Universal Republic and Big Machine Launch New Label: Republic Nashville
- Universal Republic Records President and CEO Monte Lipman and Big Machine Records President and CEO Scott Borchetta announced the formation of a new label imprint: Republic Nashville.
- Austin Powell wrote an interesting feature piece about Ryan Bingham for The Austin Chronicle. In it, he notes that Bingham will make his acting debut in the Robert Duvall-produced movie Crazy Heart. Jeff Bridges stars in the movie as a beat-down country singer — modeled on Kris Kristofferson — attempting to revive the acclaimed outlaw status of his early career.
- The ten finalists for the second season of CMT’s Can You Duet have been announced. Look for the premiere episode on June 20.
- Listen to a 2006 Mountain Stage performance from Jon Randall. Good stuff.
- Watch the video premiere for Kate & Kacey’s “Dreaming Love.”
- Cindy Watts mentions that Ray Stevens‘ new album, One for the Road, is available exclusively at Pilot gas stations until Labor Day and that David Nail will be married on Saturday.
- Uh, cool pants?
- My Kind of Country: Who would you like to hear a covers album from? And what songs would you like them to include on it?
- The Zac Brown Band has a live chat scheduled later today.
- Amy LaVere and Lucero are a couple of artists featured in a new, Memphis-based MTV musical drama titled $5 Cover. You can watch videos for LaVere’s “Killing Him” and Lucero’s “San Francisco” on the show’s website. (via press release)
- In his latest Nashville Skyline column, Chet Flippo commented on two separate movements in country music and the artists behind them: Taylor Swift and Jamey Johnson.
Swift and Johnson both have created their own audience, and that’s very much the future of a country audience made up of niche groups of fans. I can’t think of a great deal of audience overlap between Taylor fans and Jamey followers (other than Jamey’s producer and co-writer Buddy Cannon, is a Taylor supporter). …
Taylor Swift has country music’s heart right now, but Jamey Johnson for damn sure has its soul.
- A report to be published in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising says that longer, higher quality free music samples engage more listeners and reduce the number of “free riders”.
- That news should bode well for Owen Temple. His new album, Dollars and Dimes, doesn’t come out until next week (June 9), but you can stream the entire thing on his website right now. Click the songs to read his brief description of each.
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Current Discussion
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- Rick: Speaking of polite company, King Rat Obama and his fellow democrat vermin in the U.S. House of Representatives (and one ...
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- Dan E.: Vance: You seem a little bitter.
- Dan E.: Kurt: I bet you'd be surprised at how many people are both fans of Carrie and Taylor. Only a small ...
- Vance: The lyrics are actually, “boy meets girl, girl leaves boy” Also, I’m loving her fresh music. It's not fresh music, it's cookie ...
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- kurt: Thank you! Thank you! Carrie fans seem to think that “remixing” is the only way to make a country song ...
- Leeann Ward: Michael, That's ridiculous on more than one level.
18 Comments
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June 5, 2009 at 11:23 am Permalink
Those are definitely some cool pants – comfort on the right side and stylin’ on the left.
June 5, 2009 at 1:12 pm Permalink
that script for crazy heart has been in development for years. there was a rumor for a while that dale watson was to play the lead role. good to see that its finally making it to the production level.
June 5, 2009 at 1:41 pm Permalink
OMG! <3 The video for “Dreaming Love” is out, I’m so excited!
June 5, 2009 at 2:48 pm Permalink
Here’s a little more info on the Can-You-Duet-ers ….
http://www.cmt.com/shows/series/can_you_duet/contestants.jhtml
I’ve seen / heard / heard of / met a couple of them. Not enough to form an opinion though.
June 5, 2009 at 3:04 pm Permalink
I noticed not many of them seem to have much in the way of country influences.
June 5, 2009 at 4:59 pm Permalink
That new Republic Nashville imprint is interesting since Scotty already has his successful (thanks to Taylor Swift) Big Machine label and Valory imprint. I guess they want to split the costs of launching new artists to reduce their individual financial exposure. I wonder what type of artists they will target? Hmm….
Jon Randall’s “Walking Among The Living” is a fine album that seemed to have slipped through the cracks. With his voice he could always start and star in a Vince Gill Tribute show…
I like Kate & Kacey Coppola a lot but don’t find the song “Dreming Love” very interesting. For their first serious radio debut single I think they could have done a whole lot better. Darn…
I disagree with Chet Flippo! I would say that Taylor Swift has not captured mainstream country music’s heart so much as its air-head instead! (lol)
June 5, 2009 at 6:18 pm Permalink
Rick’s Random Tibdits: I just want to give a plug to Al Snyder’s “Classic Request Live” radio show on Friday evenings at 7 PM (E.T.) on WCYO FM. The show overlaps 2 hours of the Friday Night Opry, but it lasts for 5 hours! Tonight’s guests include Steve Wariner, Donna Fargo, and Earl Thomas Conley. To listen online here’s the link:
http://www.wcyofm.com/classicrequestlive.html
(Al’s not Eddie Stubbs, but he’s alright…lol)
June 5, 2009 at 6:42 pm Permalink
Oh, God! Those pants? Much like a mullet: all business on one side, party on the other.
June 5, 2009 at 6:43 pm Permalink
Was she singing a Danzig cover while wearing those pants? Or, half of one, maybe?
June 5, 2009 at 7:34 pm Permalink
@Rick: Hmm, I disagree… I think “Dreaming Love” is amazing <3 Its one of their best, in my opinion – and it has one of the best music videos I’ve seen in awhile
June 5, 2009 at 8:06 pm Permalink
Rick, I believe I saw something mentioning that Sunny Sweeney was the first artist signed to that new label and they have some group named Fast Ryde, too.
June 5, 2009 at 8:39 pm Permalink
Brady, I truly hope you are correct and Sunny is being moved to the new label as Big Machine has been farting around with her for waaayyy tooooo long! Maybe this new label will be more Americana radio savvy/friendly for artists like Sunny who are “too country” for Top 40 AirHead Country Radio. Sunny’s new album should have been out by now, so hopefully this switcheroo will speed things up a bit! Go Sunny!
June 5, 2009 at 8:54 pm Permalink
Another Random TidBit! CMT has a write up about the Thursday performance set at the “Bama Jam” and it contains the following very disturbing sentence:
“In addition to Jamey Johnson, Thursday’s lineup included Luke Bryan, John Anderson, George Jones, Blake Shelton and headliner Taylor Swift.” Its a sad day for country music indeed when a teenie-pop prom queen like Taylor headlines above far greater talents! Tsk, tsk…
Link: http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1613379/taylor-swift-and-other-stars-perform-for-a-waterlogged-bamajam-crowd.jhtml?rsspartner=rssYahoo
June 5, 2009 at 11:27 pm Permalink
Martina’s pants are kind of like a mullet.
June 5, 2009 at 11:43 pm Permalink
And of subject, but I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that, according to Alison Bonaguro, Joe Jonas sings the line “I get a rep for breakin’ hearts/Now I’m done with superstars and all the tears on her guitar,” in one of the Jonas brothers songs. Ah burn. Im now a Jonas Brothers fan.
June 6, 2009 at 2:19 am Permalink
Taylor Swift is billed above George Jones? That’s like the Jonas Brothers being billed above The Who.
June 6, 2009 at 5:13 am Permalink
There arent enough beef’s in teeny-bopper pop…
June 6, 2009 at 10:23 am Permalink
The headliner on a multi-artist bill is called that because he or she is the act with the most drawing power.
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