Best of 2014 – Country Universe

Album Review: Carrie Underwood, Greatest Hits: Decade #1

January 27, 2015 Kevin John Coyne 17

Carrie Underwood Greatest Hits: Decade #1 Hits compilations have become an odd thing in the digital age, as they give both hardcore and casual fans little reason to purchase. The new tracks can be downloaded

Album Review: Angaleena Presley, American Middle Class

January 13, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 0

Angaleena Presley American Middle Class Presley’s upbringing in the hollows of Eastern Kentucky provides her with an endless well of believable first-person details that she uses to create the quirky, cockeyed fictions on American Middle

The Best Albums of 2014

December 31, 2014 Kevin John Coyne 9

2014 was a banner year for country music albums. In addition to the predictably solid entries from the Americana, folk, and bluegrass scenes, some excellent albums also surfaced from the unlikeliest of sources: mainstream, radio-friendly

The Best Singles of 2014, Part 2: #20-#1

December 30, 2014 Kevin John Coyne 15

The countdown concludes with our top twenty singles of 2014. Check out the first twenty entries here, and look for our countdown of the year’s twenty best albums tomorrow. #20 “The Devil is All Around”

The Best Singles of 2014, Part 1: #40-#21

December 29, 2014 Kevin John Coyne 11

Does failure to reach a consensus indicate a year that lacked quality, or a year that had enough interesting singles that subjective taste is enough to prevent a consensus? This was the dilemma faced by

Best of 2014: The Ballot

December 27, 2014 Kevin John Coyne 12

Country Universe has finalized its year-end lists for 2014, and we’re getting ready to roll it out to our readers. This year, we considered 125 albums and 342 singles for our annual list, narrowing our