Music. According to Kim.

Finally! This post is about four years in the making! We are fast approaching the end of October and Halloween and every year I've wanted to do a post highlighting some of my favorite creepy, dark country songs. And it's never happened. Until now. As I said in my video spotlight on Two Story Road's wonderful a cappella version of their song "Arson", I've always found dark songs to be the most interesting of songs, particularly from a songwriting perspective. Especially in times like this when there's so many party songs out there. I like listening to dark country songs to balance that out sometimes. In fact, I actually have a playlist made up of 59 of these kinds of songs. I know there's a lot more to be found out there. Maybe it's weird, but I genuinely enjoy listening to these kinds of songs. Not all the time. It definitely requires a certain type of mood. I feel like I always listen to them more this time of year because what better time of ...

One of the greatest things that happened in 2015 was the rise of Chris Stapleton. He released his fantastic album Traveller in May and would go on to win not one, not two but three CMAs in the fall. It was fun watching people freaking out over him who had never even heard of him until then, even though he's been around for quite a while. A wonderful songwriter with that incredible voice to match, Chris has been a Nashville favorite for years. At this year's UMG showcase during CRS (Country Radio Seminar), Vince Gill came out and compared him to George Jones, saying something along the lines of wondering if people react to hearing Chris the first time the say way the did with George Jones. I think it's a fitting comparison. George Jones was the  voice of country music in his time and it's not hard to imagine Chris Stapleton assuming that role in his. As wonderful as it is listening to his voice on his album or on TV, it is so much more powerful live. Chris sweeping the C...

Preparing for this blog has renewed my commitment to listen to each album I get right when I get it. I don't know about y'all, but I'm actually pretty bad about that. Unless it's an album I've been really looking forward to, there's a very good chance that I'll hold off on listening to it. I don't know why I do it, but I do. Which is okay, so far as it goes - until you decide to make a best of 2015 list, but can't until you go through and listen to all of them. That's right. These past couple of weeks, I've been going through and listening to every album and EP that I got in 2015. I don't recommend doing this. Especially when it involves roughly 80 full-length albums and over 40 EPs. 1,360 songs total, according to the iTunes playlist I created. Yep. I repeat: I do not recommend doing this. Now, I've been reading a bunch of these kinds of lists and just about all of them focus on one kind of country music only. Like mainstream pop...