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What this blog's about

My name is Kim and I love country music.

Well to be totally honest, I love music in general. It's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I was lucky in that I got to go to a lot of music related events growing up - concerts, musicals, stuff like that. The first concert that I remember going to was Gloria Estefan, though I remember very little about the show. The first country concert I remember going to was to see Reba McEntire and Vince Gill. My favorite part of the show? Watching Reba perform "Fancy". I remember she wore a long coat for most of the song and then there was some sort of trick they did with the lights that blocked her out for a second or two and when you could see her again, she was in a red dress. Much more theatrical and cool than it sounds, I promise. I wouldn't say that I was a full on country fan at that point - I didn't mind going to the shows or listening to it, but it would be some years before I reached full on fan status.

Thanks, in part, to Rascal Flatts. I remember seeing the "Prayin' for Daylight" video and absolutely loving it. That CD was one of the first country CDs I ever wanted and they were the first country act I was really excited to see. Don't get me wrong; I liked seeing Reba and Vince, but if I hadn't of gone to the show it wouldn't have made a huge difference to me. Getting tickets to see Rascal Flatts was a big deal for me. They were opening for Miss Jo Dee Messina who was another of my early favorites, but with no disrespect to Jo Dee, the boys were who I really wanted to see. Their song "I'm Moving On" was the first song that ever really touched me, the first song that I felt like applied directly to my life at that moment. I had liked and even loved songs before that, but up until that point I had no idea that a song could affect a person the way that song did me. I think that was when I truly began to love country music. That was what turned me from a casual fan to a die-hard one.

Now I try to listen to a variety of music. I like songs in all sorts of genres and I like to think that my musical tastes are pretty diverse. But at the end of the day, as much as I like and appreciate other genres, none have affected me as much as country has. Since that Rascal Flatts/Jo Dee Messina concerts I have been to more country concerts than I could ever count. I make it a point to go to as many as I can and to see as many different people as I can and by now I've seen a lot. Some I've seen several times and one I've seen over 50 (that would be Little Big Town). My tastes range all over the place - from the most traditional to the most radical within the genre. I can honestly say that there are very few country artists that I dislike and I can usually find something to like in the ones I really don't care for. Usually, not always. My collection of country music is rather large and I'm always wanting to find new people to listen to. Whether that's new as in brand new to the genre or just new to me, like a lot of the classic country stars from before my time. At the moment, I'm beginning to discover the works of the late Keith Whitley.

In the past few years I've become increasingly interested in all parts of the industry, from the artists themselves to the bands and producers, the engineers and the people who make the music videos. The business as a whole intrigues me and there are so many different parts of it that I'd love to get involved in. Which is sort of what this blog is about. The idea came to me while watching GAC's 2011 Top 50 Videos of the Year special. I didn't agree with all of the choices, though I respect the fact that it was fan voted. It got me thinking about what videos I wish I had seen in there and which ones I didn't think belong. And then I started thinking about how I would rank them and decided that it might be fun to try. And blog about it - and from there I decided that that would just be a starting point and that instead of making this a series of posts on my other, more personal blog, that I would create a new blog entirely. One about country music in general. Or rather, my thoughts about country music written out for anyone who cares to read them.

I've already begun work on my personal top 50 videos from 2011 - the videos themselves have been chosen, I just need to figure out how I'm ranking them. That will be a series of posts, starting from fifty and going all the way down to one with a paragraph or so written about each that explains why I liked it and why it got whatever spot it did. From there I see this as a place to post my own reviews on concerts, albums, singles and videos. I also have a bit of a photography addiction and so I'm thinking I'll post some of my favorites pictures of country artists from shows I've been too. Aside from that I plan on sharing my thoughts about the business in general and sharing some things I've learned about the genre over the years, such as why the recording engineers deserve some love from the fans too. And other than that, who knows? Basically the point of this long-winded blog was to explain something that's easily summed up in the blog title.

This is country music, according to Kim.



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