Month: August 2010
iPod Check: Back to the Nineties
To continue Country Universe’s celebration of the nineties, I’m throwing in a nineties edition of iPod Check. The rules are simple: put your iPod on shuffle and list the first ten songs to pop up that were released in the nineties. They don’t have to be singles, and they don’t have to be country.
I’ve listed my ten songs below. Share yours in the comments, and check your shame at the door! (I’ve got 1994’s “Hakuna Matata” on my iPod, but sadly, it did not come up in shuffle.)
Single Review: Sunny Sweeney, “From A Table Away”
Due to lack of mainstream attention, not enough people know about Sunny Sweeney’s debut album, Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame, which was nothing short of a pure honky tonk delight. Her crisp nasal voice sounds as if it’s only meant to sing country music, which is probably, somehow, underselling her range of talent, but good for the prospect of permanence in the genre nonetheless.
For better or for worse, the first single from her sophomore album, this time produced by Brett Beavers (Dierks Bentley), has a slicker sound than that of her first album. As one can expect from a big name producer, the record is tighter both in instrumentation and vocal performance. Of course, these factors are hardly criticisms, but merely something to become accustomed to as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the looser nature of her more relaxed independent project.
400 Greatest Singles of the Nineties: #200-#176
The hits come from all over the place here. Breakthrough hits from Trace Adkins and Carlene Carter join one-hit wonders Brother Phelps and George Ducas. And alongside crafty covers of songs by sixties rock band The Searchers and nineties country artist Joy Lynn White, you can also find tracks from three diamond-selling country albums.