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Album Review: Blake Shelton, Red River Blue

July 23, 2011 Leeann Ward 16

Blake Shelton

Red River Blue

It’s hard to dispute that Blake Shelton possesses one of the strongest and distinctive male voices in country music today. Likewise, he has proven to be a more than capable interpreter of the songs that he writes and chooses to record. He knows when to sing with soft sensitivity and he knows when to sing loud and hard.

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iPod Playlist: Originals And Covers

July 14, 2011 Leeann Ward 19

As I’m sure the rest of you do, I make playlists all the time. Many of them are lists of individual artists, but some of them have a concept.

My latest playlist is of covers. First, I have the original version (or the one that’s famous for being the original) followed by my favorite cover of it. My only rule is that I have to like both versions. So, songs where I like the cover but not the original won’t make the list.

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Grammy Awards 2011: Staff Picks & Predictions

February 12, 2011 Tara Seetharam 9

It’s hard to believe, but it’s that time of year again: the 2011 Grammy Awards air this Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Country music has its hand in the Grammy pot via major nominations for Lady Antebellum, performances by Miranda Lambert, Lady A and Martina McBride, and appearances by Keith Urban, Zac Brown, Blake Shelton and Kris Kristofferson. We’ve picked and predicted the awards below – chime in with your own thoughts, and stop by on Sunday night for our live blog!

Album of the Year

Should Win

  • Arcade Fire, The Suburbs – Dan
  • Eminem, Recovery – Kevin, Tara
  • Lady Antebellum, Need You Now
  • Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster
  • Katy Perry, Teenage Dream

Will Win

  • Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
  • Eminem, Recovery – Kevin, Dan, Tara
  • Lady Antebellum, Need You Now
  • Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster
  • Katy Perry, Teenage Dream

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Crunching the Numbers: January 2011

January 27, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 55

Feel that chill in the air? It’s not just climate change, friends. The music industry is suffering through historic lows in record sales, the worst since SoundScan started tallying them in 1991.

How are country artists faring? Let’s take a look at cumulative sales for current albums. Sales are rounded to the nearest hundred.

Top Selling Current Country Albums

  1. Taylor Swift, Fearless: 6,233,900
  2. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift: 4,955,000
  3. Lady Antebellum, Need You Now: 3,138,700
  4. Taylor Swift, Speak Now: 3,078,600
  5. Zac Brown Band, The Foundation: 2,489,200
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Single Review: Jamey Johnson, “Heartache”

January 20, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 9

When I was a very young child, maybe five or six, there was a song that used to scare me a little bit: “Maneater.”

When Hall & Oates sang about her only coming out at night and warned, “Watch out boy, she’ll chew you up,” my literal little mind thought she was a monster that was going around eating people. It creeped me out.

Somewhere tonight, there must be another small boy or girl listening in terror to Jamey Johnson’s “Heartache.”

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Single Review: Miranda Lambert, “Heart Like Mine”

January 8, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 24

It’s hard to tell when Miranda Lambert is being herself and when she’s posturing. I think on “Heart Like Mine,” she’s doing both, which makes my head heart a little bit.

The chorus is solid, the second verse about her father and her brother are quietly revealing and fully believable. I love the message about Jesus and how he’d very well love her just the way she is.

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The Best Singles of 2010, Part 4: #10-#1

December 23, 2010 Kevin John Coyne 61

Our look back at the year’s best singles comes to a close, with unprecedented CU consensus at the top of the list. The top two singles of the year were ranked in that order by three of our four writers, and both appeared in the top ten of the fourth writer.

Here’s our ten best of 2010:

The Best Singles of 2010, Part 4: #10-#1

#10

Draw Me a Map
Dierks Bentley

Bentley is getting a lot of deserved attention for sonically diverging from the mainstream to create a bluegrass inspired album. It’s an excellent album, but to his credit “Draw Me A Map” isn’t so far removed from some of the unreleased songs on his first two mainstream projects; It’s just that he gets to shine a finer focus on it for this album, therefore, this seemingly subversive song for radio gets to be released. The inspired blend of Bentley’s ragged voice with Alison Krauss’ angelic voice takes the song to an even sweeter level. – Leeann Ward

#9

Broken
Chely Wright

Robert Louis Stevenson once remarked that “Hope lives on ignorance; open-eyed Faith is built upon a knowledge of our life, of the tyranny of circumstance and the frailty of human resolution.” He was talking, in context, about marriage. The truth is that no one enters a relationship completely free of burden, and only by submitting to the complications of that truth can we avoid being ruled by them. Wright, for her part, manages the task with simple, earnest grace, probably strengthening her relationship through mere acknowledgment of its inherent weakness. – Dan Milliken

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