Year: 2011
The 30 Day Song Challenge: Day 2
Today’s category is… A Song You Hate.
Here are the staff picks:
Dan Milliken: Travie McCoy featuring Bruno Mars
I usually don’t hate music if it’s blatantly awful. That usually makes me love it. (I have especially great affection for the universally maligned “We Built This City” thanks to the efforts of Twitter queen Megan Amram.) What grates on me is the technically listenable stuff that is still, slyly, really bland and stupid. Travie McCoy has some decent verses here, but it all goes to wash in the Bruno Mars chorus, which earned extra hate-points for always tricking me into thinking “Santeria” was coming on the radio last year.
The 30 Day Song Challenge: Day 1
Inspired by a recent trend on Facebook, the staff of Country Universe is launching our tweaked version of The 30 Day Song Challenge.
Every day, the staff will share our picks in a different category. We hope that all of our readers will do the same in the comments!
We’re not limiting ourselves to the country genre. All of us are primarily country fans, but our tastes run wider and deeper than that.
It’s Mother’s Day!
Feel free to mention, discuss or link to some of your favorite mom-related songs, or just any songs that remind you of a special mother or grandmother (since no one really knows when National Grandparents Day is anyway [except me now, via Wikipedia – it’s the first Sunday after Labor Day. Woo!]).
Single Review: Lady Antebellum, “Just a Kiss”
Gather up the Brat Pack. We’ve got the song they need for their third act montage.
“Just a Kiss” is pure eighties power pop, which translates into nineties adult contemporary and, sadly, twenty-first century country.
In Praise of The 9513
On behalf of the entire staff of Country Universe, I must express our sadness that The 9513, the internet’s premier country music blog, is being retired.
I remember when Brady and Brody Vercher first launched their website, and I watched in awe as it completely redefined the landscape for what a country music blog could be.
Album Review: Craig Campbell, Craig Campbell
Craig Campbell
Craig Campbell
The slightly perceptible shift to more traditional sounding music on mainstream country radio carries on with Craig Campbell’s debut self-titled album, which was produced by the venerable Keith Stegall. Campbell may not be a household name just yet, but his album’s lead single is being warmly received so far and will likely continue to do so at least for the near future.
Single Review: Sunny Sweeney, “Staying’s Worse Than Leaving”
This is going to be an unfair criticism, but here it goes.
“Staying’s Worse Than Leaving” is an awesome song. As good as anything I’ve heard lately in terms of lyrics. Mature, realistic, insightful. It’s good stuff.
The production is effective in that “stay out of the way of the song” kind of way, as it is on so many great country records.