2016 ACM Awards: Personal Picks & Predictions

April 3, 2016 Kevin John Coyne 17

Tonight’s ACM Awards will be hosted by Dierks Bentley and Luke Bryan. Slated performances include a collaboration between Dolly Parton and Katy Perry, and Miranda Lambert joining up with Billy Gibbons and Keith Urban to cover the ZZ Top song, “Tush.”

Country music in 2016, y’all.

Single Review: Chris Lane, “Fix”

January 11, 2016 Jonathan Keefe 26

Combining the absolute worst lyrical tropes of peak bro-country with the faux R&B production Sam Hunt and Thomas Rhett have popularized, Chris Lane’s “Fix” is the harbinger of another dreadful year at country radio.

Single Review: Maren Morris, “My Church”

January 4, 2016 Jonathan Keefe 14

The most obvious points of comparison for singer-songwriter Maren Morris and her single “My Church” are to Sheryl Crow’s self-titled masterpiece and its follow-up, The Globe Sessions. Though Crow spent the 1990s as a pop star, her ties to the country genre were clear. “If It Makes You Happy” was always a honky-tonk anthem waiting to happen, while “The Difficult Kind,” “Home,” and “Mississippi” all sound more recognizably country than do current chart-topping hits by Sam Hunt, Kelsea Ballerini, and Thomas Rhett.

Sunday Selections: December 13, 2015

December 13, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 4

This week’s round-up is a bit light on Chris Stapleton news… if only because we already have a post about the Grammy nominations, where he scored a total of 4 nods, including the all-genre Album

Sunday Selections: December 6, 2015

December 6, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 3

The year of Chris Stapleton rolls on unabated. The reigning CMA Male Vocalist of the Year– which is still an amazing thing to type!– figures prominently in the country music news this week. But there

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