Music. According to Kim.

I would say that this became one of the albums I've anticipated the most, not just speaking of 2017 but in general. Why you ask? Because it's Home Free for starters and if you're new here, I love these guys a lot. They have become one of my all time favorite groups and the reason why should become apparent once you listen to them.  Seriously, I know a lot of the people who read this are reading it because they already love them. I'm hoping that this might inspire those of you who haven't heard them yet to hop of the Home Free bandwagon. They've released music videos for a few of the songs and I'll be including those in the post, so you don't even have to leave the post to hear them if you haven't. The videos are all great so let me go ahead and say that you're welcome ahead of time. The other reason I've been anticipating this album? Because it's the first non-holiday album that they've released with their newest member Adam ...

I first found out about Sam Tsui from a collaboration that he did with one of my favorite male singers, Peter Hollens. As it turned out, some of my friends are also fans of Sam's and there was a point where I kept seeing people post some of his videos. So finally I decided to go check out his YouTube channel. Turns out, he has all kinds of great covers on there and even some originals. I liked him and knew it was only a mattered of time before I wrote about him.  The only trouble was picking which video to write about first. There were a bunch of strong contenders and it's safe to assume that all of those will get a spotlight at some point down the road. But it was hard to pick. The obvious solution was just to do a video spotlight on Sam himself. We'll be talking about five of his videos. Starting with the first one I saw.

This album came out back in January, but I found myself listening to it the other day and wondered why I didn't review it. Better a few months late than never, right? Lauren Alaina is quickly becoming one of my favorites. She's one that I can't help but root for; I want to see her do well. Her first album came out over five years ago - really, probably closer to six years by now. She was still a teenager then. It's been interesting watching her mature and develop as an artist in the space between these two albums. There's so many situations where someone will experience some level of fame as a teenager - in Lauren's case, she was on the tenth season of American Idol - and they'll get to a point where they start become almost obsessed with proving that they aren't a kid anymore. Often in ways that involve them turning their backs on the young fans who made them famous in the first place. Ironically, in these cases, all they really end up showcasing is...

One of the great things about living in Nashville is all of the writer's rounds that take place around town. I'm sure that you can find writer's rounds in other towns too, but it seems like they happen all over the place and all the time here. There's so many venues to be found throughout venues and more seem to pop up all the time. I first saw Kenny Foster when I went to see country trio Steel Union at Belcourt Taps one night last year. They had some of their friends come up to do a couple of songs as the night went on and Kenny was one of them. I saw him again a few months later at a writer's round. Truth be told, sometimes writer's rounds can be kind of hit and miss. You find songwriters of all kinds and skill levels. There's some who maybe aren't ready to do a round just yet. But sometimes you find a gem. It's times like that when you realize just how special Nashville is. And I'd place Kenny Foster in that category. He's personable a...

I was so happy when I heard that Steel Union was finally releasing an EP! If you've never heard of Steel Union, they're a fairly new country trio comprised of Rachel Potter, Donny Fallgatter and Josh Matheny. And they are wonderful. I have written about them before and there's one member that I've written about a few times on here: Rachel Potter. She's become one of my favorite female singers and once you hear her sing, you'll know why that is. She has such a great Broadway quality voice which works considering that she's actually performed on Broadway. She released a great album back in 2015 called Not So Black and White and you can find my review of that here . It was one of my favorite albums of 2015 and I still listen to it pretty often.  That said, as much as I like her solo stuff I am absolutely loving Steel Union. Donny Fallgatter has a great country voice while Josh Matheny brings some raspiness into the trio which I like. He's also the...

A while back I was listening to one of my playlists, on shuffle as is often the case, when "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'" by Travis Tritt and featuring Marty Stuart came on. I couldn't remember the last time I had heard it, but I found myself singing along with it. The song seemed to stay with me over the next couple of days. It just kept getting stuck in my head. Finally, I decided I needed to go back and listen to the album it's on.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't listen to albums in their entirety as often as I probably should. Listening to this one got me thinking about how I need to start making a habit of going back and listening to older albums every now and then. That got me thinking about how in this culture, everyone is always looking for the next big thing. The next hit. The next superstar.  That's not always a bad thing. There's certainly new artists I'm excited about and there's some albums coming out that I...

Hear ye, hear ye! Home Free has released their first video of 2017 and boy, is it a great one. The men of Home Free took a couple of well-deserved months off and now they're back at it. Back on the road and back with new music. One of the best things about supporting Home Free and other acts like them is seeing which direction they go next. Today's video is their version of the Keith Urban hit "Blue Ain't Your Color". If this video is any indication, Home Fries are in for a wonderful year! Check it out.

Continuing my little series on my favorite music videos of the year, we have Home Free. It was a good year for Home Free, albeit one that came with a brief period of uncertainty as we adjusted to the revelation that Chris would be leaving and Adam Chance would be coming in. But as I've said on here more than once, this worked out about as perfectly as it could have. Chris is doing great things and Chance fits in seamlessly. I say this with absolutely no disrespect intended towards Chris, but in a way it feels like Chance has always been there. That's how well he fits in. The men of Home Free definitely gave their Home Fries a lot to be happy about. All of the videos they released were wonderful. So much so that trying to narrow it down to five felt pretty impossible. So, what did I end up doing you ask? Narrow it down to seven. Which is almost half of the videos they put out in 2016, but no matter. How about we get started?

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".

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. 

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'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...

After uploading my last video spotlight, I realized that the next thing I posted would be my 200th blog post. I uploaded my first blog on January 6th, 2012. I've gone through periods where I was writing a lot and then there'd be weeks or even months that would go by where I wouldn't write at all. Falling in love with a cappella music near the end of 2014 has done wonders for my writing, as evidenced by all the a cappella related things I've written about over the past couple of years. That love started when I happened across a video by a group that I'd never heard of. The video? The CMA Single of the Year Medley. The group? Home Free. As soon as they uploaded this on October 28th, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I wrote about it. Because how could I not take the time to write about this one? Upon realizing that this post would be my 200th post, I couldn't think of a more appropriate video to talk about. I mean, it's a video by the group tha...

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 ...

As Halloween is fast approaching, I thought it'd be appropriate to highlight some of country music's dark songs. What do I mean by dark songs? I'm talking about songs about things like deception and betrayal, murder and vengeance. You get the general idea. These, as you may imagine, are not the happiest on songs. Maybe not the kinds of songs you'd want to crank up while driving around with the windows down. Or maybe you do - I'm not here to judge. Actually, I've always found these kinds of songs to be the most interesting songs. I think it takes a different kind of mindset to write them and I find them important. Because as unpleasant as the subject matters are, the reality is that these things happen. It doesn't do anyone any good to pretend that they don't. With that in mind, this felt like a good time of year to showcase at least a couple of them. Starting off with "Arson" the A Cappella remix by Two Story Road. If you haven't heard ...

I first fell in love with "Dear Dolly" when I heard it on Natalie Stovall and The Drive's wonderful Heartbreak EP. Come to find out, Natalie wrote this song with Ruthie Collins and Jessica Roadcap. "Dear Dolly" is an open letter to, you guessed it, Dolly Parton. Because if you were able to get advice from Dolly Parton, well, why wouldn't you want to? If ever there's a woman who has seen everything there is to see in the music business, it's Dolly Parton. How could you not look up to her? Even people who aren't in the music business could learn quite a few things from her. I love this song just as much as I did the first time I heard it. If not more. Ruthie released "Dear Dolly" as a single back in July, but I somehow didn't come across this video until pretty recently. Making me wonder where on Earth I've been. It's always interesting to hear different versions of songs. Having heard Natalie's version first, I'm ha...

Considering that it's been over two months since I last wrote about Home Free, this is long overdue! They've put out a string of wonderful videos over the past couple of months. Although, let's be real: I don't know if these guys are capable of releasing a video that isn't wonderful. They give me the same problem that so many of my other current favorite acts give me. Namely, that there's so many great things to choose from that it can be nearly impossible to pick. I'd been leaning towards writing about this one and that decision was sealed after putting up a poll on Twitter. This is Home Free's cover of "Die a Happy Man" by Thomas Rhett and it's beautiful. Take a few minutes to watch and see for yourselves and then we'll talk more about it afterwards. Deal? Deal.

I've said it before and will say it again every time that it happens: I love when an artist wins me over. Up until now, I haven't really had much of an opinion of RaeLynn. Nothing against her by any means, but I never took much time to listen to her music. Then I started seeing articles about her current single "Love Triangle". If you have not heard this song yet, it's one that RaeLynn wrote about being the child of divorced parents. The love triangle in question consisting of child torn between her parents. It's a fantastic concept and as odd as it may sound, I was hesitant to listen to it at first. Why? Because there's so many songs where the initial idea is great, but it ultimately fails in the execution. But I kept seeing people talking about it and it got to where I just had to watch the video. So did it live up to the concept? Yes, it did. You know when a song is great? First, when it's personal to the artist. This doesn't necessarily mean ...

The best songs are always going to be the ones that have personal meaning to the person singing them. The ones that tell you something about the artist. Something real and genuine instead of cheap and manufactured. This is the great appeal of country music. At its best, it's a genre focused on real people singing about the real lives of real people. This is not to say that artists in other genres never sing about real life, but this is where country music shines. No genre tells a story quite like country does. People like it because they can relate. Or, at the very least, they like it because they can feel it. This is the kind of song that you feel. Chris Janson wrote "Holdin' Her" with the very talented James Otto. It's essentially the story of Chris Janson, told in about four minutes. Starting with his drinking days and how the love of the woman who would become his wife changed his life for the better. In the second verse, he sings about the birth of his daug...

Today's video is a lyric video, the first one I've ever written about. I thought about waiting to see if an official music video would he coming out, but decided not to. It was a conversation I had with someone on Twitter changed my mind. They were talking about how much they liked the song and we both agreed that Craig Campbell is horribly underrated. So I decided to go ahead and write about the lyric video. I know a lot of you are familiar with lyric videos, but in case anyone is not, they're exactly what they sound like. A video where the lyrics of the song are written out. This was something that I've seen fans do when they like a song, but now more and more artists are putting them out. These are usually released before a "regular" music video gets put out. It's a great way to introduce a song to an audience these days. If you've been frustrated with the lack of old school country on the radio, "Outskirts of Heaven" will be most wel...