Tag Archives: Saving Country Music

Commentary

A Note to my Fellow Bloggers

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I’m not saying readers can’t get anything out of this, but mainly this is directed at my fellow country bloggers who may read this and get something of value from it. I’ve seen blogs shut down, go on hiatus, change format, question themselves, whatever you want to call it, in some form or fashion, quite a lot these past few months, and I took a break for most of 2016. I see so many people who have come to be friends in this little world questioning where they go with their blogs and trying to find themselves and figure out what works for them. And I definitely don’t have it all figured out; Country Exclusive is so much different than it was when it started in 2015. Back then, it was much more structured and scheduled; we covered charts and had scheduled opinion pieces, and you know what? That sucked the joy right out of it for me.

The key part of that? For me. So I had to come back and figure out what parts I enjoyed. I love the reviewing, and I love talking about random topics such as this, but not on a scheduled basis, where I feel pressured to come up with something. It may be different for all of you, but my point here is find what makes you passionate, and then do that. Be yourself.

I was originally going to write a post this week on the value of honesty and criticism in music, and how we shouldn’t give up on the mainstream and/or the negative viewpoints. Country exclusive was founded on honesty above all else, and there’s a reason my Twitter handle is @honest_country. With that in mind, be yourself when it comes to review. If you have something unpopular to say, say it; we won’t ostracize you for it. And let’s be blunt here, growth is a big concern for all of us–Saving Country Music is perhaps the most hated institution in all of country media/journalism/blogging, and it’s also the most unflinchingly honest, and yes, the most viewed–with maybe the exception of stuff like Taste of Country, but certainly when it comes to independent country music journalism. Trigger is nothing if not himself, so if it’s growth you’re worried about, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.

But back to the main point…just be yourself, and find what makes you passionate about this whole thing. You started doing this for a reason, just like I did. You all obviously loved it at one point, and I hate to see so many people lose that part of it as they copy other styles or try to be something they’re not. All of that’s hard though, and it comes with time, and I’m speaking as someone who went through it, and has come out, mostly, on the other side. Just get back to doing this because you love it, or else it’s not worth doing.

So, I’ll get back to reviewing music now, I just thought I’d share that with you all, and maybe you can get something from my personal experience.

Reviews

Album Review: Courtney Marie Andrews–Honest Life

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Rating: 10/10

Before I say anything, credit to trigger of Saving Country Music for bringing Courtney Marie Andrews into my life and now to my pen. There is a reason we do this–not to point out all the bad in the mainstream, but to introduce new and deserving artists to the world, to provide a platform for people seeking good music to find it. Enter Courtney Marie Andrews, a 25-year-old singer/songwriter from Phoenix, Arizona, and her latest album, Honest Life I will say two things about this record; firstly, it is not a country record, but more a folk record, with elements of country, rock, and pop mixed in, and secondly, it is the best album I have reviewed to date.

The album opens with “Rookie dreaming,” and the first lines immediately hold my attention and introduce the great songwriting that will be present throughout this entire album. “I was singing with the choir on the train. I was a traveling man, I did not yet have a name. I was a 1960s movie, I was a one-night love story, I was a you’ll never see me again.” This song features nice piano and acoustic guitar, and Courtney’s voice reminds me of an excellent cross between Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt. The style resembles Ronstadt too, with the blend of country, folk, and rock that was Linda’s signature. “Not the End” is a love song in which Andrews sings from a hotel bed where she is “dreaming up every memory” to feel closer to someone she loves. “I didn’t think it was possible to lose you again, so won’t you hold me and tell me that this is not the end.” If you didn’t hear Joni Mitchell in the opener, you certainly will here; the emotion and phrasing in Courtney’s voice is closer to Mitchell’s than anything I have heard.

“Irene” adopts a more folk/pop rock sound; here, Courtney gives advice to a woman named Irene, including “keep your grace” and “don’t go falling in love with yourself.” It is universal in that it is relatable to everyone, but also could be specific to anyone who hears it. “How Quickly Your Heart Mends” is the moment where you will recall Linda Ronstadt the most; here, a woman is “hiding out in the bathroom of this bar,” devastated that her ex is acting like they never met. She put on the dress he loved, and now she feels like a fool and can’t believe he is ignoring her–“go on, and leave with your new friends, how quickly your heart mends.” The piano and steel really stand out on this track. “Let the good One Go” is another heartbreak song, this one about a woman missing someone she apparently let go. She thinks about calling him and wonders if he thinks about her, saying, “Oh you will know, when you’ve let a good one go.” The light instrumentation on this song brings the emotion and lyrics to the forefront. “Honest Life,” the album’s title track, is another simple, acoustic song that feels very personal to Courtney. “All I’ve ever wanted is an honest life, to be the person that I really am inside, to tell you all the things that I did that night. Sometimes it just ain’t easy to live an honest life.” The songwriting is excellent on this whole album, but it may be the best here–ask me tomorrow, and I might change my mind.

The next three songs explore distance from those you love, similar to the theme introduced in “Not the End.” In “Table for One,” Courtney arrives in Ohio after a trip from Houston–the verses would suggest it might be on a tour–feeling lonely and ready to go home. “You don’t wanna be like me, this life, it ain’t free, always chained to when I leave.” This one is stripped down too and lets the lyrics and Courtney’s voice shine. “Put The Fire Out” brings back the piano and is closer to the sound of “How Quickly Your Heart Mends.” Here, Andrews sings from a plane, as she flies home to reunite with her loved ones and put her rambling life behind her. “I am ready to put the fire out. There’s a place for everything, and I think I know mine now.” This was the first one I heard from Courtney, and I’ll post it here because it should lead you to the rest of this record. “15 Highway Lines” is a similar song, but this one is focused on reuniting with the one you love after time apart;–“13 hours till I see you. Flying all around this world so you can see me too.” It really captures the love, pain, and hope unique to long-distance relationships. The album closes with “Only in my Mind,” another excellent song in which the narrator paints pictures of life with someone she loves, but these pictures are only in her mind, as the relationship has ended. It seems to be mainly her fault it is over, or at least she believes this. It’s another one that captures the emotion perfectly and closes the album brilliantly.

If you haven’t figured it out, this album is special. It isn’t strictly country; it’s a unique mix of folk, country, pop, and roc, with the perfect production for each track. It is one of those rare albums that defies and transcends genre lines and just speaks for itself. Courtney Marie Andrews has a voice you will not soon forget, recalling Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt, yet still unique. The songwriting on this album is nothing short of brilliant. It’s simple and complex at once. This album is both the poetry of Jason Isbell and the relatability of Vince Gill. It is raw and honest and real, and everyone should absolutely hear it.

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Reviews

Single Review: Thomas Rhett Brings Music to an All-Time Low With “Vacation”

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Rating: 0/10

Much like Luke Bryan’s atrocious “Strip it Down,” I had planned to wait until Thomas Rhett’s album release to pass judgment on this song. But much like “Strip it Down,” a couple of sentences on an album review isn’t going to do this little work of art justice. Fourteen songwriters are given credit for this work of brilliance because it is so similar to “Low Rider” that the original writers had to be cited. Yes, my friends, that’s what country is today–the taking of previously good pop, r&b, and/or hip-hop songs and making them into your own brutal mess that wouldn’t pass for good music in any genre except country. But why spend any time crafting any original thoughts when country radio will play anything? No, it’s better to take another decent song and add your own shit. Then you only have to do half the work, and the teenage fangirls will buy it. If you were Thomas Rhett, and this is all you had to do to make money, doesn’t it seem reasonable that you would do it too?

And speaking of the fangirls, I am told by Trigger and the good commenters of
Saving Country Music that the video is full of preteen girls dancing around in bikinis singing about drinking beer. This is something I can’t verify, as I am blind and can’t judge the video, but I have no reason to doubt them, and this fact is possibly even more disturbing than Luke Bryan releasing his “Strip it Down” video to Tinder. Can country get any more embarrassing and sleazy?…no, Chase Rice, don’t answer that in your next video. Again, I’ll quote Maddie & Tae–“We used to get a little respect, now we’re lucky if we even get to climb up in your truck [to dance around in your video], keep our mouth shut, and ride along, [and sing along], and be the girl in a country song.” Let me speak as a woman to other women here…do you see this as respectful, and is this how you want your daughters to see themselves? Do you want your daughters or future daughters to view this as normal behavior for, and treatment of, women and young girls? Things like this have gotten so normal in our culture that they are too often ignored, but Maddie & Tae are right, and it sickens me to see women, especially mothers, being okay with this sort of thing.

The actual song that these fourteen have concocted is some sort of party song where the premise is “let’s party like we on vacation.” Fourteen songwriters, and no one thought to mention that in country, “we” = “we’re.” The rest of the lyrics aren’t any better, and it is a waste of my time to quote any…feel free to listen to them yourself. Keep in mind, it took fourteen songwriters to come up with them, so I can only imagine the country gold we’d get if one of them had to manage alone. The instrumentation is, to keep this short, a headache-inducing blend of anything but country. It doesn’t have a token banjo to pretend. It’s blatantly flipping off the entire genre. In an earlier review, I said that in 2015, you can call anything short of straight rap country, and that’s probably coming. Well, here it is. Now, we’ve had rap in country before, most notably from Jason Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem,” which made the whole thing somehow acceptable for the first time. But again, there were token country instruments thrown in. This is a song where, if I turned on the radio, I wouldn’t even be able to mistake it for maybe, possibly being a country station. This is country losing its entire identity.

All this makes it arguably worse than “B.Y.H.B,” which I reviewed on July 14th as
the worst song I’d ever heard, from any genre Well, congratulations Thomas Rhett, you’ve topped this piece of shit in less than two months, because your masterpiece will actually get played on country radio. Why? Because Thomas Rhett released it, so it must be good. This is why the mindless fans of “music” like this are worse offenders than the artists. Artists make this shit because, as I mentioned above, this sells. This says Thomas Rhett and his team are good businesspeople, sellouts, not country, don’t care about music, etc. This says that our culture is actually so gullible and lazy that the majority of people will not only stream and purchase this song, they will consider it good country music. Right now, I have much more respect for pop and r&b fans than the fans of mainstream country radio, because this trash would have been laughed out of any other genre (evidence = Sam Hunt.) But apparently the “evolution” of country music means that terrible pop/r&b/hip-hop music now = good country….nice. This is a train wreck in any genre and a blatant mockery of the genre that Thomas Rhett professes.

Commentary

Random Thoughts of the Week: How Country Music Made me a Nicki Minaj Fan

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Now, before anyone loses respect for me due to the above statement or decides my opinions about country music are no longer valid, please understand that title for what it was. Also, understand that we all are music lovers first, before genre lines ever come into play. I say this because I have seen comments on other sites saying people who profess love and/or knowledge of other genres do not care as much about country music as those who love country exclusively. So, as ridiculous an opinion as this might be, I felt I should address it before making my main point.

Yesterday, (August 24th),
Saving Country Music
published an article containing some of the preliminary results of a study conducted by McMaster University. The university is studying the open-mindedness of music fans of specific genres to other genres. In other words, if someone listens to mostly country music, are they more or less likely to also listen to other genres? According to the study, country fans rank fourth in open-mindedness among the ten genres studied. The most interesting early finding was that rap, dance, and pop fans are the three most cloes-minded groups. In other words, people who listen to these three genres are not likely to be open to other music. Also, the study highlighted some “asymmetrical pairings” between certain genres. One such pairing was country and pop; country fans are more likely to listen to pop, but pop fans won’t share that love for country. So, those fans who become “country” fans because of Sam Hunt won’t suddenly start listening to Kacey Musgraves, but a country fan who likes Taylor Swift might then develop a taste for Katy Perry.

This explains why, in its effort to please the close-minded pop fans flooding “country” music, country has all but forsaken its roots. Heaven forbid a fifteen-year-old be subjected to the lyricism of Cam’s “Burning House” when she could learn about partying and sex from Luke Bryan’s douche masterpiece “Kick The Dust Up.” Country singers even go so far as to call actual country music boring and paint the fans as close-minded old people, all for the sake of keeping their fickle pop fan base happy.

So if we’re not making Kacey Musgraves fans out of Sam Hunt groupies, what is this wave of bad pop music actually doing? Well, this is what happened in my case. I grew up with country in the 90’s and 00’s. I liked most country and even the pop country of early Taylor Swift. By 2010, country radio was becoming one tailgating song after another. The country that I loved, which used to feature steel guitars, fiddles, and storytelling, now came with hip-hop beats, rap, and lyrics about clubbing. I didn’t know about all the country I could be listening to; all I knew was country radio. In my mind, country had died. I tried to like the bro country and pop country, but I grew more and more frustrated with it until last year, when I decided that if country was dead, I should find something else to listen to. I had listened to so much bad pop music that I welcomed good pop music. Even their club songs are better than country’s club songs. If I have to listen to that anyway, I’d certainly rather hear Nicki Minaj’s “The Night is Still Young” than Luke Bryan’s “That’s My Kind of Night.” I’ll always love country more, but when your choices are pop and worse pop with a twang, you take pop any day. During that time, I came to appreciate a considerable amount of pop music. I am extremely grateful for sites like SCM and Country Perspective that helped me find good country music again. Country music is still alive and well, and for that, I can be thankfull. Country music is still my favorite genre because it carries lyrics of substance, but as a music lover first, I am glad in a way that I was open to pop. (I guess that’s what comes from being an open-minded country fan.) I am certainly glad that is not all I have the choice of listening to though. These days, I would say I listen to about 80% country and 20% pop. I have always liked a little music from other genres as well, including rock, Christian, and r&b, but country and pop are the two I listen to on a regular basis. Having said that, I still hate most of the crap on country radio because it is bad pop and worse country.

The alarming thing is that my case seems to be more common than it should be. People argue that Sam Hunt or Taylor Swift can bring someone into country, and then this person might suddenly start liking Ashley Monroe and Alan Jackson. This sounds ridiculous on the surface, and now a study has backed it up. Also, pop fans are by definition listening to what is popular; in other words, someone who is introduced to “country” because of Sam Hunt is generally not going to go seeking Ashley Monroe and Alan Jackson. And seeking is what they’d have to do, because God forbid country radio play anything with substance. It seems far more likely, then, that someone who likes Ashley Monroe and Alan Jackson but who doesn’t hear anything except bad pop music on the local country station, would switch the station in exasperation and develop an appreciation for whatever is playing. I imagine there are a lot more people who have Ashley Monroe and Nicki Minaj in their iTunes library than those who have Ashley Monroe and Sam Hunt. Even more than that, there are those who have Sam Hunt and Nicki Minaj, because out of the three, these two are the most similar, which says a lot, (and nothing good) about the state of country music. Country fans are not being created by all this pop influence. All that is happening is that more pop fans are being created in response to the bad excuse for pop music that country continues to produce. By catering to the close-minded pop fans, country music continues to lose its identity in favor of being an inferior version of the music these close-minded fans love.

Tomatoes of the Week: Maddie & Tae

Their debut album comes out Friday, so they will be our featured females.

Random Country Suggestion: Miranda Lambert–“Roots and Wings”

Sadly, this wasn’t chosen as a single and we are stuck with “Smokin’ and Drinkin'” instead.

Non-Country Suggestion: Nicki Minaj: “All Things Go”

One of the results of me being an open-minded country fan.

Female Fridays

Female Fridays: Featuring Lindi Ortega

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Her new album, Faded Gloryville, is available today, (expect a review shortly), so today the Female Friday spotlight is on Lindi Ortega.

How You Might Know Lindi

If you watch ABC’s Nashville, you may have heard Lindi–she has had several song placements on the show. (Interesting that a TV show would help promote her, but radio won’t…)

Bio

From a 2013 interview with
Saving Country Music
in reference to her motivation to make music that might not have mass commercial appeal

But my motivation comes from my influences, and people that have stuck to their guns. I read a lot of biographies. If there is one thing I can respect more than anything, it’s individuality in music. And I think back in the early era of country music that was so apparent. Like you could really tell your Johnny Cash from your Waylons from your Merles. They all had a distinct thing happening. And they were all really great at what they did. It was really important for me to etch out my own thing as a student of that.

From one listen to Lindi Ortega, I can tell she means every word she says. She easily has the most unique female voice in country music today.

Lindi Ortega (born May 28, 1980, from Toronto, Ontario), wrote her first song, “Faded Dress” at the age of seventeen. She spent many hard years in the Toronto music scene, where she gained the nickname “Indie Lindi.” Her struggles as an artist, as well as the universal struggles of musicians, are often referenced in her songs. The best example of this is the title track from her 2013 album Tin Star, where she sings of the “tin stars” who are “lost in the shining stars of Nashville, Tennessee.”

After struggling for about a decade and eventually moving to Nashville, Lindi signed with Last Gang Records in 2011. She has released three albums since then, including Little Red Boots, (2011), Cigarettes and Truckstops, (2012), and Tin Star (2013.) She is known for her unique soprano voice, wich has been compared to the voices of both Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. When I first heard her sing, I heard Dolly Parton and Stevie Nicks, but in other songs I can hear Emmylou Harris as well. Her albums have received much critical acclaim, and she has been nominated for several awards by the Canadian Country Music Association. In 2014, Lindi won the CCMA Award for Roots Artist or Group of the Year and was nominated for Female Artist of the Year. She has also been nominated by the CCMA for 2015’s Roots Artist or Group of the Year.

Since this column is dedicated to promoting females, it should be noted that my first exposure to Lindi Ortega came shortly after the “tomato” incident in May. Lindi spoke out about the comments in an article called
“I Say, Include Women”
Lindi comments,

Women have had to fight to be treated as equals in society. We have had to fight for equal pay. We have had to fight against sexism, harassment, misogyny. And as if we don’t have enough battles, now we have to fight to get equal play on the radio. The entertainment industry has got to be one of the most difficult industries for women, because we are faced with so many double standards. We decide to have children and suddenly we are asked about how we can handle having a child and a career. Or the public is more concerned with who designed our dress rather than what inspired our craft.

But circling back to “take women out,” just think of those words: “TAKE WOMEN OUT.” I can’t begin to describe to you how my blood boils at those words. Erase us, delete us . . . make it so we don’t exist.

I highly recommend reading this; when I read it, I immediately wanted to check out her music. When I did, I found songs from each of her first three albums that I enjoyed. I would not have known about her if she hadn’t spoken up about this. Her fourth album for Last Gang Records, Faded Gloryville, comes out today, and I will have a review soon.

Why Lindi Belongs on Country Radio

Lindi Ortega is not seeking airplay at all. Up to this point, she hasn’t released anything with widespread mainstream appeal and seems to stick to her “individuality” that she values so much. I would argue that that is exactly why she belongs on the radio. I have seen comments on other sites by Canadians who say she doesn’t even get played up there. What do we hear every time we turn on a show like The Voice? They want uniqueness, originality, individuality, etc. I hear Blake Shelton talk all the time about turning on the radio and immediately recognizing someone’s voice. If uniqueness is what we’re going for, Lindi Ortega should be getting radio airplay. She has the most distinct female sound in country music.

Tracks I Recommend

Lindi has a lot of dark material, and I am not always a fan of dark albums, so I don’t prefer to listen to everything on all her albums. Having said that, most of it is good, and if you have a taste for it, you will like most of it. These tracks are my personal preferences. Also, just like with Ashley Monroe, her new album is off limits.

1. Murder of Crows–Cigarettes and Truckstops
2. Little Lie–Little Red Boots
3. Cigarettes and Truckstops–Cigarettes and Truckstops
4. When all the Stars Align–Little Red Boots
5. Angels–Little Red Boots
6. Bluebird–Little Red Boots
7. The Day You Die–Cigarettes and Truckstops
8. Tin Star–Tin Star
9. I Want You–Tin Star

Listen to Little Red Boots

This was my first introduction to Lindi’s remarkable and distinct voice. Like I said, I hear Dolly Parton and Stevie Nicks. Certainly not a bad comparison.