The Official Country Music Thread Genre • Page 128

I saw this tweet which peaked my interest. Gillian Welch is an all time favorite of mine so anytime I see her name mentioned it grabs my attention.

 

I can say that I was completely unaware of this, and I've listened to two songs so far and they are both great. I'm gonna listen to the whole album in a little bit on my ride in to work.

 

Ah okay. I happened to stumble upon her while checking out the Americana new releases section in Apple Music but i'd never heard of her and had no idea if she was popular at all.

 

Yeah I knew nothing about her before that tweet and still don’t know much, but did see that Sera Cahoone produced the album, which I also thought was pretty cool, if you are familiar with her.

 

New Sam Outlaw out today. Not really sure what to make of it after my first listen. It’s a pretty big departure from his previous albums.

 

It's as light and breezy of a listen as his previous albums so perhaps that's why I didn't find it too big of a departure. It's decidedly more 80s pop but still very enjoyable.

 

Satire or not, that new Paul Cauthen track is pretty terrible.

 

Yeah it’s real bad.

 

Something about him in general rubs me the wrong way. His first album was promising and I like the Have Mercy EP, even if it's blatantly obvious aping of the Johnny Cash American albums. But he feels more like a parody of a retro country singer at this point.

Can't get into this Cody Johnson album either apart from a couple tracks. Then again, he's never done much for me to begin with.

 

Saw this one on one of the EOTY lists and figured others around here might enjoy it.

 

also does anyone have any good sites or blogs for keeping up with the genre? all the ones I know of cover way too much shitty pop country and the guy behind saving country music is a massive chud and I'm tired of having to check his site bc its the only one i know of that reguarly covers artists i like lol

 

Honestly, I really don't think there are any. Rolling Stone Country used to be pretty good...they had monthly "10 New Artists You Should Hear" features and did a good job at spotlighting a wide range of stuff. But now they basically just publish press releases. Similar with American Songwriter. It's really frustrating, because I feel like I'm definitely overlooking a lot of great albums in the genre these days, especially up-and-comers. The complete lack of good coverage of the stuff I like in the country world is probably a pretty big reason that I've drifted away from the genre a bit in the past couple years.

SCM is probably the best one for surfacing the kind of stuff you like. But man, I hate that guy. If I go there at all anymore, it's just to jot down some names. His writing is so incredibly terrible (and often offensively terrible) that I can't even stomach a paragraph. But man, I'd love not to give him clicks.

 

I occasionally have luck here, but not strictly country all the time. They drop a handful of reviews at the end of each week and that’s usually where I find some decent stuff.

The Journal of Roots Music - No Depression

I also find out about a lot of good stuff from these 2 YouTube channels.

https://youtube.com/c/GemsOnVHS

https://youtube.com/c/WesternAF

 

Yeah I was gonna say No Depression as well

 

Haha yeah, I still visit his site once in a while just to glimpse headlines and then go investigate whatever or whomever might catch my interest on my own. But even that is more traffic than I'd like to be giving him. Like, even if you ignore his grating fence-riding when it comes to political-tinted stories, or the ego he injects in his coverage, the writing in and of itself is just unbearable. It sucks, because I love the idea of his blog, but the actual execution is, well, yeah.

I feel like I'm discovering new artists more through Spotify and my local record store than anything else these days, anyway. I just joined last.fm again for the first time in years recently too so maybe that'll help hah.

nice, thanks for the recs! I can't believe I forgot about No Depression!

 

This is a fantastic album. I loved it. Thank you for the recommendation. I had never heard of him and it seems like the kind of album I never would have stumbled across if not for the rec.

This conversation is sorta funny because I feel like this thread is literally the only place I am able to discover albums like these, and I actually do kinda try to go look for them a little bit. I'm happy to learn of a few more resources for this type of thing.

 

Some really good stuff on this list. Never heard of this site, but looks like it might also be a good resource for finding new music.

Records of the Year 2021 | Holler

 

That is a good list!

 

I’m new to the genre. I like Kacey Musgraves and that’s about it. Give me some recs?

 

I’d say give Emily Scott Robinson a try.

 

Maren Morris for more of the crossover genre stuff and if you like that and want more country, check out Highwomen. That'll open you up to some other artists

 

Sweet. Just added them to my phone for later.

 

Catherine McGrath, Kelsea Ballerini, RaeLynn.

 

Natalie Hemby has done a fair amount of writing with Kacey and has a similar feel across her two records. Carly Pearce made a great divorce album this year that plays as a nice complement to Star-Crossed. And Caitlyn Smith has probably my favorite voice in the genre right now.