Music. According to Kim.

I'm going to start off this review by saying something that could very well make Lauren Alaina fans want to throw virtual tomatoes at me, so I'm going to ask that you all stay with me and keep on reading until the end. Because in order to fully appreciate this review, you should know where I'm coming from. I've always said I want to be honest and so I'm going to admit that they jury has been out on Lauren Alaina for me. I can't quite pinpoint what it is, but I just haven't known what to make of her. It's not her voice. I've always thought she had a very good voice and it seems to get better all the time. I've watched various clips of her from the My Kinda Party tour, particularly of her singing "Don't You Want To Stay" with Jason Aldean and was impressed by how much she's grown as a singer. It seems like there's notes she's hitting a lot more easily and she seems more confident in her vocal ability. I love seeing growt...

I'll be getting to my review momentarily, but first I decided to take advantage of my ability to add pictures and include one of the man of the moment: Josh Turner, with his wife Jennifer, at the Grand Ole Opry in April. I unfortunately didn't get a lot of pictures of him, but if you'd like to see the ones I did get you can find them  here  on my Facebook page. Check them out and if you haven't already, I'd love for you to like the page while you're there. Now. Punching Bag. This CD was released in the beginning of June and if there's one thing I can say about Josh Turner, it's that he's very consistent. This is his fifth studio album and is done in typical Josh  fashion. He knows who he is as an artist and stays true to that. Something I find admirable. You pretty much know what you're going to get with him: traditional country music with an emphasis on relationships and faith. All of the songs on this album fit very nicely with the re...

You know, there are times when I can't help but get a feeling that an artist is about to reach a new level in their career. Their songs start doing better and better, more and more people start talking about them - there's a lot of signs that it's going to happen.  And if you ask me, this is exactly where Katie Armiger is right now. Her last couple of singles have done pretty well and "Better In A Black Dress" is the fastest rising single in her career to date. That next level is right within her reach and this could very easily be the song to get her there.  Yeah, I really like this song. Find out why after the cut.

This post marks what I hope will be the beginning a new ongoing series. In this post I'm introducing you all to a group of guys who are based in Virginia who call themselves Steelshot. I've been listening to and reading about them a lot lately in preparation for this post and in doing so it made me think of all the bands and artists out there who are trying to make it in the music business. There's a ton of them out there and that's putting it mildly. I've noticed that I have several up and coming people following me on twitter, all at different levels in their careers. Some have music out and available for purchase, like the band I'm going to be talking about now. Others haven't gotten to that point yet. Some have been at it for years and others are just starting out. It's a hard road to choose, a tough dream to chase and it can be so hard for people to get themselves out there. And I've decided that I'd like to try and help these people out as ...

I've liked Edens Edge from the first time I saw their video for "Amen" and was so happy when it was announced that they'd be joining the Changed tour with Eli Young Band, Little Big Town and, of course, Rascal Flatts. This is such a huge opportunity for them and coming at such a good time for them what with the release of their new single, "Too Good To Be True" and their self-titled debut album, which just came out a couple of weeks ago. I got to meet them on the 23rd of June and have to say that in addition to being great musicians and singers, they are very nice and sweet people. I really don't have enough nice things to say about them and want to encourage anyone who gets a chance to see them, to do so. I will be reviewing their album as a whole, but for now I'm just going to focus on the new single. Here we go.

When I get to the end of the month I always promise myself that I'll try to write more posts in the following month than I did in the one that's ending. As you can tell from the monthly post numbers, I haven't succeeded in doing that. I was pretty consistent from February through May and then June happened. I'm not going to get into specifics, but I will say that I just didn't feel up to writing much for a few different reasons. Hence the lack of updates. But as you can clearly see, I'm back. That's a good thing since there's a lot to write about. Song reviews for new songs by Edens Edge, Randy Houser, Parmalee, Andy Gibson, Katie Armiger and Kip Moore to name a few. Albums reviews of Alan Jackson, Josh Turner, Edens Edge and Jana Kramer. A few other kinds of blogs about random things and I'll be introducing you all to a band of guys was are based in Virginia and call themselves Steelshot. All I'll say about them for now is that I don't b...