ÁTM-Music

  Maren Morris vuelve a sus inicios con The Tree. Hacía tiempo que Maren Morris no sacaba nada tan country. La cantante lanzó ayer The Tree , que recuerda mucho a My Church , su primer single y que se movía entre el country y el gospel .   The Tree repite las claves del éxito de My Church y es casi lo más tradicionalmente country que hemos podido escuchar en años -al menos, en sus singles- . Con su anterior disco, Humble Quest , se pretendía dar a una vuelta a las raíces, al country tradicional, pero tardaba en encontrarse . Ni la title-track ni el single con el que se avanzaba el disco lo eran ( Circles Around This Town ). Y recordando, tampoco era country Girl (single), con pinceladas de R&B, ni la claramente pop The Bones, pese a su categorización repetida como country. Ahora , según Variety , la canción podría dar respuesta al rechazo que ha recibido Maren Morris por posicionarse en temas como la inclusión , los derechos de las personas LGTBIQ+ y el feminismo, posturas

 In an interview with Spanish music website  JENESAISPOP , published last week, Parcels talked about the term ' cowboy disco ' and how it defines their latest album 'Day/Night'.  Cowboy disco seems to be the defined genre for the band's second album (their first new project since their self-titled debut in 2018). The term alludes to a disco-funk sound and country or folk lyrics. In the interview, Jules gave as an example their single Theworstthing. The lyrics on this song are gloomy and moving, while the groove drives it to disco.  Some of the feelings and lyrics on this album portrait a dramatic melancholic and sadness, that better relates with country and folk.  What the term shows is the union of the two genres with an evident setting, Australia: Jules Crommelin says in the interview that this album was written before the pandemic, missing and remembering Australia while the band was in Berlin. The closeness to the countryside that exists in Australia drove Parce

 Carly Pearce released her third album on Friday. The album comes as a following part of her 29 EP, dropped in February. The album includes the 7 songs from the EP and eight new tracks.This extension of 29 the EP melts perfectly with the songs unveiled back in February.  It feels like the rest of the chapter, a part of her healing told with all the authenticity.  One of the new songs  is Never Wanted To Be That Girl   with Ashley Mcbride. There 's no  other artist that could drive the song with that honesty than Ashley Mcbride. In her Genius commentary to her song One night standards , she described the song as 'an exercise in honesty'  and that is what  Never Wanted To Be That Girl  is about : Speaking your feelings in such a difficult situation in a relationship;being the other girl. The album starts with the funny and country-rock  Diamondback (cowritten with Kelsea Ballerini , among others), which has some of  the  Before He Cheats revenge in the chorus. According wi

 The nominations for the CMA Awards came out three days ago. The ceremony will take place on November 10th awarding the best country artists, singles and albums of the year (the eligibility period is from July 1,2020 to June 30, 2021). Let's get into the nominations: ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR: This is the biggest award of the night. Eric Church and Chris Stapleton earn a nomination in this category. Both lead the nominations with five each.  Eric Church Luke Combs Miranda Lambert Chris Stapleton Carrie Underwood Church and Stapleton nominations seem reasonable. Both have released projects this year, which could be candidates to 'Album Of The Year'. Luke Combs gets a nomination too. He is one of the biggest country stars nowadays and he has had great chart success with 'Forever After All'.  The only nomination that is a little disappointing for me is Miranda Lambert's. Despite releasing The Marfa Tapes, she's been living by the success of 'Settling down'

 Midland dropped ' The Last Resort ' a few weeks ago. It's the second project from the band this year: In March, they released The   Sonic Ranch , an album made of their old and unreleased songs.  Now, The Last Resort is the first collection of new songs since their second album , Let it Roll in 2019. Despite the EP only includes five tracks, it's a pleasant listening.  The sound contains some rock and electric guitars that melt with Midland's classic country sound. The result is delicious.  The first piece is the post-break-up And Then Some , with mellow sadness. This start is much closer to their origins on The Sonic Ranch . There is a bittersweet feeling in every song (except from Two To Two Step , that will get you dancing), which is far from the debauchery and living to the max of the 21st Century Honky Tonk American Band... That's also shown in the first single and second track, Sunrise tells the story. It brings back cheating to the narrative, but it'

 The second chapter of Eric Church's seventh album was released last Friday. Soul is also made of nine songs, but the energy totally changes from one part to another. This is funnier to listen to and The Chief seems to be enjoying it too while singing and playing these songs. This album is all about energy , sound and performance. Eric Church carries a vivid, soulful and wild show, exhibiting a wide vocal range (falsetto and deeper voice) throughout the whole album . This time the lyrics aren't personal or even deep . They are funny, getting in the 'bad guy' character or the 'break it kind of guy' . The only exceptions may be Lynird Skynird Jones( that is about the tragic life of  a biracial man born after an affaire in a concert of the band Lynird Skynird ) and Hell of a View , the most chart successful song from the project (top 5 on the billboard hot country songs chart). This the best attempt for a love song. It's a love letter to his lover and to what

 Eric Church finally drops the first part of his triple album 'Heart & Soul' . Heart consists of nine songs and some of them were singles previewed before the realease of the album:  Never Break Heart, Crazyland, Heart On Fire and  Stick that In Your Country Song  , the first single of the whole project, dropped last summer.  Stick That In Your Country Song is one of the most special moments in the album. It was written in 2015 by Jeffrey Steele and David Naish and finally given to Church to sing it himself. It has unavoidable social lyrics and social content, and it addresses young people problems, their options for life and the ease to get in contact with guns and violence. The song is almost combative and there's no better country act than Eric Church to sing it and , maybe, ask for change. There are brilliant songwriting moments, like the lines  ' Jails are full, the factories empty / Momma's crying, young boys dying / Under that red, white, and blue still

 On March 20th, CMT aired a documentary about the start and origins of the country band, Midland . The 45-minutes-long documentary films the band back in 2014, when they decided to leave everything and spend 11 days on the Sonic Ranch music studio to record some songs they had been writing. The idea of being a band was not formed yet :they weren't even signed. It was more like a three friends' reunion after living in different parts of the country for years, far from each other. The result of those recordings is The Sonic Ranch , which starts with one of the band's best songs, Fourteen Gears . It was previously included on their second album, Let it Roll . It's an on-the-road love letter and it paves the way for a more calm and placid sound. The band leaves all the risk and debauchery of their image as the 21st Century Honky Tonk American Band to get into this pleasant journey of tunes.They also leave all the cheating songs and focus on a deeper search of love and trust

 After her hit, I Hope You're Happy Now (ft. Lee Brice), which made her win a CMA Award, Carly Pearce is back with an EP of 7 songs. The first single of the project was Next Girl , written by Josh Osborne, Shane McAnally and Carly hersef. It is uptempo, fast and funny , with some clever lines referencing her ex songs' lyrics and with a teaching effort to warn the 'next girl' . Inspired by women of country (Reba, Patty Loveless...), the song is a cool breeze to mainstream country and brings back some bluegrass touch that connects with Carly Pearce's childhood and origin of her love for the country music genre.  The rest of the songs of the EP remain much sadder, focusing on heartbreak from a thoughtful perspective, like in the title track, where she thinks about the year 29, when your life is usually on track, you're young and, at the same time, closer to reach certain maturity. The percussive  Messy talks about the difficulty of moving on, as Day One does too.

 In 2018, Grady Smith, released one of his most famous videos, 'This beat is killing country music'(Stop the snaps)' , in which he pointed out the excessive use of claps or snap tracks in country music. Often used in pop music (as it is shown in the video, for example, in Halsey's Without Me), the trend became a must in country pop and more in the boyfriend country subgenre, forgetting the use of country instruments for the confort and simplicity of the snap beat.  Two years later the beat keeps on pop music and on  mainstream country music, like in Gabby Barrett's I Hope . Its spread has been so huge that it is almost in every genre, in latin melodic pop too !  Latin music is crammed by reggaeton and latin trap, as I said in my last post, and there is so little space for latin melodic pop. Almost every artist that made melodic pop in the past had to adapt and make urban music (Luis Fonsi, Álex Ubago, Pedro Capó...) and the artists that remain making it use this bea

  Morgan Wallen has released today his highly-anticipated album. The record, with 30 tracks, includes some of his hits, like ' 7 summers' or ' More Than My Hometown' . His new single, premiered yesterday with a live performance ,is 'Sand In My Boots' . It is the first song of the album and is one of the best. It addresses elements of country living  ( that will repeat along the record) in the background of a sweet  love story.  The project has got some songs that match the title and the subject of  it, the danger, like ' Warning' , ' Neon Eyes' or even  'Living The Dream'  . They pretend to feel dark and that is brought by some beats and a more close to rock sound, but it frecquently make the songs lose their country sound, with the exception of ' Outlaw ' (ft. Ben Burgess, who also is cowriter of some songs), with some word play ('It takes a hell of an angel'). The album succeeds in tender love songs like the mentioned

Usually I recommend videos but I decided to suggest you listening to the 'song vs song' podcast, hosted by Todd Nathanson and Dany Roth,specially their latest episode (with Grady Smith as special guest). In this episode they debated about what song represents more bro-country, 'Dirt Road Anthem' by Jason Aldean or 'Cruise' by Florida Georgia Line. For those who does not what  Bro-country is, it is a country sub-genre originated in 2010s and that usually recruits country stereotypes (tracks, girls with jeans, beer, Friday nights...), frequently mistaken with nowadays country music. (There is deeper country music, truly richer).  Influenced by rock and rap, both songs got rap remixes (Jason Aldean with Ludacris (Do not confuse Jason Aldean rap verse with Ludacris one)  and Florida Georgia Line with Nelly, as Kane Brown is doing right now) and they stated a new country wave. Despite the songs were released a few years ago the Podcasters take it back to nowadays. Th

2020 CMT Awards are set to be next week and because of that, I remember today Brett Young and Boyz II Men live show for CMT Crossroads ,CMT section that brings together a country singer/group with a musician from other genre to play live songs from both artists.  It is usually interesting to see different genres artists singing country songs, which contributes to globalise country music. Due to country music's progressive spin to pop music , these live shows have shown bonds and things in common between pop and country singers . Great example is Nick Jonas and Thomas Rhett's gig . Thomas Rhett has recognised his admiration for Bruno Mars and some of his songs sound like Maroon 5's ones. We can see it too in the last Crossroads show, starring Kelsea Ballerini and Halsey. Tracks like ' Miss Me More' or their collaboration ' The Other Girl' , highlight that they are truly pop.  Let's focus now on Brett Young and Boyz II Men 's show! The show took place