Fresh Finds Quick Hits (part one)
low effort posting while I work on something bigger
As I mentioned last week, my personal schedule is entirely out of pocket last week and this week, so I haven’t been able to produce something up to my standards within a reasonable amount of time. I do need sleep, after all. I care about you, my readers, and I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the content you desperately crave. I’ve come up with an idea to give you a quick hit while you wait for a more traditional article like that you’ve come to expect.
On my commute to and from my real job, I habitually listen to Spotify. It’s one of the few services I pay for, and it’s worth it to me to get an ad-free experience. (This is not a sponsored post, for reasons that will soon become clear.) I have dire misgivings about their pay structure for artists, and I am well aware that only the biggest of big artists make any money on the platform. If you really want to support a musician, I strongly encourage you to buy merchandise as directly as you can from them, with as few middlemen as possible between you and them.
What Spotify is relatively successful at is putting new or emerging artists in their algorithms when you specifically go looking for them. I always listen to my Discover Weekly playlist, then I will usually turn on either the DJ function (which is pretty nice except for the lack of variety and the horrible canned AI-generated patter) or select a Fresh Finds playlist. I make a conscious effort not to stagnate in my musical choices, even though you’d think I was firmly stuck in the Nineties based on my article topics. I try to expose myself to as much different music as possible, and this is a relatively easy way to do just that.
This week, I selected the Country Fresh Finds playlist, as I was inspired by the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) to seek out what’s happening in modern country music. What did I find? A lot of pale imitations of artists that aren’t that good in the first place. How many variations on Florida Georgia Line does the world really need? I’m fairly certain the answer is “less than or equal to one”.
I’m going through the first ten entries on this playlist and telling you what I thought of them. No more, no less. Don’t expect a lot of in-depth analysis. In keeping with my usual rating system that I stole fair and square from Raven and Raja’s Fashion Photo Ru-View, I’ll rate each song a “boot” (negative) or “toot” (positive). For exceptionally bad entries, there’s the “scoot”, and for exceptionally good entries there’s the “shoot”. There’s also the fifth variation, the neutral “noot”, which means this is just a reskinned Likert scale for all my fellow data analysis nerds out there.
And away we go…
10. Run Away with You - Logan Crosby
A fellow Georgian, Logan Crosby is a mere twenty-two years old. I guess that means we can excuse his Aldean-alike performance. Hopefully he won’t get cancelled as hard as Aldean has, but let me be clear: Macon isn’t a small town, and his views are reprehensible. Getting back to Crosby, it’s fine. Nothing special, but it’s fairly slick production. I always pay attention to the guitars in something like this, and these are arena-rock-ready like most new male-fronted country.
Rating: Toot (but barely)
9. Stayed a Summer - Erin Kinsey
Rockwall, Texas is the hometown of Erin Kinsey, who hews closely to the general area of Lauren Alaina, Kelsea Ballerini, and Carly Pearce. It’s country pop at its most infectious, but it has a banjo buried somewhere in the mix of the chorus so I’ll let it go. She’s written songs for Dolly Parton, which is genuinely impressive for a twenty-one year old. I would say expect big things, but country radio has a huge problem developing female stars because of firmly entrenched misogyny in the industry, so who knows?
Rating: Toot
8. ‘92 Bronco - Voth
This is perhaps the most derivative song on a playlist filled with derivative songs. The band (pronounced to rhyme with “both”, not “moth”) is a family band consisting of a sister (Hannah) and two brothers (Cody and Caleb) from Nashville, with appropriately close sibling harmonies. There’s a distinctly lightweight aspect to the song, which makes me think there’s no substance to be had there. Maybe they need better songs?
Rating: Boot
7. NORTH OF HELL - Graham Barham
It’s nice to hear nasal vocals not be the sole provenance of pop-punk. Graham Barham is from Louisiana, but his accent could be from anywhere in the south. There are dangerous levels of reverb on the instrumental track, and the vocals are triple-tracked to the point I think his voice is really that thin. I appreciate the tease at a key change at the last chorus, and I wish it paid off.
Rating: Boot
6. Thank God - Madeline Consoer
A veteran of The Voice’s nineteenth season, Madeline Consoer hails from the country music capital that is Wisconsin. (Shout out to my girl Trixie Mattel! I’m doing a track-by-track of her album at some point.) Consoer’s music is country in only the barest sense, with no trace of twang, traditional instrumentation, or even swing. It’s a simple piano ballad indistinguishable from any number of adult contemporary pieces from the past three decades. I get the feeling she’s trying to become the next Kacey Musgraves, but it’s just not working.
Rating: Boot
5. Beer Ain’t Cold - Hayden Coffman
This video for Knoxville’s Hayden Coffman is the only reason to partake of the song. Featuring social media “star” Cornbread Cowboi and Sydney Groom, it’s mainly an excuse for Cowboi to do his TikTok schtick. The song itself is so painfully generic, and sounds like every other paean to budding alcoholism the genre can provide. At least Groom is pretty, I guess?
Rating: Boot
4. Heartless - Camille Parker
Camille Parker was born in California and raised in North Carolina, and her fusion of country and modern pop is testament to her roots. There’s plenty of electronic burbling in the background reminiscent of outrun or synthwave, but her vocals are pure country gold. I was surprised at how well the steel guitar bridges the gap between the two disparate genres. Imagine if the Weeknd were to obsessively listen to Carrie Underwood, and this would be the result. Somehow it works.
Rating: Toot
3. Peaches - Cody Webb
If this sounds like Luke Combs, there’s a very good reason. Webb has written multiple songs for Combs, and has leveraged that access into several lucrative opportunities. He’s opened for everyone from Morgan Wallen (speaking of justifiably cancelled artists…) to Charlie Daniels, collaborated with Dolly Parton, and played a handful of high-profile corporate gigs. This video and this song, though, ain’t it. It encapsulates all of the misogyny of modern country, complete with objectification and depersonalization. Is “incel country” a genre? It probably should be.
Rating: Scoot
2. Drinkin’ Thinkin - Jesslee
JessLee is another Voice contestant, this time from season fourteen. When I listen to this song, all I can think of is Wheatus’s “Teenage Dirtbag”. The acoustic guitar line in each chorus is nearly identical. Sadly, I can’t imagine Spyder Nate Webb emerging from the IWA:MS locker room for a ten minute tour of the crowd with this song playing in the background. Maybe he should give it a try on his comeback?
Rating: Boot
1. Outta Dirt - Rodell Duff & George Birge
There aren’t many Trinidadian-Texans in country music, but that should probably change. Rodell Duff is a Red Dirt musician, ironically enough for the song “Outta Dirt”. His album Red Dirt Cursed is worth a listen. George Birge was one half of Waterloo Revival before striking out on his own. You might have heard the song “Beer Beer, Truck Truck” on TikTok in the past year, which is a quasi-repudiation of bro-country’s reputation as a derivative genre focused only on beer, trucks, and girls in cutoff jean shorts. The problem is that the criticism is correct, for better or for worse. (It’s for worse. Much worse.) This song, though, is pretty good!
Rating: Toot
Thank you for joining me on another filler episode of this newsletter. Maybe you enjoyed this in spite of it being a little out of the ordinary? If so, let me know in the comments or on any number of social media outlets. If there’s a way to post something, I’m probably on there. Well, except Threads or Facebook. I do have some standards, after all. See you next week (hopefully?) for a more substantial post.