Ballads & Bangers: Georgia Is Yours & Bad Penny

"What makes a song a banger? The most important is the hook, that sticks in your head, after you hear the song just once. In addition it will also have a solid beat, that you can't help but move to. And recognizability is also key."
(DJ Rinehart / deepinthemix.com, July 23 2023)

They sort of represent the opposite bookends of a musical bookshelf: the catchy banger and the smooth ballad. They are the flamboyant, which thrills and the mellow, which triggers feelings. Not always do they catch the broad public's attention. Maybe because the timing just isn't right, maybe because they are deep cuts that not everyone gets to hear or simply because the artist is not well enough known (yet). And although musical tastes always are personal and subjectiv, this spot here shall give those songs a little stage to shine.

Ballad: a song or poem that tells a story, or a slow love song. (dictionary.cambridge.org)

In August 2024, the duo Sugarland released the EP "There Goes The Neighborhood". The project only contained 4 songs, but was the first new music since the attempted comeback project "Bigger" from 2018. However, neither could not tie in with the duo's commercially most successful period, which had ended in 2010 with their last big hit 'Stuck Like Glue'. Since then, Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush have mainly devoted themselves to their own projects and Sugarland has disappeared into obscurity without any big farewell.

In retrospect, "There Goes The Neighborhood" was of no real significance. But maybe that wasn't the plan anyway. The duo probably just wanted to have some new music for promoting the upcoming tour in fall of 2024 with Little Big Town, another band that no longer plays a commercial role.

Even the music on the EP was created without much of Sugarland 's involvement, as Kristian Bush emphasized: "We decided to reach out to some of the best songwriters in Nashville and ask them to send us their best songs." Among them is the emotional ballad 'Georgia Is Yours'. It is a song about a broken relationship and the futile attempt to come to terms with it. In the end, the only way out is to move to another state.

So I moved across the state into a condo on Fifth.
I changed all my numbers and the crew that I hung with.
And, boy, I never see you, but I see you all the time,
thought that I could do it, but I can’t and don't know why.

So, baby, Georgia is yours,
you're too hard to ignore,
and this place ain’t big enough for the two of us anymore.
So, baby, Georgia is yours.

(Georgia Is Yours / Rhett Akins, Sam Ellis, Josh Kerr, Eric Olson, Thomas Rhett, Emily Weisband)

Banger: a popular song or piece of music with a loud, heavy beat (= rhythm) that people like to dance to. (dictionary.cambridge.org)

When Simon Clow released his first EP with 6 songs in June of 2019, it bore his stage name "Kadooh" by which he was known for more than 10 years as a member of the Canadian rock band State Of Shock. Having grown up together with Chad Kroeger from the rock band Nickelback in the small town of Hanna in Alberta, Canada, it was to be the beginning of a new chapter in his musical career.

"Country music is a genre I've really grown to love," says Simon Clow via the small label 604 Records. At the same time, he emphasizes on his homepage: "Music should always be fun and that's very authentic to who I am. I want people to dance and just take it in."

After Chad Kroeger was still involved as a songwriter and producer on the track "Rattlesnake Bite" in 2021, that is no longer the case on 'Bad Penny'. Released in September 2024 and written by Simon Clow together with Joanne Stacy and Lucy Leblanc, the rocking song is about never underestimating anything, because you never know what might come of it.