Tom's Country View

Today I received the new Brantley Gilbert CD in the mail. Yes, I am still buying physical CDs! Although the days may be numbered as I now mostly listen to music electronically while on the go - plus files do not take up as much space as physical media. In any case, I was excited and curious what the first full major-label release for Brantley Gilbert would sound like. Commercially it already is one of the most successful albums of 2014 by selling 211,000 copies in its first week and debuting at No.1 on the country albums chart and at No.2 on the pop charts behind the new album by Coldplay. Brantley Gilbert walked into the spotlight kind-of unplanned in 2010, when Jason Aldean recorded two of his songs for his 2010-album, the title track ' My Kinda Party ' and ' Dirt Road Anthem ', respectively going to No.2 and No.1 on the country singles charts. Those hits kick-started Brantley's career into the mainstream and resulted in a reissue of his album ...

The band Alabama has probably been the most influental musical act in my life and responsible for converting me to country music for good. Their slight rock and pop influences created a whole new vibe for country music and as we know, they were the first (at least successful) self contained country band; meaning they played all their instruments themselves, even during recordings most of the time. At live shows, they were not merely singing like successful groups such as the Oak Ridge Boys or the Statler Brothers had done before them, but as a band they were also playing their own instruments.

Just recently, US Radio Network 'Cumulus Media' and 'Big Machine Label Group', which was launched in 2005 by former Dreamworks Records executive Scott Borchetta, announced a co-venture to promote Country Music stars who were big in the time span of the 80's to 2000, but mostly no longer have recording contracts. The undertaking intends to create the new label NASH ICONS, which will promote and support those artists via special radio outlets and events. It will be empowered by the media muscle of Cumulus Media, which operates some 460 country music radio stations (as of February 2014) in the US market. 'Big Machine' is the home of superstars Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw and Rascal Flatts, as well as current hot seller Brantley Gilbert (via Valory. As Scott Borchetta noted, "There are so many iconic Country artists who are still passionate about recording new music and hearing their biggest hits on the radio. NASH ICONS will allow so many of ...

One of the exciting parts about music is, that it is alive and you never know, when you discover something new, that completely fits your taste. It may be because lyrics are important to you and those lyrics simply hit a nerve for you, it may be that you like the beat and rhythm it throws at you, it may be the atmosphere and feeling it conveys or simply the singer and his/her voice or a combination of parts or all of these aspects. There is a certain excitement that comes with such a discovery and that's what I felt when I first heard the sound of ' Funkabilly ' and Joanna Cotten! I had neither heard of this singer nor of her music before, but I was discovering Funk music at that time and was curious how this could possibly mix with 'hillbilly' music. What the word combination of the album name and title track already hints at, is a mix of various musical styles. Her home page fittingly states: "A sultry slide guitar, the lonely moan of a blu...

On the weekend the 59th Eurovision Song Contest took place in Denmark. Over the years it has become more and more a high tech media spectacle, which is by now reaching a world wide audience of an estimated 125 Mio. viewers. Although over the years every now and then a song from the contest crossed over to international radio charts (with "Waterloo" by Abba probably being the most famous), it has mostly been snickered at by the rest of the music world. With the increasing integration of social and other media, such as twitter, and high tech stage and lightning designs (take a look at the performances available on the internet), it has stepped up in public recognition over the past few years. And with potentially 125 Mio. music buying consumers, it is certainly also of interest to the music industry. While the winner is chosen by a jury team and the public audience in each country, for the first time audience voting numbers have been published separately thi...

From the rich musical universe of Texas comes a driving sound that walks the line between Rock and Country . With its rock band outfit, which omits steel guitar and fiddle, but adds some sprinkling of Mandolin and Banjo, John David Kent delivers some kind of heartland sound, that successfully fuses rock and country into something commercial and yet raw. In 2011 John David Kent released his self-titled debut album as a Texas (Country) Music act. While the album cover which depicted JDK as some longhaired-bearded Cowboy in a long dust coat, the music was not western-style, but contemporary rocking Texas Country style, stressing the Country-part of it. I put it on my wish-list but it never really ended up in my buying cart. When I stumbled across the release of his sophomore album on one of my 'music-discovery-internet-surfs' and listened to the track excerpts, I was immediately grabbed and this time, the cart was succesfully filled. " Before the Sun Come...