Music. According to Kim.

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...

I'm pretty sure that this is the first lullabies album I've ever gotten. I don't have any children of my own, but this appealed for me for two reasons. The first being that it's be The Hound + The Fox and I've come to really like them. If you don't know, The Hound + The Fox is the husband and wife duo of McKenzie and Reilly Zamber. I did a video spotlight on them earlier this year which you can find here, if you're interested. When they announced that this album was coming, I knew that I'd be getting it.  The other reason this album appealed to me is that as some of you reading this might know, I struggle with anxiety. Music can be such an important tool in helping to deal with certain things like anxiety. And a lullabies album seems like a good way to go as you expect the songs to be calming. Plus it's The Hound + The Fox and they make beautiful music. This album is no exception to that. So how about we look at each track by itself? It'...

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...

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...

All a cappella roads appear to lead back to Geoff Castellucci. I say this because it seems like a bunch of the a cappella artists that I've come to love have had something to do with him. Those of you who know the story of how I became such a fan of a cappella music know that it all began with a medley. A medley that was performed by Home Free. A medley that I would later learn was arranged by Geoff and his arranging and rhythm producing partner in crime, Layne Stein. A medley that sparked my love for Home Free which in turn led me to VoicePlay. If you've spent any time on here over the past couple of years, you are well aware that I am a full-fledged VoicePlayaholic. It was through Geoff that I learned about ECHO earlier this year. Geoff Castellucci, the Obi-Wan Kenobi of a cappella music, y'all. It is here that I feel obliged to offer a word of warning for anyone who may dare to keep reading past this point.  If you choose to proceed, you must do so with the utmost...

This is going to be part album review and part an introduction to a group that some of you might not be familiar with yet. With some videos thrown in for fun. First things first: who is 7th Ave? It's a new quartet founded by one Chris Rupp. You know, as in the guy who also founded an a cappella group that I'm quite fond of: Home Free. Yeah, him. Earlier this year, he announced that he would be leaving Home Free to pursue other musical interests. I'll be honest and admit that this news made me sad at first. It's always sad when someone leaves a group that you love. I've had it happen multiple times. That said, I think that this departure was the easiest to handle for me. I say this because Home Free is still very much intact and making great music with new member Adam Chance. And Chris has more or less been a music making machine; we never really had time to miss him because he's been producing so much content. Let's recap: he put out a beautiful piano albu...

I knew when I decided to dedicate August to all things Disney, that it would involve a write-up of VoicePlay's  Once Upon an Ever After  album. How could it not? It's a wonderful album and one I've been wanting to write about for a while now. Those of you who've read any of my other VoicePlay posts know that they tend to get pretty silly and even downright ridiculous. They just bring that side of my personality out, which is one of the reasons why I love writing about them.  That said, this time is going to be a little different. This was originally just going to be a typical album write-up. The format will be the same as all my other album write-ups, but I decided to make this the fourth installment of my Music Therapy series. If you're unfamiliar with that series, it's one I started to highlight one of the biggest things that helps me deal with having rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This is the first installment that consists of an entire album. The others have ...

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...

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...

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't believe that it's February. There's been some new albums already released by country acts this year and I'm probably going to be writing about a few of them in the next couple of weeks. But first, I want to revisit 2013. I do have a top 13 albums of 2013 post coming. Better late than never, eh? I must say that I didn't realize how hard it would be to narrow it down to 13. I got a lot of albums last year and loved a bunch of them. I had to make some tough choices. So who made the cut? Well, you're going to have to wait for that. For now I want to take some time to highlight some other albums from 2013. Three to be exact. Now, hold on, you might be thinking. Why would I take the time to write about these albums when they didn't make the top 13? Here's the thing: I loved all three of these albums. Enough to want to give them a little love. But it didn't seem fair to include them in my top 13. Why? Becaus...

To say that I was happy that this album finally came out would be an understatement. I first saw Brett Eldredge open for Trace Adkins in Baltimore on July 1st, 2011. I don't always remember dates of concerts I go to, but I remember this one for two main reasons. The first: it was on my birthday. The second: I got to meet Trace Adkins at this show and that was pretty cool. This show also marks the time I truly became a Brett Eldredge fan. His debut single "Raymond" had come out the previous fall if I'm remembering correctly and I loved that song the first time I heard it. But I didn't know much about Brett outside of that single. Before the concert I liked the song; after the concert, I liked the man himself. So I hate that it ended up taking so long for his debut album to come out. It seemed like it was constantly getting pushed back to the point where I was starting to worry that it would never come out. It's been a long couple of years on this front. I...

So, I've started work on my next album review which is for Chase Rice's Dirt Road Communion, but decided to take a little break from that to start off a new ongoing series I'll be doing. With all the time I've spent doing album reviews lately, I've been thinking a lot about great albums in general and how there's so much music out there that deserves to get heard. I have my reviews to talk about new albums, but thought it'd be interesting to write about older albums every now and then that I feel are worth having. Hence the title, albums worth owning. I already know of a few I'm going to write about at some point in the future, but the choice as to which one to do first was obvious. If you've been reading my blogs for a while and saw the post I did in February about why you should check out the Dirt Drifters, you might remember that I mentioned that my dad is a songwriter. Well, he's a songwriter who has a CD out and available for purchase entitl...