The Official Country Music Thread Genre • Page 44

Yeah that was one of the ones that really stood out to me, yet the Dixie Chicks are in like the 40s or 50s.

 

I really, really enjoy four songs on the album. For me, his material is hit-or-miss.

 

lmao that rolling stone list is a fucking joke. remember when people actually regarded rolling stone as a reputable voice in music journalism? now we get shit like this and "was bob dylan the godfather of rap??"

seriously, toby keith? the judds? lynn anderson outranking jerry jeff walker, lucinda williams, and steve earle? taylor swift outranking townes van zandt? embarrassing.

 

We should do our own list from this thread it would be a fucking million times better

 

That list is fucking sad.

 

True, but...I always feel like making lists of the greatest (x) of all time is kind of pointless in a weird way. Which is why I feel like they so often get it wrong whenever anyone, Rolling Stone or otherwise, tries to make one.

Something more specific like "best country albums of the decade" or whatever is a lot easier.

 

Just heard this new tune by Slaid Cleaves and man what a great song. His new album comes out this Friday and if you are a fan of guys like Guy Clark or John Prine then do yourself a favor and check it out.

 

Really enjoyed that, guy is so underrated.

 

I could never really get into Slaid, for some reason. Everyone I know with similar taste always speaks highly of him, though.

I'll give this new record a shot. I like the song.

 

It took me a while to really get into him, I think it may have been his voice that put me off at first. It wasn't until his last album, Still Fighting the War, that it all finally clicked. Before that album I think I only listened to a few songs here and there, and though I liked the songwriting I never really dug in to any of his work.

 

Any of yall in here listen to the new Steve Earle yet? I haven't but I'm seeing wild hype from all sides about it so my expectations are high. I thought that last Dukes record was great too (The Low Highway, I believe it was called?)

 

I like it a lot, but he's one of my favorite country musicians ever so I'm obviously biased ha. I've thoroughly enjoyed the last few albums he's put out, surprised he's signed to WB now instead of New West. Didn't even realize that until I had the new album in my hands.

 

I'm going to pick it up today or tomorrow, I think. He's one of my favorites, too.

I read a pretty good interview with Steve a few days ago.

Steve Earle: 'My wife left me for a younger, skinnier, less talented singer'

Liked this part:

 

Finally getting into Tom Russell after several years of being vaguely aware of him as "an artist I should like." Really great stuff.

 

I am not aware of his stuff at all but I really enjoyed that. I recently did the same thing with Lee Hazlewood, he is also one of those guys I felt like I should like but never really spent any time with, but some of his stuff just blew me away. He was before his time.

 

Apparently Deep Dark Woods have a new album on the way and just released a new song from it. Not sure on release date. If you don't know these guys check out their previous album Jubilee.

 

I'm surprised you're not already a fan! Ha. I've seen his name tossed around in alt-country circles for years but just never got around to listening.

I'm a total newbie to his stuff but I recommend Blood and Candle Smoke wholeheartedly. So far he strikes me as a McMurtry type where the songs really hinge on the literary quality of the lyrics, which means they're not always readily accessible. But they open up the more you listen.

Really like these guys, especially Winter Hours. Excited for new stuff.

 

Going to check out Blood and Candle Smoke right now, I already love the album title haha.

I saw Deep Dark Woods open for Deer Tick several years ago and had never heard of them before that, but they were great and I grabbed Jubilee after the show. I used to spin that album all the time, but never really looked into their older stuff for whatever reason, I'm going to add Winter Hours to my list too now.

 

I found them right before Jubilee came out, so probably around the same time. I've really liked all of their albums. One of those great bands that's just flown right under the radar.

 

New Tyler Childers track. You can actually hear Sturgill on this one.

Hear Sturgill Simpson Protege Tyler Childers' New 'Whitehouse Road'

 

Just saw this response from Slaid Cleaves on the question of "Which buying option is best for the artist?" And thought his response was pretty interesting and well thought out rather than the cliche "we don't care as long as you listen to it" or whatever.


We get asked from time to time, "Which buying option is best for the artist?"

We did a little research on that and came up with these figures:

Buying a CD directly from slaid.com puts about $14 into our pockets, which will go towards paying off the expense of making and promoting the album: about $38,000. So if we sell 2715 CDs we'll break even. Of course that doesn't count the estimated 1000 hours of work that went into the writing, production, promotion, etc.

Buying a CD from Amazon or your local record store puts about $5 into our pockets. So we'd need to sell 7600 CDs to break even if we only sold through stores. But we appreciate record stores and want to see them survive, so we''re OK with that.

Streaming. It took a considerable amount of figuring, but our estimate is that someone would have to listen to the whole album about 200 times in order to generate $14 in royalties. That's with a Spotify premium subscription. On the Spotify free plan, you'd have to listen to the whole album 500 times (because we get a smaller royalty through the free plan).

We figure people might listen to a CD 25 times. And we're told Spotify will expose us to new fans. So I guess if Spotify generates a 20-fold increase in our free-streaming fan-base we'll break even (20 new fans playing the album 25 times = 500 album spins). We'll be watching our statements to see how that works out . . .

 

Nailed it with the "hip hop for people who are afraid of black people" comment. Although it hurts to see one of my favorite country artists dissing another one of my favorite country artists, but...given the circumstances I can't say I really blame him for feeling a bit raw about things, ha. Granted there's probably a degree of facetiousness to that comment too, so...

Anyway, I feel like So You Wanna Be an Outlaw is one of Earle's best albums in years, and I've thoroughly enjoyed everything he's put out the last two decades. Come to think of it, there's really not one album I outright don't like. Washington Square Serenade is probably the closest but even that one has a few tracks I'm really into.

 

Wow is Joshua Judges Ruth a phenomenal record. Majorly underrated, imo.

 

Honestly, for as popular as he is within the genre, I still feel like Lyle Lovett is pretty underrated all in all.

 

"She's Already Made up Her Mind" into "North Dakota" is one of my favorite pairings of songs on any record.