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.
We don’t do as many discussions as we used to at CU, and it’s possible that we already did this one. But seeing the title of this week’s #1 country album, I couldn’t resist:
Jerrod Niemann, Judge Jerrod & The Hung Jury
I’d call it juvenile, but I don’t think I would’ve laughed as a kid, either. But I’m sure some people found it funny.
Here are a few others that make me wince:
Pam Tillis, Above and Beyond the Doll of Cutey
Entertainment Weekly has an excellent post up today: 15 Ways to Fix American Idol.
While I agree with all of their suggestions, I think there are some even better ideas that didn’t make the list. Perhaps this is why some ideas were overlooked:
CAST A MORE DIVERSE GROUP OF SEMIFINALISTS
Considering the stunning success of season 4’s Carrie Underwood, it’s baffling that Idol has done a lackluster job of casting country-oriented females in five subsequent seasons (not counting season 8’s tragically overlooked Mishavonna Henson, that is!).
Carrie Underwood is not the reality contestant turned superstar that should be used as the model to revamp Idol. The producers captured lightning in a bottle that season. A beautiful young woman with flawless vocal control and a clear understanding of who she wants to be as an artist? If it was as easy as an open casting call to find more like Underwood, there wouldn’t be a conversation about fixing Idol in the first place.
But there is an artist that could teach both American Idol and Nashville record executives three big lessons: Susan Boyle.
New fans of country music in the nineties were hit over the head with the assertion that country music was one big family. Nothing demonstrated this mythos better than the all star jams that cropped up during the boom years.
There were some variants of this approach. A popular one found a veteran star teaming up with one or more of the boom artists to increase their chances of radio airplay. George Jones was big on this approach, with the most high profile attempt being “I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair.” Seventeen years later, it’s amazing to see how young everyone looks – even Jones himself!
It’s been a long time since we’ve done one of these!
I think that the strongest feature of the iPod is the ability to create playlists. I currently have over 16,000 songs, so playing it on pure shuffle is interesting but not likely to result in hearing a string of my favorite songs.
I have dozens of playlists, but the one that I visit the most is called “Repeat.” It’s an ever-shifting playlist of songs that I don’t tire of. Currently, there are 131 songs on the list.
I’m sharing the first ten that play on shuffle from the list. Share your favorite playlist and ten of its tracks in the comments!
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