Music. According to Kim.

I have to start by saying how much I love that songs like this are still being written. We've been inundated with so many hookup songs over the past couple of years. So many songs about how hot a guy thinks a girl is, as if that's the only thing about her that matters. Society no doubt plays a part in this. You look at Hollywood where marriage is little more than a punchline more often than not. Or at all the people out there who would rather end a relationship instead of trying to repair it. People who bail on the person they claimed to love as soon as something bad happens. Who settle for shallow and meaningless relationships because they don't want to put forth the effort to create something real that lasts. "From The Ground Up" was written by Dan (Smyers) and Shay (Mooney), along with Chris DeStefano. They used their grandparents' marriages as inspiration for the song and I'd say that it's a beautiful tribute. Both to their grandparents and to th...

I had the pleasure of going to the UMG showcase at the Ryman during the Country Radio Seminar (CRS) week back in February. It is one of the coolest events I've ever been to and an interesting peek into the business. It was a star-studded lineup that featured one great performance after another with a few that managed to outshine all the others. Not an easy thing to accomplish at this showcase! One of these standouts was Mr. Eric Paslay. Now I saw Eric at 3rd and Lindsley here in Nashville a few years ago and really liked him. Great voice, great songwriter and comes across as a cool guy. I was looking forward to seeing him again, even if it was only one song. As is the case at the UMG showcase. All but one of the perfomers (Keith Urban being the exception; he did a second song to close out the show) only did one song. The whole point of the showcase is to entice radio to play all these artists. It's kind of part concert and part boardroom meeting. It's a pretty fascinating e...

Two Story Road is the husband and wife duo of Brandon and Jamelle Fraley. Brandon has toured with Gretchen Wilson and Danny Gokey while Jamelle used to sing backup for Carrie Underwood. They met each other while they were both attending Belmont University and the rest is history. They released their self titled EP last December. The trouble was I first listened to it while I was listening to all of the other music I got in 2015. It sort of lost in the shuffle after having listened to so much other new stuff. Please note that that is in no way a reflection of the EP itself; I did like it quite a bit. It was more a case of listening too much new stuff too close together. I'm a little ashamed to say that I hadn't thought about it in a while until the opening song, "Arson", came on when I had my music of shuffle. I'd had my music on in the background while focusing on something else so I hadn't really been paying too much attention to what was playing. At least...

One thing I really like about a cappella artists is how open they are to fan requests. It may help that many of them are independent and so either don't have a record label to go through or have their own label. They can pretty much do whatever they want, especially what with all the various crowdfunding websites out there. The most significant one being Patreon, in my personal opinion. With Patreon, the fans become the support system for the artist. It gives its creators a way to create whatever it is that they create. Music videos, in this case. I believe that this makes them even more open to fan requests. Don't get me wrong. I think that artists can and should have the final say when it comes to the music that they make. A song has to be a good fit for them and all the better if it's one that they genuinely enjoy doing. But as a fan, it's nice to feel like an artist values your opinion. It makes you feel like you are truly a part of their musical journey. Even i...

Country. Pop. Rock. Eileen Carey's music blends all three styles together in a way that feels uniquely hers. I've just been trying to think if there's any other artists out there like her right now and I can't think of any. Eileen grew up in Ohio and relocated to California over 20 years ago. An independent artist, she has made quite a name for herself in California. That said, she spends a fair amount of time in Nashville and come to find out, she used Nashville musicians to track the songs of  Let It Go with all of the vocals recorded in Los Angeles. Oh, what a world we live in. I feel like you can hear influences of both places throughout the album. Let It Go is Eileen's fourth album and features three covers and eight originals. Five of which Eileen co-wrote and I was pleasantly surprised to see that another artist I like, Amy Dalley, co-wrote the other three. She (Amy) wrote "Anything That Reminds Me Of You" with her husband, Jack Sizemore, who i...

***Caution*** Silliness ahead. You have been warned. Considering that the last two videos featured were both heavy and incredibly sad, it seemed appropriate to lighten things up this time. A lot. So I turn back to VoicePlay. Or rather, part of VoicePlay. For this is the first of a new series called Part Work that VoicePlay has started as a way to give their fans more content. As much as I love how the five of them sound together, it's interesting to hear how just parts of the group sound together. In this case, Eli Jacobson and Geoff Castellucci. There's some video trickery involved in this video.  Either that or we've just learned that Geoff has an evil twin and they figured out how to clone Eli. All so they could launch the most nefarious and dastardly plot in the history of all nefarious, dastardly plots.  Step 1: Oust Earl, Layne and Tony from the group. Much easier to control clones.  Step 2: Make the unsuspecting public love the songs of the o...