Showing posts with label randy rogers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label randy rogers. Show all posts

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

album review: 'nothing shines like neon by randy rogers band

So as many of you probably know, last year I picked up the collaboration album between two red dirt country acts, both seasoned veterans in the industry who decided to team up and make a record about being seasoned veterans in the industry and not having quite struck it gold in the mainstream. That record was called Hold My Beer, Vol. 1 by Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen, and it was without a doubt one of my favourite country records of 2015, but what about the men outside of the team-up?

Well, Wade Bowen has always done things in his own way, but Randy Rogers has seen a bit more success under his titular band - and note when I say success I mean barely cracking the top 40 with singles but steadily building a cult following with their album sales around the late 2000s. And for the life of me I'm surprised that they weren't more successful - sure, they had more fiddle and steel guitar and texture than your average mainstream country act, but they were signed to a major label and were willing to cross into more rock and pop textures for their successes, to the point where there were a few songs from their 2013 record Trouble that wouldn't sound that out of place on mainstream country radio... except, of course, that Jay Joyce produced it and has all the hallmarks of his clumsy work that he'd later ruin Eric Church's The Outsiders with a few months later. But the Randy Rogers Band didn't really see radio airplay, and after playing the major label game for several years, they decided to make their return to the indie scene with their album this year, promising a more neotraditional country sound with Nothing Shines Like Neon. Now, I had every reason to expect that this album would be at the worst pretty damn good, and at best something great - was I right?

Friday, January 1, 2016

the top 50 best songs of 2015

And now we're onto the list that's always the hardest for me to make, mostly because it requires by far the most work: the best songs of the year, overall. Not just hits, but singles and deep cuts from album ranging from widely successful to barely out of the underground.

And this year was harder than most, mostly because it was a damn great year for music. The charts may have been strong, but that was nothing compared to the cavalcade of great music we got, which meant that cutting this list down from thousands to around 630 to 165 to the fifty we have meant that there were a lot of painful cuts, so much so that I seriously considered instituting a one-song-per-album rule. In the end... I couldn't do it, because there were some records that were so unbelievably good that I had to include multiple entries. Now we'll be covering those albums in greater detail a bit later this week, but in the end I held to the rule that at most I could put three songs from any one album on this list - and that we easily had more of those makes my argument that was a damn solid year of music, probably better than last year's, all the more powerful. 

One more thing before we start: while I can describe music well and why it works for me on a technical level, most of the songs on this list cut a fair bit deeper than that, and thus I'll endeavor to provide some emotional context as to why they worked so well beyond a purely intellectual exercise. And of course it's my picks - there might some common overlap between my choices and other critics, but it would be disingenuous to choose tracks for 'cultural importance' rather than what really got to me more deeply.

So let's start with a track that completely threw me off-guard.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

the top albums/songs of the midyear - 2015 (VIDEO)


Almost forgot to put this video up. This was a ton of fun, really did love making this - always nice to talk about music that's actually all sorts of awesome.

So next up is Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then finally I might have time for this new Vince Staples... stay tuned!

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

the top album/songs of the midyear - 2015

Last year when I put together this list, I was debating its very relevance. I mean, would it give away what would turn out to be my top albums of the year overall, or would it find an audience at all?

This year, the debate was different: I knew I had to do a midyear review for 2015 because there was so much quality that came out in the front half of the year that I'm honestly a little concerned I'm not going to get a chance to highlight it all. Between comebacks that delivered in spades, debuts that blew my mind, and records that seemed to have an abundance of creativity more than I would have ever expected, the first six months of 2015 have been overwhelming strong, to the point where keeping my list of albums to twelve was insanely difficult. It'll be incredible if the rest of the year keeps up this momentum, but for now, here is my top albums of 2015, thus far:

Monday, May 25, 2015

video review: 'hold my beer vol. 1' by randy rogers & wade bowen


Man, another record I just took a little too long to get to, but I'm glad I did.

Next up, that collaboration that's been in the workings for a while now. Stay tuned!

album review: 'hold my beer vol. 1' by randy rogers & wade bowen

You know, I don't talk a lot about regionalism in country music - mostly because, to most mainstream listeners, you'd never be able to tell. Unless you're in Canada and get a slice of Alberta country courtesy of CRTC rules, most people would simply assume if you get country music on the radio, it's out of Nashville, especially with the increased amalgamation of radio across the US. And that's often the furthest thing from the truth, given that there are subsectors of country music all across the United States that have a distinctive sound and feel outside of the increasingly polished Nashville scene.

So let's talk about one of those scenes today and one that I've been too long in brushing over: Texas country. Commonly known as 'red dirt country' music, it tends to blur the lines between neotraditional, plain-spoken respect for the working man and rough-edged outlaw country, with brawnier guitars, a stronger acoustic flavour, and a heavier focus on lyricism and raw live performances. And while there have been plenty of country heavyweights throughout the decades that have hailed from Texas - Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson - in recent years there's been a potent resurgence as a backlash against Nashville's increasingly slick sound. And as bro-country continues to collaspe in upon itself, there's been speculation, especially in the indie scene, that red-dirt country might work to fill the vacuum.

And it's not like they don't have the quality to get there, as some of my favourite country acts of the past few years have come from this subgenre. Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, James Mc Murtry, Jason Eady, we're talking about great acts dropping solid if not downright excellent records, the best of their respective years, and thus I shouldn't be all that surprised that well-respected acts in this vein might team up and take a stab at it together. In this case, we're talking about Wade Bowen and Randy Rogers, the latter of which has been slugging it out in the Randy Rogers Band on the far outskirts of mainstream country and unfortunately got sucked into the swirling eddy that was the overly slick pop country of the mid-to-late 2000s - incidentally, the same time I stopped listening to a lot of country music. Wade Bowen comes from a similar era, but he's tended to stick to slightly more personal material and stronger songwriting. Yeah, I know I'm late to the punch - again - on covering this, but could a team-up record titled Hold My Beer, Volume 1 be the record they need to take them over the top?