make it his own" because, assuming we believe him, he just loves the song and it makes him think of his dad.

this is why it's good.

well, also because Tracy Chapman wrote an incredible song

yes! exactly

https://accidentalevolution.wordpress.com/2023/12/26/40-best-country-singles-of-2023/

Chuck Eddy's fave 2023 country songs

Long-running country blog That Nashville Sound's top albums and songs of 2023
https://thatnashvillesound.blogspot.com/2023/12/that-nashville-sounds-top-country-and_31.html
https://thatnashvillesound.blogspot.com/2023/12/that-nashville-sounds-top-country-and.html