Music. According to Kim.

Full disclosure: a while back I decided that I was going to stop doing album reviews. Out of everything I write, album reviews take me the longest to complete. Plus there's been some debate about whether album reviews are still relevant or not that factored into this decision. I've clearly changed my mind on this issue. This album being one of the reasons why - this is honestly one of the best albums I've heard in a while. I knew I had to write about it. Even more so in reading all of the responses to what is now being referred to as SaladGate. I'm not going to waste time getting into all of that right now, except to say that I feel like Keith Hill's comments were blown out of proportion and that most people completely missed the valid point he was making. We need to do a better job of supporting female artists. Period. If you ask me, there are three key ways to do that. Buy their music. Go to their shows. Talk about them. So with those things in mind, I'm g...

The summer of 2005. The first time I ever heard Little Big Town. It was during CMA Fest or whatever it was called then and we were sitting pretty far from the stage and off to the stage so we really couldn't see them all that well. It was a few months before they would release The Road to Here . Little did I know that this group was going to end up making a huge impact on me. I had no idea how many roads I would drive on, how many Little Big Town miles I would tack onto my car over the next few years. Thousands. It has to be in the thousands. I've seen many acts more than once, but none anywhere near as much as I've seen them. I didn't know back then that I would end up meeting them time and time again and how much those meetings would mean to me. How much these four people would mean to me. Little did I know how frustrated I'd end up getting, wondering why they weren't more popular than they were then. Things have changed a bit. I've watched these ...

One of the biggest mistakes we can make as fans is assuming that the songs that get released to radio are the best songs that an artist has to offer. Now don't get me wrong. There are plenty of instances where the best songs on an album become singles. It does happen, just not all the time and not often enough. What people need to keep in mind is that most of the songs that get released as singles are ones that the record label believe will do well on radio. Now there are times where an artist will feel strongly enough about a song to fight for it to get released even if it's not the kind of song that normally gets played. But the truth of the matter is that some of the best songs never make it to radio. Speaking for myself, many of my favorite songs are album cuts. This leads me to yet another of my musical pet peeves which is when people think that they can properly determine who an artist is strictly by the songs of theirs that go to radio. Now I understand that if you don...

Quick heads up: this post will be fairly media heavy. There's some of my pictures from the show and there will be some of their videos included for your viewing pleasure. Please be advised that one or more of these songs might end up stuck in your head and could stay there for quite a while. Infectious music is infectious. If you missed part 1, it's just some thoughts I have about a cappella music in general. You do not need to read that in order to read this, but if you want to check it out you can find it here . Now.  The Exchange. VoicePlay. Street Corner Symphony. They are what this post is about, but before we get to that I'm afraid that I have a serious confession to make. My name is Kim and I am an a cappellaholic. Yes, I have what you might call an aca-addiction. I'd say I suffer from it, but that would be a lie. The truth is that I enjoy it. Which is good since I'm pretty sure I'm beyond help by now. If I've learned one thing lately it'...

Sometimes you think you know what you're going to write about and other times you end up going in a different direction that planned. That's what happened with this post. It was originally going to be me talking about what I thought of this tour and then it kind of snowballed into something else. I've long since learned that it's better to just go with it when it happens since it doesn't happen a lot. See, seeing this show made me realize a few things about a cappella music and I started off intending to just list a couple of those things. And ended up with practically a full post just talking about those things. So I decided it'd be best to split it up. This part being more about a cappella music in general and the second being about the three main groups on the tour. We had a couple of groups open the show here in Nashville and my thoughts about them will be included in this one, Now. I was lucky to grow up with parents who were both able and willing to ta...

Brace yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. We're going to do something different. See, as much as I love me some country music, I listen to and enjoy all kinds of music. I've always had a hard time understanding people who really only listen to one style and one style only, whether that be country or something else. Why would you ever want to limit yourself like that when there's so much great music out there to discover? I truly believe that every genre has something worthwhile to offer. You can have your favorites. In fact, you will have favorites. Nothing wrong with that. But it's good to branch out every now and then. It's good to keep an open mind. So in saying that, I'd like to introduce you to what will be an ongoing thing around here. This is, and will remain, primarily a country music blog. It's just that every now and then I'm going to pick an artist from another genre to focus on. This was something I wanted to do back when I started this bl...

Earlier this year we lost one of country music most beloved artists. Little Jimmy Dickens was truly one of a kind. A great artist, he had a special talent for delivering both a lyric and a story. He was so funny that you could hear him say the same joke more than once and it would be just as funny as the first time. Even when you knew what was coming, he would still make you laugh. Every single time. What made Little Jimmy so special, however, was not his musicality or his sense of humor. What made him special was the way he cared about and loved other people. People don't say nice things about Little Jimmy Dickens; they say wonderful and beautiful things about him. People light up when they talk about him. You didn't simply like Little Jimmy Dickens, you adored him. I never had the privilege of meeting him in person, but I was fortunate enough to see him perform on the Grand Ole Opry several times. It didn't matter who else was on the line up. Little Jimmy Dickens was al...