Music. According to Kim.

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful day, whether you celebrate or not.  I am now more convinced than ever that the men of VoicePlay do in fact possess some sort of magical powers. Today's video is their most recent. Part of their Partwork series, this video features everyone but the Tony. One of the best perks of being a VoicePlay patron is that we get to see their videos a day or two sooner than everyone else. On the day that this video was released, I was chatting with a fellow VoicePlaya and friend about how ballads aren't really their thing. Then, later that day, an email arrived from their Patreon. Sidenote: their messages to their patrons are the greatest. They have a way of giving me the feels. Warm and fuzzy feels, to be specific. The one that accompanied this email legitimately made me "aw".  A new video - this video - was posted. I couldn't tell you what song I may have been anticipating, but seeing that it wa...

If you've never heard of Two Story Road, you're in luck because this is the 3rd time I've written about them. You can check out my review of their great self-titled EP right here  and my video spotlight on their a cappella version of their song "Arson" here . But the quick introduction to Two Story Road is that they are the talented husband and wife duo of Brandon and Jamelle Fraley. I've come to like these two a lot. They make great music and they're so entertaining to watch, as you're about to see. As soon as I watched this, I knew I was going to have to feature it. They're not afraid to be silly and those of you who know me know that I love that. So here's their fun version of "This Christmas".

Guys, I think we need to talk about Patreon. Specifically, VoicePlay's Patreon. Quick explanation for those of you who still aren't familiar with Patreon - it's a crowdfunding website designed to help creators create content over time. Unlike other crowdfunding sites (like, say, KickStarter), Patreon is an ongoing relationship between a creator and their fans (i.e. Patrons). As opposed to only raising money for one big project (like an album) over a specified amount of time. Patreon is one of the best things to happen that's happened to creators in a long time, in my opinion. Being a patron allows you to support your creators in a way that essentially makes you a small part of their creating process. Whether you donate $1 or $100 per creation, you are helping your creator(s) do what they love to do. You are helping them make their content. Every little bit helps.  Here's what's been driving me crazy about VoicePlay's Patreon. The website allows creato...

Ah, you gotta love the men of Home Free. One day they might bring you to tears with a gorgeous, heartwarming arrangement full of those luscious harmonies of theirs. The next they come out with something like this. I know many of the people reading this will have already seen this video, but for those of you who haven't? Given what song it is, it will not surprise you to see that this is a funny video. One that managed to keep my giggling pretty much the entire time. Before we get to it, though, I want to take the opportunity to talk about their Christmas tour, a Country Christmas. I got to see it when they came to the TPAC here in Nashville and it was great. As expected. This was the fourth time I've seen them, but two of those times were sets at CMAFest that only lasted for roughly 40 minutes or so. I also got to see their Grand Ole Opry debut where they, like everyone during their Opry debut, just did two songs. Making this show the first full length Home Free concert. Th...

If you happened to read my album review of ECHO's self-titled album, you know that I declared Geoff to be the Obi-Wan Kenobi of a cappella music. Not even a VoicePlay post and he walks away with a new title. That's because Geoff has played an integral role in this, my aca-addiction. Or, if we're going to go full on ridiculous (and we are), we could also refer to him as Geoffobi-Wan Castenobi. Castellunobi? Or...maybe we'll just stick with Geoff. That might be best.  In any event, that declaration paired with the recent release of new Star Wars  movie, Rogue One ,  made the choice to write about this particular cover next pretty easy. Although VoicePlay, in true VoicePlayish fashion, almost made me change course. Again. How? By releasing a Partwork that I think is the prettiest thing they've ever done. Rest assured, a spotlight on that in more than likely coming. In fact, there's also a chance of a spotlight on their version of "The First Noel", b...

Every time I listen to Chris Young sing, I wonder how it's possible for all of the country music award shows to ignore him. Oh sure, he has been nominated a few times, but he gets snubbed more often than not. I'll never understand it. He is one of the best male singers that the genre has to offer and all of his albums to date have been wonderful. He's a great performer and as nice as they come. So what gives?  Of course, when all is said and done, Chris is doing very well these days. His popularity has grown so much since I first saw him on Nashville Star  and it's been fun to watch. It Must be Christmas  is his first Christmas album and it's a great one. True to form. That wonderfully warm and rich voice of his is on full display. He doesn't take too many risks on this, choosing to go with a more traditional approach. It suits him well. Very well indeed.  So let's talk about each of the tracks. 

In getting ready to write this, I had to chuckle at how Christmasy November turned out what with all the Christmas albums I ended up reviewing. This, from a person who usually prefers to only listen to Christmas music in December. Yet here we are about midway through December and none of the posts so far this month have had anything to do with Christmas. Time to remedy that, I think. What better way to do so by saving ECHO's Christmas for the end of our little ECHO trilogy? The first two installments are right below this one on the main page. But if you're feeling lazy, the first installment about their album can be found  here  and the ECHO mishmash can be found  here . "Home for the Holidays" is a beautiful medley. The perfect medley to bring us back to Christmas, if you ask me. So how about we get right to it?

First things first. You may have heard about the terrible wildfires that have been plaguing parts of the South. I've been to Gatlinburg, TN a couple of times and it's such a beautiful part of the country. It's a wonderful place to visit and so seeing all the footage of it burning broke my heart. As of right now, three people have been killed and who knows how many buildings have been destroyed. They could really use our help right about now. If you can, and feel led to do so, here's where you can donate to the American Red Cross:  https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation . You can also donate to The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee who will be giving grants to nonprofits helping out. If you're unable to give at this time, please keep the people of Gatlinburg in your thoughts and prayers. Everything helps. Now, today's EP isn't new, but it's a good one. I mean, it's Rachel Potter.  I've said it about her before, but Rachel is the kind o...

Leave it to the talented men of Home Free to do something that usually kind of annoys me, but doesn't when they do it. You see, Full of (Even More) Cheer is more or less a re-release of their album Full of Cheer . My issue with re-releases is that most of the time, they throw on a few new songs without doing anything to the rest of the album. In those cases, I'd rather they just put out an EP of the new songs. I do recognize that there are various reasons for doing this and I think a lot of the time, it's out of the hands of the artist. Even still, I usually end up giving your average re-releases the side-eye. This album, however, gets a nod of approval from me instead. Partly because I love Home Free too much to ever give them the side-eye. But mainly because they actually changed things up. Bless 'em. The first big change? Well, Full of Cheer  came out before Chance joined the group. So into the studio he went so that this new album would reflect the current line-...

I said that I would be reviewing this and there's no time like the present. In listening to this, I've concluded that Chris Rupp is basically the musical equivalent of a chameleon. Especially when thinking about some of the other videos that he's put out this year alone. His taste in music is evidently quite varied and part of the fun of being a fan of his is seeing what he'll do next. He's not one to be pigeonholed into one style of music. This is perhaps an odd comparison, but in some ways he reminds me a bit of Eric Church in that respect. Namely, that he basically makes whatever kind of music that he wants.  Luckily for those of us who follow him, we live in a time where he's free to do this. Thanks to Patreon, content creators are able to produce any kind of content that they want without needing the support of a major label. It really is a wonderful thing. It also makes you think about how limiting being on a major label can be. Aside from having the ...

Man, there's been some great Christmas albums that have come out recently. I've reviewed three of them so far. To recap: we've talked about A Hollens Family Christmas  - and I've just added in Peter's most recent video from it. I gushed over the gorgeousness that is Voctave's The Spirit of Christmas  album and I've raved about Brett Eldredge's Glow . Today's album, however, is from 2012. Sadly, I was living a VoicePlayless existence back then. Now that I've become a full-fledged VoicePlaya, there was no way I could let this holiday season go by without talking about their holiday album, Peppermint Winter . I mean, how could I? It's a great album and one that needs to be heard and purchased.   No, really, you should buy it. This is VoicePlay doing what they do best. Taking songs - several of which have been done countless times - and making them their own. This collection of songs is so distinctively VoicePlay. It's fun and downright ...

I've thought that Brett Eldredge is among the best male singers in country music for a while now. After listening to Glow , my opinion has changed a bit. I think that Brett Eldredge is among the best male vocalists in music, period. Glow  is Brett's third album and he's never sounded better. Considering how good he sounds on his other two albums, this is indeed saying something. In case you weren't aware, Brett is a big fan of Frank Sinatra. I've heard him sing some Frank Sinatra before, on his YouTube channel and on his Snapchat Bedhead Jams. I always love when he does, which is one of the reasons why I adore this album. To say that Brett is channeling Frank Sinatra on this album is an understatement. There's times when you'd swear you were listening to Frank. This is largely due to his vocals, but the fact that he's singing along with a full symphony doesn't hurt. Out of all the different directions he could've gone with Glow , he decided t...

I first wrote about the men and women of Voctave back in August during my month of Disney. I did a video spotlight on their beautiful "Disney Love Medley" that featured Kirstin Maldonado and Jeremy Michael Lewis. You can find right that post right  here . I definitely recommend checking that out, if only to watch the video. This is another a cappella group that I've basically fallen in love with and one that really makes me miss being in a choir. Voctave consists of Kate Lott (soprano), Tiffany Coburn (soprano), Ashley Espinoza (alto/soprano), Sarah Whittemore (alto), Chrystal Johnson (alto), E.J. Cardona (tenor), Tony De Rosa (tenor/director), Kurt von Schmittou (baritone), JC Fullerton (bass) and James Ray (tenor/arranger). They're a bigger group than most of the other a cappella groups I listen to and they put out this wall of beautiful harmonies when they sing. Honestly, the word beautiful doesn't even do them justice. They are vocally stunning and captivat...

Something strange has happened to me. I used to have a fairly strict rule about waiting to listen to Christmas music until December. Or rather about choosing to listen to it on my own, since it seems like the stores start playing it earlier and earlier. But generally, I like to save Christmas music for December. Now as you're of course aware, it is definitely not December yet. It's definitely still November. And yet, I find myself writing a review of a Christmas album. This is mainly for three reasons. The first being that it seems like there's a lot of Christmas albums coming out. I know that I, in all likelihood, will not be able to write about all of them. But there's a few that I'm definitely planning on getting to. Seemed like a good idea to start now. The second reason I wanted to write about this album? It's the first new album that I've listened to in its entirety and it's great. The third reason? Peter has worked so hard getting it right and ...

You can find Part 1 directly under this post or right  here  if you're feeling lazy. No judgement here. I'm going to keep up the pattern I started in part 1 meaning that we're kicking things off with...

Merry Christmas everyone! Last Christmas, I  wrote about my favorite versions of Christmas  carols ,  standards  and  lesser known originals . This year, I knew I wanted to do some kind of Christmas post, but couldn't pinpoint exactly what that would be. Then it hit me: this would be a good opportunity to promote the artists that I support on Patreon. I've written a fair amount about a couple of them, but not all. That's about to change. I know some of you are familiar with Patreon, but others of you aren't. So first things first: Patreon is a crowdfunding platform that helps content creators create content on a regular basis. It's not about funding one big project; it's about helping them make multiple projects over time. This is done through the use of subscriptions. You choose your level of support and each level comes with its own perk. You also have the option of not receiving any perks, if that is your preference. Worth nothing that you can change your l...

So we've covered Christmas carols and Christmas standards and now it's time to focus on originals. And by that I'm really talking about Christmas songs that you may have heard, but that aren't anywhere near as well-known as the carols and standards. Starting with...

Ah, the Christmas standards. You really can't have Christmas without any of these. It wouldn't be the same. So what are my favorites? Keep reading and find out.

Well, it's the middle of December and y'all know what that means: Christmas is right around the corner. Which means that we've all been listening to Christmas music since about Thanksgiving, if not sooner. I've gotten a few new Christmas albums recently and it occurred to me that my collection of Christmas music is fairly large. So I've been listening to all the different versions I have of a bunch of these songs and decided that it might be fun to write about my favorites. Guess what this is? This will be divided into three categories and thus, three posts. This one focusing on traditional Christmas carols, as it states in the title. The other two? Christmas standards and original Christmas songs. Please note that these are in no particular order and not every artist listed is a country act. Most of them are, but not all. There are a bunch of songs to get to and respecting that, I'm not going to go into too much detail about why I picked each song. I'll...

First things first, I'm wishing everyone who celebrates a happy Hanukkah! Perhaps that's a strange way to kick off a review of a Christmas album, but it wouldn't have felt right not to include it. And really, when you really think and learn about what each holiday is about you see that in a way the first Hanukkah is one of the things that made Christmas possible. So once again, happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate. Those of you who have read my album reviews know this, but the way I do album reviews is to give my overall opinion and then look at each song individually after the cut. Which means that album review posts can get pretty long. Just a warning. This album came out back in October, but I never listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Hence why there hasn't been a review until now. So what do I think? I think that releasing Christmas albums can be a little risky. The majority of these songs are so well known and loved already. They've been recorded ...