Listen to my favorite tracks off each album on my Spotify or Tidal playlists! Updated weekly with all the best new country, Americana, and whatever else I feel like — this is music like your life depends on it.
The Roseline — Keystone of the Heart
At first glance, The Roseline have made an exceptional Americana album in Keystone of the Heart: road songs, songs about depression, that feeling that somehow you missed the train but you’re not sure how or why. “I Was a Gun,” which we wrote up previously, is an exquisite love song, using stunning metaphors to discover how it all fell apart. But then something funny happens in Keystone‘s latter half. That gentle alt-country that’s lulling you into the comfort of melancholy? It’s still there, but now Colin Haliburton is murmuring about hanging capitalists, dismissing alt-right militias, and scoffing at racist frat boys. Using soft-spoken words as weapons, The Roseine masterfully illustrate how these latter forces contribute to our private pains — and encourage us to reject them for our own survival.
Jenna Paulette — The Girl I Was
What the fuck? Why is this album so good? I’m so embarrassed I missed this last year. It almost makes the MSW not worth it. (But my timing is good — right after I wrote this, I got a press release stating Paulette will be releasing new music on March 1st.) Suffice to say, The Girl I Was is all the good things about pop country — and what it could be if the right people were in charge. The album kicks off with “Fiddle and A Violin,” a brilliant classic country song that speaks to the inclusivity of the genre could (and should) be working towards, accompanied by an irresistible groove and whip-smart wordplay. That energy characterizes the whole album, but The Girl I Was is not just a party. For Paulette, it’s also a reclamation of her selfhood after surviving an abusive marriage. For Paulette, these songs are not just breezy fun, but an assertion of joy that we all have a right to. By the time we get to the title track, we’ve fallen in love with Paulette and trust her to break our hearts.
Brittany Howard — What Now
You’re going to need to get a stereo for this one. I don’t make the rules here: we’re just living in Brittany Howard’s world.What Now is transcendent, as we’ve come to expect from Howard’s fearless musical explorations. No matter what she does, her music just seems to be perfectly her. Amidst the emotional explosiveness of her songs, Howard intersperses each track with ambient vibrations, a nod to her own experience with sound healing. Each song escalates into something more frenetic, more impassioned, a swirl of electronica, rock, hip-hop, country, and soul: something that is so singular that it can only be made by Brittany Howard. The intensity and alternating sound healing serves to remind us that it’s all one, and music can indeed heal.
Dylan Earl — I Saw The Arkansas
If you missed Dylan Earl’s I Saw the Arkansas last year, here’s your chance to correct that oversight. Earl’s honeyed baritone was destined for country music. His lilt may be gentle but his songwriting shoots from the hip — stories of broken hearts and reveling in the splendor of the Arkansas back country are core trad country themes, of course, but Earl and his crackshot band give them all a fresh coat of paint. “Learning (What Leaving Means)” truly highlights how Earl’s lyrics and the band’s musicianship can create something beautiful — but stick around for Lee Zodrow’s elegant keys on reminding us that country music is more exquisite than its unjust associations with cheap beer.
Brittney Spencer — My Stupid Life
I had to take a second pass at this one, but I’m glad I did. There’s no question that Brittney Spencer can make anything sound good — her voice is intoxicating. But a lot of the songs on the album feel…unconvincing, for reasons I’m not sure I can define. Basically, stuff that should and could be played on the radio in an equitable Nashville. The ones that hit, though, really do: on “Bigger Than The Song,” Spencer invokes her many influences, pulling them under the country umbrella. “Night In” and it’s hilarious intro skit celebrate being a misfit in a town that prioritizes conformity (and also, I believe, feature cameos by Mickey Guyton and Fancy Hagood, among many others.) The title track
You can check out tracks by these artists and more on the Adobe & Teardrops playlist — on Spotify or Tidal.