Luke Bryan - That's My Kinda Night

Here is a new song out by Luke Bryan that will be featured on his upcoming album Crash My Party.

Keith Urban - Little Bit of Everything

Here’s the official music video for Keith Urban’s newest single “Little Bit Of Everything”. The video takes a clever approach in displaying the plot line and is worth a look. Urban is currently on his summer tour with Little Big Town and Dustin Lynch. We are anticipating the release of his newest album “Fuse” to hit stores on September 10^th.

Lady A - Downtown Acoustic

The following video is of Lady Antebellum taking part in a fun and low key performance of their hit song Downtown, off of their record Golden. The performance not only displays their pure musical talent, but it also shows us just how great live country music is. Now i'm not taking away from any other musical genres, but with the advancement of technologies that allow us to produce & alter artificial sounds (which I can respect because I surely can't do that), we sometimes lose sight of the pure acoustic sound that derives from a combination of a talented voice, guitars and maybe even a coffee pot solo every now and then. Enjoy

Greater Than Just Florida & Georgia

The announcement of a headlining tour leaked out of Florida & Georgia earlier this week and spread clear across the country. Florida Georgia Line released the schedule for their Here’s to the Good Times Tour. This is a major milestone for the duo of Brian Kelley (Florida) & Tyler Hubbard (Georgia) who released their FIRST record earlier this year on December 4^th. The Republic Nashville group (part of Big Machine Label Group) now finds themselves traveling around the nation performing their songs.

The single on that album, “Cruise” was an immediate hit and propelled itself to a top 10 song after just 14 weeks and has since sold millions of copies.  The hit song drew the attention of millions of fans, one of them being the rap and hip/hop legend Nelly, who helped boost the bands popularity by collaborating on a Remix. The duo isn’t dependent on just one hit though, as their album is full of other jams such as “Get Your Shine On” and “Round Here”.

FGL is apart of the new wave of country music that we are beginning to experience, bringing a strong presence of rock and rap, along with a unique combination of lyricism to their songs. These rookies are not a household name…yet, but it is crazy to think that they have their first headlining tour after releasing just one album. To put this in perspective, lets look at the headliners for the top country tours going on in 2013 according to gatv.com: Kenny Chesney, Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Toby Keith and George Strait…  These are the top artists in the game right now, and to throw FGL in there with their own national headlining tour means that these dudes are legit and here to stay.

Meet Cole Swindell

He’s an artist that not many people know about… yet. But Cole Swindell’s music has probably hit your ears at some point without you even knowing it. This Georgia boy has been in the music game since 2007 and has made a splash with his ability to write catchy country songs. Paired with fellow Sigma Chi Luke Bryan at Georgia Southern (not a bad friend to have in this industry), Cole took to tour with LB after college and worked merchandise as well as writing songs.

If you’re a Luke Bryan fan, then you’ve probably listened to his Spring Break records and heard the tracks such as “Love In A College Town”, “Shore Thing” and “Shake The Sand”. Those are songs that Swindell wrote along with an assortment of other songs, so there’s no doubt the dude can write. That ability led him to getting noticed and he eventually signed a publishing deal with Song/ATV Music. Cole has been hitting the stage recently doing shows of his own as well as opening for LB on his Dirt Road Diaries Tour.

Cole has made a big splash with his single “Chillin’ It” hitting iTunes in March of this year. If you haven’t heard it, you better check it out as it’s a perfect summer anthem to blast over your speakers. Swindell has a knack for creating a concoction of creative lines in his songs that tell a great story. He brings a new wave of sound to country music, incorporating rap like lines, heavy beats and even a little synthesizer to go along with the guitars and southern vocals. Give a listen to his songs “HeyY’all”, “Ready”, “Lemme See Ya Girl” and “I Hope You Get Lonely Tonight” and as your dancing around to them you’ll begin to realize while some of the top artists such as Chris Young, Scotty McCreery, and Luke Bryan are all using his songs. 

Luke's new album release

Alright, so for this first post I’ve decided to write about one of the biggest names in country music right now, and what I think to be the most anticipated album release of the summer, if not the year. I’m talking about Luke Bryan and his album Crash My Party, set to hit stores the 13^th of August.  This will be Luke’s 4th studio album, not including his spring break one. Luke has propelled himself to the top of the charts and stardom within the country music industry and keeps producing hit after hit.

Accompanied by a wiz of writers, including Jeff Stevens and Dallas Davidson, this album is sure to be full of hits. After watching a YouTube video “Crashing the Party: Behind the scenes of Luke Bryan’s New Album”, Luke explains the variety of songs that we can expect to hear on the new record: “We got the big fun up-tempos… we got your ballads, your love songs, your sing-along’s…” It seems that with every album, Luke has upped his game and brought something new to the table, while still exemplifying his country roots and party characteristics.

There are three songs that I’ve heard that are set to be released with the album, those include his single “Crash My Party”, “What is it with you” and “That’s My Kinda Night”. Just among these three songs, we see a wide range of sounds… “Crash My Party” has the more mainstream contemporary country sound while “That’s My Kinda Night” is more on the rock side of things. I watched Luke, Dallas Davidson and Jeff Stevens perform “What is it with you” at an acoustic songwriters showcase at the Bing Lounge in Portland, OR  earlier this year and that song seemed to be more central to his country style with catchy lyrics.

Luke’s third studio album “Tailgates & Tanlines” was released in 2011 and received great success, earning double platinum. After hearing what Luke had to say about his new record, I think he can expect even greater success: “The Crash My Party album, I can honestly say that I’m positive that it’s better than Tailgates & Tanlines”. 

 *Below are the videos of "Crashing the Party: Behind the scenes of Luke Bryan’s New Album", "What is it with you" and "My Kinda Night" 

Link to "What is it with you" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUMjxuCguqU