The 9513 - Country Music Blog

It’s Record Store Day, so let’s find out how everyone prefers to purchase their music. Do you prefer the physical CD or the convenience of downloading digitally? iTunes, emusic, Amazon, or a combination? When you buy CDs, do you actually go to a record store or chain store or do you order CDs online? And […]

Continue reading "Record Store Day: How Do You Like To Buy Music?"

Sometimes a line in a song will make you stop and think a minute or you might not put two and two together until later, but you’ll pay attention to it every time it comes around when you hear that particular song, or it just might make you laugh out loud. Every line in “Pancho […]

Continue reading "Your Take: Favorite Line From A Song"

In an email we received this week, one of our regular readers asked why the use of lists in the lyrics of a couple of recent single reviews was frowned upon. It’s a great question (see the latest mailbag for the other kind of question), so I decided to expand upon it and get feedback […]

Continue reading "Your Take: Bad List, Good List?"

One particularly valuable aspect of music blogs is the discovery aspect in which both authors and commenters on the blog have the ability to introduce new and worthwhile music to the audience. That aspect coupled with the power of a trusted recommendation from a respected critic or a commenter whose tastes align with your own […]

Continue reading "The Discovery Aspect Of Blogs: Recommend An Artist"

It seems like artists that wouldn’t typically be considered country are joining the country genre with greater frequency and a few of them and their fans are adamant about being accepted in the genre despite the disconnect between their music and traditional country music. They argue that such artists expand the visibility of the genre […]

Continue reading "Your Take: The Expansion of Country Music"

Sometimes it’s hard to understand certain lyrics and what you hear may not be what the artist actually sang (or maybe you heard right and they’re just fooling everyone in the liner notes.) Someone I know, who shall remain nameless, thought a particular song said something about dust on the Bible, I’ll leave it to […]

Continue reading "Misheard Lyrics: Oh, Is That What He Said?"

and I’ll stand on anyone’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that. If you’ll check out our About page, it states what we all know to be true–country music is the greatest music in the world. That could be a controversial statement if it weren’t on a country music blog, but let’s humor […]

Continue reading "Country Music Is The Best Music In The World…"

In Matt’s review of Ashton Shepherd’s forthcoming album, the issue of experience in songwriting and whether or not it is a prerequisite to crafting a more realistic or meaningful song cropped up in the comments. A few readers weighed in with their thoughts, but I thought the issue would make for a good discussion outside […]

Continue reading "Your Take: The Experience Element In Songwriting"

Collaboration between established artists has created some interesting and successful pairings throughout country music’s lifetime. Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, Alan Jackson and George Strait, and with the advent of technology, Alison Krauss & Keith Whitley, and Hank Williams and Bocephus. Last year, Raising […]

Continue reading "Your Take: Visionary Collaborations"

For me, greatest hits and compilation albums serve two purposes: they provide an introduction to artists with whom I’m unfamiliar and they’re an affordable way to obtain the best tracks from artists who do not make good albums. We’ve discussed this at The 9513 and it appears that our readers value these collections […]

Continue reading "New Porter Wagoner Collection is What a Compilation Should Be"