country music Archives - Page 2 of 6

Music

Hitch up the jackalope on the gig poster of the week

by Salem Collo-Julin August 26, 2020August 18, 2021

This week’s featured gig poster was created by Chicago illustrator and designer Ryan Duggan.

Music

Willie Nelson offers end-of-the-road life lessons on First Rose of Spring

by Salem Collo-Julin August 20, 2020August 18, 2021

Melancholy shoots right out of the gate on Willie Nelson’s new full-length, First Rose of Spring. The album opens with its title track, a sweet but ultimately tragic love song by a trio of stalwart Nashville songwriters: Allen Shamblin (Bonnie Raitt), Marc Beeson (LeAnn Rimes, Blake Shelton), and Randy Houser (who hit number two on […]

Music

Mary Chapin Carpenter finds her folk-pop heart on The Dirt and the Stars

by Noah Berlatsky July 31, 2020August 18, 2021

Mary Chapin Carpenter’s twangy, peppy hits bounced up the country charts in the 90s, but their cowboy boots always seemed like they pinched a bit. Twenty-some years later, Carpenter’s records have eased into a more comfortable idiom, scuffing up their coffeehouse folk with a bit of rock. On The Dirt and the Stars (Lambent Light), […]

Music

Paisley Fields makes out and open country music

by Salem Collo-Julin July 15, 2020August 18, 2021

The country-music world has been slow to embrace its queer community, so it’s been refreshing to see a new generation of queer country artists and songwriters—among them Brandi Carlile, Ty Herndon, and Shane McAnally, who frequently writes for Kacey Musgraves—live out and open lives in the spotlight over the past decade or so without their […]

Music

Margo Price tackles her personal and professional growing pains on That’s How Rumors Get Started

by Jessi Roti July 14, 2020August 18, 2021

On her new third album, That’s How Rumors Get Started, Margo Price spins her modern outlaw-country sound into golden strands of pop-friendly Americana, tackling her critics, rock ’n’ roll mythology, and expectations of success. The LP, which was produced by fellow country renegade Sturgill Simpson, showcases Price’s knack for storytelling that pulls at the heartstrings; […]

Music

Steve Earle examines a mining tragedy to engage listeners across the political spectrum on Ghosts of West Virginia

by Monica Kendrick May 29, 2020August 18, 2021

On April 5, 2010, a coal-dust explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia, killed 29 miners. Though subsequent investigations found that a pervasive pattern of negligence and safety violations had led to the entirely preventable tragedy, in 2015 Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship got off with a slap on […]

Music

Hardy is the new, loud voice of modern pop-country

by Luca Cimarusti January 24, 2020August 18, 2021

Today’s biggest pop-country stars take lyrical tropes from 80s and 90s hits—drinking cold beer, driving trucks, praying, partying, feeling heartbreak—and bulk them up with hip-hop beats, hyperslick production, and catchy hooks that sound engineered in a lab. Twenty-nine-year-old Mississippi native Hardy (aka Michael Hardy) began his career as one of Nashville’s song scientists; he was […]

Music

Hard-working country rockers the Moondogs never released their only album

by Steve Krakow December 16, 2019August 18, 2021

The Moondogs gigged hard for a few years in the late 70s and early 80s, and these beloved country rockers have played a reunion show as recently as 2012.