The Official Country Music Thread Genre • Page 157

stapleton was in a bluegrass band called the steeldrivers for a while, i think he's on their first 2 records. might be worth checking out if you already like his solo stuff.

 

I'll add that to the list.

So far Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan have seemed up my alley. Colter Wall might need a little more warming up to.

 

Stapleton, Childers, and Bryan seem to have became a pretty solid go to country starter pack. A few others I’d recommend that I think would be a logical transition from those guys.

49 Winchester
Wyatt Flores
Sam Barber
Joseph & the Bonevilles
Cole Chaney
Jason Isbell
The new Dustin Kensrue album.
John Moreland
Drayton Farley
Channing Wilson
Myron Elkins

 

Bumping the 200-song sampler I made in 2020. It's missing some of the newer artists (Zach Bryan's not even on there) but it's a good place to start if you want to check out a lot of artists who make music in this space.

 

Those Moakler recs are money.

 

One of my 10 or so favorite country albums ever, Charlie Worsham’s Rubberband, is next month’s VMP Country pick. Not an album I ever thought would get a vinyl pressing, so I’m pretty excited for that.

 

Lainey Wilson live a couple of weeks ago was great, and her new song is pretty decent

 

Not exactly country but I know there are some Jeffrey Martin fans in here. His partner Anna Tivel has a new one out today.

 

This came out on Friday. Lots of friends played on this. I think y'all will dig. His last record "Bursting With Country-Fresh Flavor" was one of my favorites.

 

reading back through some old posts trying to find something — turns out the answer to this question was “making one of the best albums of the 21st century”

 

yuuuup

 

Sturgill Simpson Introduces Johnny Blue Skies for New Album and Tour

longest yeah boy ever

 

Rolling my eyes at the alias to keep the "five albums" promise, but hell yeah at a new album!

 

eh i’m into it, tarantino should direct movies under a different name after movie #10 lol

 

Oh for sure, I hope Tarantino does do that. But the alternative option that I’m fonder of is just not putting these kinds of dumb limits on your own artistry for no reason.

 

agreed lol

 

self-imposed limits on artistry can work! look at Jack White and the White Stripes. Jack talks about how their self-imposed limitations led them to new creative paths in so many white stripes interviews.

 

Respectfully, not a band I care about at all!

 

Those are also creative limitations that are done with intention, not an arbitrary limitation on output

 

Limiting output is limiting creation though?

 

Any band that “only records to tape” or “only records live instrumentation without digital tools” applies limits that aid their creativity. The limit trick is used all the time.

 

I do see a difference between giving yourself creative limitations and arbitrarily just stopping making stuff at a certain random number, but at the same time, who is anyone else to tell someone they can't just stop whenever they want...?

 

Yeah, come on, those things are completely different. “I like how recording to tape sounds” is not the same thing as “I will stop making art after X number of projects.” One is an aesthetic choice; one is an arbitrary, self-important decision you make because the “narrative” is attractive. Having to record under a different name because you made a vow to stop after a certain number of albums is dumb and serves no artistic purpose other than bolstering your own ego.

 

I’m really not that torn up about this: I’m glad Sturgill will keep going, especially after being relatively underwhelmed by his last album. But I am exhausted by THIS kind of artistic pretense. No one would care if he doubled back on his “only five Sturgill albums” thing…something I doubt many people knew about at all. But if you’re going to double back on a thing you for some reason decided you should say in an interview, maybe just don’t say that thing.

 

I’m not torn up, but enjoy the debate. Nothing personal going on here fellas.

I think limiting the number of releases under one moniker is in the same ballpark as choosing to record only to tape or only having three instruments on a song because in all of those cases the self imposed restriction impacts the final product.