Jonathan Keefe

The Best Singles of 2015, Part One: #40-#21

December 19, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 5

Our first Best of 2015 list kicks off today with the lower half of our top forty singles of 2015. Check back for part two tomorrow!

Year-End Rodeo 2015: The Master Lists

December 14, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 17

As 2015 winds down, we’ll be unveiling the Country Universe crew’s Top 30 Singles and Top 20 Albums, along with our writers’ individual ballots. Because everyone loves lists. And lists of lists. But, despite all

Sunday Selections: December 13, 2015

December 13, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 4

This week’s round-up is a bit light on Chris Stapleton news… if only because we already have a post about the Grammy nominations, where he scored a total of 4 nods, including the all-genre Album

Sunday Selections: December 6, 2015

December 6, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 3

The year of Chris Stapleton rolls on unabated. The reigning CMA Male Vocalist of the Year– which is still an amazing thing to type!– figures prominently in the country music news this week. But there

Sunday Selections: November 29, 2015

November 29, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 3

Despite the fact that it’s the year’s biggest shopping weekend, this week offers a fairly paltry slate of new releases to get excited about. Fortunately, there are still plenty of newsworthy items to discuss

Sunday Selections: November 22, 2015

November 22, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 9

Earlier this week, writer and friend-of-Country Universe C.M. Wilcox announced that he was shuttering his blog, Country California. The crew here have long been admirers of the sharp, insightful writing and wry humor that Country California brought to the country music blogosphere, and we all wish Chris the best in his new ventures.

Album Review: Allison Moorer, Down to Believing

October 4, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 2

Since making her debut with 1997’s Alabama Song, Allison Moorer has been one of country music’s most consistent albums artists. The singer-songwriter has three unqualified masterpieces to her credit— the flawless stone-country heartbreak cycle of The Hardest Part, the politically charged The Duel, and the somber, heady Southern Gothic of Crows. Despite having those triumphs— and other excellent albums like Alabama Song and Good Fortune— to her credit, Moorer’s latest effort, Down to Believing, is perhaps the finest album of her career because it finds Moorer challenging both her singing and her songwriting voices to plumb truly difficult emotional depths.

Starter Kit: Ryan Adams

September 29, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 12

The pop music world is still buzzing over last week’s release of 1989: Not Taylor Swift’s pop-cultural juggernaut, but alt-country singer-songwriter Ryan Adams’ cover album of 1989 “in the style of The Smiths.” A quick

Single Review: Tami Neilson (feat. Marlon Williams), “Lonely”

September 11, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 6

New Zealand’s Tami Neilson made some inroads with US country audiences with 2014’s extraordinary Dynamite!, and “Lonely,” the first single from her upcoming follow-up, Don’t Be Afraid, is an exquisite throwback of a record that mines a real sense of heartbreak from its subtlety and restraint.

2015 CMA Nominations

September 9, 2015 Jonathan Keefe 21

Throughout 2015, there have been rumblings of a backlash against the prevailing trends at country radio, and that backlash is certainly reflected in the year’s crop of CMA nominees.