Rolling Country 2023

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