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.
Kacey Musgraves — Deeper Well
On a personal level, I’m so happy to see Kacey Musgraves continue to come into her own. As delicate and ethereal as the sounds are on Deeper Well, this is an album about accepting one’s place and defending it: about learning who you are and owning it. There is some really beautiful stuff in here: “Deeper Well,” of course, and “The Architect” are breathtaking. Musgraves has become ever more minimalist in her work, but sometimes that misses the mark: “Lonely Millionaire” and “Dinner With Friends” are lovely, but feel a bit pat. I think it’s because the simplicity of her lyrics make messages we might take for granted — like sad rich people — sound cliche, while bigger ideas of death and reincarnation and mutual aid (see: “Cardinal” and “Too Good to Be True”) install us with the childlike wonder with which we should view the incredible universe around us.
Rachel Ana Dobken — Acceptance
Rachel Ana Dobken is a musical chameleon on her stunning album Acceptance. What begins as a blistering rock album morphs into calm as our narrator, well, accepts that a relationship was never meant to be. At first, the narrator rails against her partner for doing something so rash as rejecting her for someone else. But as we glide into the album closer “Tomorrow’s Another Day,” we are reminded that we can only find a lasting love when we love ourselves. In between, Dobken takes us on a tour of indie rock, b lues, motown, and everywhere in between.
John Smith — The Living Kind
Sometimes it’s as simply as having a great voice and playing guitar well. John Smith has a tried and true formula on The Living Kind: make your guitar mesmerizing and then sing with all your heart. These songs are based on strong melodic hooks that call some of the great ’90s singer-songwriters to mind. “Silver Mine” is a standout, with Smith’s moving imagery supported by his lionhearted performance.
Jeff German and the Blankety Blanks — 100 Wrong Turns
Jeff German and the Blankety Blanks is one of the very first artists I’ve written about here on Adobe & Teardrops and it’s genuinely refreshing to see that they’re still kicking. That’s more or less the theme of 100 Wrong Turns, a 6-song EP of back-to-basics alt-country: a reverence for traditional country with a punk rock edge — and full knowledge that these songs are going to be played in the backrooms of small bars. That gives 100 Wrong Turns the perfect balance of conversational tone, rock’n’roll bombast, and hangdog regret that you want from a damn good rock band. The EP jumpstarts with the honky’tonk “But For You,” an ode to a lover who has kept the wayward narrator on the straight and narrow. We also get views of the drudgery of touring, would-should-coulda nostalgia, and, most important, the persistence of the underdog that gives this genre its identity — and it’s all expertly crafted by Jeff German and the Blanket Blanks.
Reagan Browne — This Heart’s For Dreamers
In case you haven’t gotten the memo, pop country is fun now. And if you didn’t already know, Reagan Browne is leaning right into all the things that made ’90s country so special: warm guitar licks, hooks for day, and an unabashed sentimentality and earnestness. Browne’s voice is silky smooth and his Texas twang is toothsome on the 5-song This Heart’s For Dreamers EP. “I’ll Drive” is an impassioned torch song that should rocket up the charts in a just world, while Browne displays a charming self-assurance on twangy rockers like “Get Back Sadie” and “Small Town America” (who knew a song could celebrate such a thing without injecting it with all kinds of creepy jingoism? The title track
You can check out tracks by these artists and more on the Adobe & Teardrops playlist — on Spotify or Tidal.