The 9513 - Country Music Blog

Songwriters: Shawn Camp and Marv Green Nowhere is it written that a great summer song–even a great country summer song–must be about beer and girls and trucks. In fact, from a purely competitive standpoint, one of the smartest things a writer of a fun summer song could do is make it about something else entirely, [...]

Continue reading "Billy Currington – “Love Done Gone”"

Songwriters: Jennifer Nettles, Kristian Bush and Kevin Griffin This is where the machine needs a little more oil. On the third single from The Incredible Machine, Sugarland trades bare emotional honesty for bad inspirational goop that hardly satisfies those who look to the duo for their humorous and heartfelt recordings. “Tonight” centers on one of [...]

Continue reading "Sugarland – “Tonight”"

Songwriters: Jessi Alexander, Gary Nicholson and Jon Randall Country audiences didn’t seem to care for all the women that Reba is. Her awkward remake of Beyonce’s 2008 R&B hit, “If I Were a Boy,” stalled out at No. 22 on the singles chart last month. The third single from her latest studio album, All the [...]

Continue reading "Reba McEntire – “When Love Gets a Hold of You”"

Songwriters: Rhett Akins and Ben Hayslip With Dallas Davidson out for the day, the other two-thirds of The Peach Pickers were apparently forced to resort to a Mad Libs chorus generator. To wit: You be my ________, I’ll be your _______ You be my ________, I’ll be your _______ You be my ________, I’ll be [...]

Continue reading "Blake Shelton – “Honey Bee”"

Songwriters: Kip Moore, Scott Stepakoff and Dan Couch Country music has featured a wide range of female names in songs, using specific women such as Vince Gill’s “Liza Jane” to address the universal highs and lows of love. This category includes songs that play off city names – Blake Shelton’s “Austin” and Alan Jackson’s “Dallas” [...]

Continue reading "Kip Moore – “Mary Was the Marrying Kind”"

With a voice made for country music, a tendency to record catchy tunes like “Rain Is a Good Thing” and “All My Friends Say,” and a willingness to wear a leotard to garner ACM votes, Luke Bryan comes across as a likable guy who makes country music because he wants to, not because it’s advantageous [...]

Continue reading "Luke Bryan – “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)”"

If one’s level of fame was proportional to one’s talent and hard work, Heather Myles would be one of the biggest stars in country music. She’s spent the past two decades playing dusty honky tonks and releasing excellent, Bakersfield-influenced albums that, for the most part, have flown under the radar. She’s still persevering, though, and [...]

Continue reading "Heather Myles – “Pretty Poison”"

Alison Krauss wasn’t present at last weekend’s ACM Awards in Las Vegas. Presumably she was busy polishing her obscene Grammy collection (27 and counting) and resting before the release of Paper Airplane, her first album with Union Station since 2004′s Lonely Runs Both Ways. Krauss would be an odd fit at the festivities anyway: she’s [...]

Continue reading "Alison Krauss & Union Station – “Paper Airplane”"

Songwriters: Sunny Sweeney, Radney Foster, and Jay Clementi All aboard the Sunny Sweeney bandwagon. As fans await the release of her full-length album, Republic Nashville offers the follow-up to her recent Top Ten hit, “From a Table Away.” Confronted by the end of a long-term romance, Sweeney steps forward to call it quits on “Staying’s [...]

Continue reading "Sunny Sweeney – “Staying’s Worse Than Leaving”"

And the race for most inane summer anthem is on. “A Buncha Girls” wants to be the “All About Tonight” of 2011. Trouble is “All About Tonight” wasn’t much more than the “Barefoot and Crazy” of 2010, which wasn’t much more than the “Put a Girl In It” of 2009, which wasn’t much more than [...]

Continue reading "Frankie Ballard – “A Buncha Girls”"