The 9513 - Country Music Blog

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the website 2steppin.com, and has been reprinted here with permission. This comprehensive look at race relations in country music was written prior to the rise of Darius Rucker as a hitmaker. The 9513 would love to hear your comments about race in country music today, and about [...]

Continue reading "Twang Is Not A Color"

What does an invitation to the CMA Awards look like? It has a picture of Taylor Swift with the words “Come see Taylor and some other people perform!” underneath. — Sam No idea. The CMA has yet to recognize the “interwebs” as a viable media entity, thus haven’t approved our credential requests. — Pierce Who [...]

Continue reading "November Mailbag: Post-CMA Edition"

Taylor Swift swept last night’s American Music Awards, beating out Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Eminem and Kings of Leon to claim the title of Artist of The Year. Swift also took home Favorite Pop/Rock Female, Favorite Country Female, Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist and Favorite Country Music Album. Taylor Swift, in a suit filed by performing [...]

Continue reading "Taylor Swift Dominates The American Music Awards…And The News Cycle"

Depending on your point of view, the Country Music Association may be the organization responsible for broadening the reach of country music and its artists throughout the nation and around the world, the organization responsible for transforming the genre into a musically homogeneous mass-market commodity, or both. Either way, there’s no denying that both the [...]

Continue reading "2009 CMA Awards Predictions"

I haven’t watched the CMA awards in years. Sometimes I’ve had a gig, but most of the time, there wasn’t anything there to interest me. I would flip channels and land on the awards show, but wouldn’t stay long. In the 80s, I didn’t miss a show. All my favorite artists were on. Country had [...]

Continue reading "Honky Tonky Happy Hour: Why I Won’t Be Watching The CMA Awards"

As Brody noted on Tuesday, today is the second annual Record Store Day, when more than 700 indie record stores across the country and the globe hook up with musicians for special vinyl and CD releases and mini-concerts. According to the celebration’s Web site, a record store is defined as “a physical retailer whose product [...]

Continue reading "Your Take: How Do You Get Your Music?"

For the third year in a row, the Country Music Association is donating proceeds from the CMA Music Festival to Nashville area schools. Only this year the total amounts to over $1 million, more than the past two years combined. Thirty-one schools will benefit from the donation and twenty-one of those schools will receive instruments [...]

Continue reading "CMA Provides Boost For Nashville Schools To the Tune of $1 Million"

Taylor Swift annihilated the competition this week to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums charts for her sophomore album Fearless, with sales of 592,000 albums. Even if her digital sales were the only numbers counted, she’d still have enough to drop in the No. 4 spot at 129,000 copies [...]

Continue reading "Taylor Swift Makes Billboard Album Chart Her You Know What"