Music

It's beginning to feel a lot like the holidays. While we all eagerly await the opportunity to slow down, for many of us, the holidays can be stressful as well. Country music is all about yearning for family and hometown pride, but for many people, that nostalgia is a double-edged sword of anxiety and pain. But why wallow in it when you can laugh?Some of these queer country songs poke fun at the holidays, while others revel in winter nights of chosen family and togetherness. No matter the tone, these...

Band's new song finds Hayley Williams confronting the hell that is the 24-hour news cycle Hayley Williams confronts the never-ending hell that is the 24-hour news cycle on Paramore’s latest offering from This Is Why, “The News.” In a statement, Williams said the fiery track “feels like a happy medium between classic Paramore angst and bringing in some influences we’ve always had but never exploited.” She singled out Zac Farro’s drumming on the song, saying that watching him record the song “was one of my favorite memories from the studio.”...

Seventy-six years ago today (Dec, 8, 1945) was an historic day for country music: It was on that date that Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs made their debut on the Grand Ole Opry, as part of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys.Flatt and Scruggs' appearances, which occurred at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, was a fortuitous one for the bluegrass artists, although they were unaware of it at the time. Only three years later, both men officially left the Blue Grass Boys to form their own band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. Their unique combined sound, with...

Today, Ye, fka Kanye West, did something he hasn’t done much in 2022 in the midst of trying to rewrite history on Nazis — he released a song. The controversial artist, who has come under fire for the toxic work conditions at his Yeezy empire, uploaded a two-minute song entitled “Someday We’ll All Be Free” on his Instagram. Ye also allowed new friend Alex Jones to release the song on his InfoWars platform. The Instagram caption for the song reads, “Censori overload The variable epitope library from the antigen promotes...

Charley Crockett has shared a new music video for his track "Odessa," a cut from the country talent's recently-released album The Man From Waco.The clips capture Crockett and his band, the Blue Drifters, hard at work recording the record. The footage has a grainy, VHS-like feel, which fits the analog-style session depicted at Bruce Robison's studio in Austin, Texas.The ballad shares its' title with a Texas town, leaving listeners to wonder if it's the name of the object of the narrator's affection or if maybe "Odessa" is the place where they...

After a video confirming an announcement, a photo in the studio from producer Jack Antonoff, and a sleek logo update, Lana Del Rey has officially announced the new album Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, out March 10, 2023, and released the LP’s title track. “Fuck me to death,” she sings on the track’s chorus, co-written with Mike Hermosa. “Love me until I love myself/There’s a tunnel under Ocean Boulevard.” The song clocks in at nearly five minutes and features her sultry vocals seamlessly floating across...

Kentucky natives Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan have been tapped as headliners for Railbird Music Festival 2023.The two-day festival will return to Lexington, Ky., on June 3-4 and features an eclectic lineup of performers. Along with a closing set from Bryan, Saturday's roster includes appearances from Weezer, Marcus Mumford, Whiskey Myers, Sheryl Crow, Charley Crockett, Jenny Lewis, Lucius, Morgan Wade, Valerie June, Dehd, Neal Francis, The Heavy Heavy, Madeline Edwards, The Local Honeys and Wayne Graham.Railbird's second and final day of festivities features sets from Nathaniel Ratliff & the Night...

Shania Twain arrived at this year’s 2022 People’s Choice Awards to perform her ’90s country-pop smashes, “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” The Canadian country superstar also received the Music Icon award for her record-breaking hits and immeasurable impact on generations of artists. “Reba’s brand was ‘somebody should leave,’ Trisha’s was a little ‘please don’t leave’ and Faith had ‘no one would ever leave me, obviously,’” singer-songwriter Caitlin Rose once told Rolling Stone, “but Shania’s brand was, ‘I will take no shit and all of your money, thanks!’...

Drive-By Truckers are hitting the road next year in support of their recently released 14th career studio album, Welcome 2 Club XIII. The beloved Southern rock outfit will kick off their trek on March 9 at The Vogue in Indianapolis, Ind. The run includes several stops with multiple nights, including the band's annual four-day HeAthen's Homecoming celebration, held at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Ga.. The string of 2023 dates also includes multiple nights in Washington, D.C., New York City and Asheville, N.C. Rising singer-songwriter Margo Cilker will open the first half...

The new year is quickly approaching, and the long list of A-list stars performing during ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, hosted by Ryan Seacrest, has been revealed! ABC revealed the packed lineup on Tuesday, which features the likes of Aly & AJ, K-pop group Tomorrow X Together, and Fitz and the Tantrums. The trio of groups will perform in a pre-taped celebration at Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort and will be joined by co-host Ciara, Shaggy, Halle Bailey, Lauren Spencer Smith, and Ben Platt, along with country artists Maddie &...

Country music reached an inevitable crossroads in 2022. The dialogues around the genre's history of exclusion — from the disappearance of women from country radio beginning in the early 2000s to the marginalized artists who've made history despite not fitting into the mainstream mold — continued to dominate the conversation. The year's best country music books explore all those histories and the history-making careers of the genre's most iconic acts.From Margo Price's unflinching memoir to an exhaustive biography of Merle Haggard, these ten books represent a wide-reaching spectrum of what...

Jim Stewart, co-founder of R&B label Stax and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, died on Monday, longtime staff Stax songwriter David Porter confirmed on Monday. Stewart was 92. “No way a poor kid from a housing project’s picture in Memphis would be on a bus rolling through Memphis if it were not for this man, JIM STEWART the ST of the word Stax,” Porter wrote in a social media caption with a photo of the Stax Museum bus (the museum is located at the original location of Stax Records)....

Matty Healy stepped away from the 1975 to jam out with emo rockers Dashboard Confessional. During the Chris Carrabba-led band’s set at the Audacy Beach Festival — which the 1975 co-headlined — in Florida, Healy jammed out on electric guitar with the rest of the group for their closing song “Hands Down.” “Emo multiverse is glitching,” Healy captioned a video of him dancing around while playing electric guitar and singing along to the lyrics. Healy spoke to Audacy, which hosted the festival, about joining Carrabba on stage “for five minutes,”...

In December 2000, the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and its accompanying soundtrack put bluegrass and traditional country music in the pop culture spotlight. The Coen Brothers satirical comedy-drama about three Great Depression-era chain gang escapees, loosely based on Homer's Odyssey, prominently features the music of Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley and many others, and both the film and its soundtrack were massive successes.Throughout O Brother, Where Art Thou?, music plays a key role: Escaped convicts Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Pete (John Turtorro) and Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson), along with blues musician...