Mar
16
Luke Bryan photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville; Joey + Rory photo courtesy of Sugar Hill Records; Gloriana photo courtesy of Emblem Records.
It’s official! The Academy of Country Music and GAC are proud to present the winners of this year’s ACM New Artist categories. Luke Bryan, Gloriana and Joey + Rory have been named Top New Solo Vocalist, Top New Vocal Group and Top New Vocal Duo, respectively. For each, this represents their first win for an Academy of Country Music Award. All three winners are now nominees for the Top New Artist award, which will be given out on the 45th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, to be broadcast LIVE from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 18, 2010 at 8 p.m. ET/delayed PT on CBS. Continue Reading
Feb
27
Randy Houser photo courtesy of Universal Records South.
If you want an update on where country music’s been and where it’s going, you only need to put two events from the past week into perspective: Tuesday’s announcement of the 2010 Country Music Hall of Fame inductees and Friday’s New Faces Show at Nashville’s Country Radio Seminar.
Don Williams, the most recent hitmaker among the four Hall of Fame additions, was often noted for a quiet stage show. He simply stood at the microphone and sang, and his success relied exclusively on the warmth of his gentle demeanor and the thoughtful messages that dominated his understated songs.
The New Faces Show demonstrated the bigger-is-better philosophy that’s dominated concerts ever since Garth Brooks turned up in arenas two decades ago. From the outset, Love And Theft and Randy Houser — the first two acts in a five-artist lineup — cranked the volume and the tempo in a slickly produced show meant to confirm for radio programmers that they are indeed playing the right new performers as they compete for listeners’ ears.
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Feb
26
Once again Great American Country and the Academy of Country Music have teamed up to give fans the opportunity to pick their favorite stars for the 45th Academy of Country Music Awards’ three newcomer categories including Top New Solo Vocalist, Top New Vocal Duo and Top New Vocal Group. Fans can start voting online today and are allowed to submit one ballot, selecting their favorite artist from each of the categories. Voting ends on March 12, 2010 at 5 p.m. ET.
Click here to place your vote now »
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Feb
12
Gloriana photo courtesy of Emblem Records.
Along with Rascal Flatts and Sugarland, Gloriana has been tapped to be a part of the AT&T Team USA Soundtrack for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. The foursome recorded a new song, “The World Is Ours Tonight,” for the soundtrack — which is available now for purchase on iTunes. The proceeds from the tracks purchased during the Olympic Games, which take place through February 28, will benefit Team USA.
“To be able to team up with such amazing artists including Rascal Flatts and Sugarland on this soundtrack and support Team USA and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games is an opportunity we are so grateful for,” said Gloriana’s Mike Gossin. “We hope it helps Team USA to win Olympic Gold across the board!”
Click below to watch the video for “The World Is Ours Tonight”: Continue Reading
Feb
12
The Winter Olympics brings hockey, figure skating, ski jumping and bobsledding back to television beginning Friday. So if you were Rascal Flatts and wanted to redo one of your hits for the Olympics, what would you call it?
“‘Bob That Sled,’” Flatts guitarist Joe Don Rooney laughs.
Actually, the group has put new lyrics to its current single, “Unstoppable,” for inclusion in a digital-release Olympics album, 2010 AT&T Team USA Soundtrack, which also features Gloriana’s “The World Is Ours Tonight” and Sugarland’s “Wide Open” alongside tracks by Mariah Carey, 3 Doors Down, Hoobastank and the All-American Rejects.
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Jan
27
The Academy of Country Music and Great American Country (GAC) announced today that for the second year, the three newcomer categories for the Academy of Country Music Awards— Top New Solo Vocalist, Top New Vocal Duo and Top New Vocal Group —will be opened up to interactive fan voting through VoteACM.com. As previously announced, the Top New Solo Vocalist category will take the place of the Top New Male Vocalist and Top New Female Vocalist categories.
Following is the list of final nominees in the Top New categories that the Academy announced today: Continue Reading
Jan
4
Zac Brown Band photo courtesy of Atlantic Records.
Week in and week out fans are peppered with charts of every kind for country music. The most played songs on the radio. The top selling digital singles and albums. The most downloaded ringtones. The most popular videos and on and on. But this chart really got my attention because it represents the songs that are getting the most action in dancehalls and honky tonks across the U.S. In other words, the songs that are moving more butts out of seats and on to the hardwood!
Thanks to our friends at Marco Club Connection, here is the list of the Top 10 Country Dance Club Hits of 2009: Continue Reading
Dec
26
Randy Houser photo courtesy of Universal Records South.
#6 on GAC’s Top Stories of 2009 | View all »
When Randy Houser played a show in Nashville last January, he introduced his Top 20 release “Anything Goes” with a sarcastic tone that’s familiar to just about every new act in country music: “Seems like 87 weeks [it’s been on the singles chart], and I have to say, I’m happy to be movin’ on to another one.”
Most new artists can assume that if they get a hit — and that “if” is a very key word — it’s going to take 30 weeks or more for the song to reach its full peak. As an illustration, consider these six acts, all of whom earned their first Top 10 hits in 2009: David Nail, Chris Young, Gloriana, Love And Theft, Justin Moore and the sarcastic Randy Houser. Every one of their first-time Top 10 singles was released in January or February of 2009, and every one of them had to wait until about September for the single to finally reach its peak. That’s eight months of waiting and working and losing sleep just to call attention to one song that may, or may not, motivate fans to go out and buy a whole album or a concert ticket.
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Dec
24
Kenny Chesney photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.
#8 on GAC’s Top Stories of 2009 | View all »
In the midst of a depressin’ recession, it’s a huge gamble to put on a stadium concert, and very few acts are willing to roll the dice on the up-front expenses for that kind of a gig. Of those that do, it seems nearly all of them were country acts in 2009 — and usually that act was Kenny Chesney.
Kenny played a dozen stadiums during his Sun City Carnival Tour, joined for most of the schedule by Sugarland, Montgomery Gentry, Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum. Kenny created a party atmosphere, often bringing up hometown athletes — including members of the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots, for example — to connect with the city. By the time Sun City ground to a halt in Indianapolis in September, the Zac Brown Band had replaced Lady A and Kenny had topped every other act in any genre as the top touring artist, according to USA Today.
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Dec
21
Gloriana photo courtesy of Emblem Records.
At the American Music Awards last month, Taylor Swift’s five wins and Adam Lambert’s controversial performance got the most day-after headlines. But one other moment in the show had its own shock value: Gloriana won the T-Mobile Breakthrough Artist of the Year honor, surprising the pop-music scribes who assumed the trophy would go to dance maven Lady Gaga.
The AMAs are voted by fans, and the Breakthrough category is entirely decided via text messaging during the run of the show. So if that upset victory proved anything, it was that Gloriana has definitely engaged its fan base.
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