Christmas Music

I love this time of year because it is the time of year that you can listen to Christmas music without people giving  you funny looks.  I love Christmas music and often listen to the 24hr Christmas music station during this month.  So it should be no surprise that I have quite a bit of it in my music collection.  Here's a sampling of some of it and some thoughts on each.

Martina McBride's White Christmas is quite possibly my favorite of all of my Christmas music.  There are actually 3 versions of this CD-one released in 1998, one in 1999 and a 3rd in 2007.  The version I have was the one released in 1999.  The CD does the traditional songs, mostly the church type songs too.  She doesn't do anything fancy with the songs to make them her own, just sings them the way they were meant to be sung and for her, that's all she has to do.  She has one of the best voices in country music and the only person I can think of that could do a Christmas album as good as this would be Carrie Underwood. 

SHeDAISY's Brand New Year is just the opposite of Martina's CD in the fact that it is filled with mostly original songs and the non-original songs are mixed into something never heard before.  This CD has been out for 10 years now and it has been a favorite the whole time for me.  One of my favorite songs on the album is actually a duet (or a sextet if you will) with Rascal Flatts.  Twist of the Magi is a cute song about doing things for the other person, but they really aren't that nice of things. An example is the guy setting free the whiney dog so that gal can get her beauty rest, and as the chorus says, "I did it all for you!"

The newest Christmas music I have is Lady Antebellum's A Merry Little Christmas, which is a Target exclusive EP just released this fall.  It features 6 songs, one of which was written by Lady A.  This CD goes along well with the track Baby It's Cold Outside that they released on iTunes and Amazon last year for the holidays.

A local favorite is Mullberry Lane's A Very, Merry Mulberry Christmas.  These four sisters got some national success back in 1999 with a song called Harmelss.  They still tour a bit, expecially with their holiday tour in the region (which I'd like to see someday).  My main reason for getting this album (released in 2004, but I just got it a couple years ago) is for a song called Christmas In Nebraska which I've heard on the Christmas radio station a few times.  Turns out the whole CD is great as these girls have that great family harmony that makes listening the songs an amazing experience.

And it just ain't a Christmas music collection without some Manheim Steamroller!  The guy behind this group, Chip Davis, is also from Omaha.  As with all of their Christmas music, Christmas Extraordinaire is filled with instrumental masterpieces of classic songs.  I'm hoping to finally see them in concert in just a couple of weeks.  I'm sure it will be a wonderful experience!


I have many more Christmas CDs and mp3s, and perhaps I will share some more of those in another blog another day!

Lady Antebellum in Omaha

Lady A came to town on Friday, November 19th and showed everyone exactly why they are getting nominated for so many awards lately. 
David Nail warmed up the crowd nicely for the group.  At first everyone was sitting, but after telling everybody to get up and sing his song Red Light with him, everybody did stand up and most people stood the rest of the roughly 35 minute set.
Unlike most concerts where the act comes out rocking and running around, Lady A took a different approach and showed off what they do best-harmonize.  The curtain rose to them singing I Run To You in an acoustic way for the first part until the rest of the band joined in.  After that they got the show rockin' by singing the fan anthem, Stars Tonight.  And they kept the rest of the night rocking, even when they slowed it down to show off each of their voices.  One of my favorite parts (which I knew it would be going into the show) was getting to hear Dave sing Do I, which him and Charles wrote with Luke Bryan, who took the song to #1.  I gotta admit that I'm a Dave girl, so getting to hear him sing all by himself and really hear the voice that is usually hidden by Charles and Hillary's voices was a real treat for me.

Omaha was the next-to-last stop on their fall tour, but they treated it like it was the last night of the tour.  It has become quite popular that pranks are pulled on the last night of a tour, but Lady A got pranked by David Nail's crew in Omaha instead of Kansas City.  During the song American Honey, a bunch of guys in bee costumes stormed the stage, dancing all around.  It had Hillary laughing so much she could hardly keep her composure to sing after the instrumental interlude that they entered during.  Then towards the end of of the song, Charles told them to come back out and he told them that they ruined the song.  Below are a couple videos of the prank that I found on YouTube.  You'll have to turn your monitor sideways for the first one :)





Lady A always seems to be having a fun time during their shows.  Case in point, just look at the pictures below-

Their energy onstage is infectious and makes you leave wanting more.  Unfortunately for me, I don't know when I'll be able to get that next 'Lady A fix'. I will just have to wait and see where their next tour takes them, and then take myself to the closest one!

And to close out the blog-a few more pictures from the night-

CMAs > ACMs > CMT music vid = Grammys > >>>>> AMAs

There's only 5 (soon to be 6 with the ACAs) music award shows that I tend to watch. My favorite of those are the Country Music Association awards, aka the CMAs. The CMAs were held just a couple weeks ago and did not disappoint. There were lots of great performances and I felt the winners in their respective categories deserved their win. Then last night was the American Music Awards, or the AMAs. Those are on the very, very bottom of the totem pole. I love all kinds of music, not just country. And I like many of the artists that performed on the awards show last night and the songs they did. The problem is that most of those non-country genre performers are not the greatest live. They are so over-produced in the studio and then sound like crap when you see them live. It seems all they care about are the theatrics of the performance and forget about trying to sound good while doing it. If it wasn't for the fact that my favorite artist, Lady Antebellum, was up for 5 awards I wouldn't have even watched it. At least with the Grammys they tend to not go so over-the-top with the performances and they get a good variety of performers.
And the AMAs are fan voted, which can be good and bad. Obviously the teeny boppers have all the time in the world to vote for Justin Beiber since he won 4 awards, although he may not be deserving of all of them. From what I have heard him sing, he's good, but not worth the craze that's surrounding him. I guess we'll see how that turns out in a year or two. Other than that, the people who won in the other categories aired seemed to be about the outcome I was expecting. Here's hoping for some better performances at the upcoming awards shows!

My little issue with the Hello World music vid

So first of all anybody that knows me knows that I absolutely love Lady Antebellum.  And that may be putting it a bit mildly.  (Let me insert a plug here for the twitter account @ladyafans that I run with a couple of other lovely gals.  Follow it if you have a twitter account!)  I love the song Hello World.  It is the one song by them that can get me a bit teared up everytime I hear it.  And I love the video that they have done to go with it.  I had something slightly different in my mind, but it is still a very powerful video that will get a person full of emotion.  So my issue with the video? During the crash scene there are tons of people standing around right next to the accident!  Maybe its from having parents that were on the volunteer rescue squad in the small town I'm from and having a husband who is a doctor, but in real life they would not be able to be that close and there would be police officers there keeping them back.  So other than that little issue I have I love the video so here it is for you to enjoy as well!

October, the month of much CD buying!

 

The month of October was a big CD buying month for me. The last 3 weeks of the month included a trip (or 2) to the store to get a CD that had just come out that day.

It all started with the October 12th release of the self titled debut album by The Band Perry and a Target exclusive Christmas CD from Lady Antebellum called A Merry Little Christmas.  Admittedly, I only listened through the Christmas CD from Lady A once and then put it away. It will come back out the day after Thanksgiving and get much play during the following month.  But from what I remember hearing it was great!  The Band Perry put together a quite impressive debut album.  I already had their digital EP which contains 5 of the 11 songs on the CD and loved those 5 songs.  The 6 songs added to those did not dissapoint either.  My favorite is probably Double Heart which is about a guy getting a tattoo with the woman's name next to his which sends her running away as fast as possible (and it happens with more than one guy!).  Besides being a fun song, it is what I'm guessing the most difficult to sing vocally for Kimberly, but she does it to perfection as she does on all of the songs.

On October 19th the 4th album from Sugarland titled The Incredible Machine was released.  And once again Jennifer and Kristian put out an amazing collection of songs.  Besided the almost too catchy Stuck Like Glue, my favorite song from the album would be Tonight, which ironically comes right after Stuck Like Glue on the CD.  It is a slow tempo song and really shows off the "incredible machine" of a voice that Jennifer Nettles has.  I'm pretty sure she could sing the phone book and make it sound cool with the range of styles of music she can do.  Sugarland continues to grow with each album and seem to create a new sound to the band while keeping it the same at the same time.

And of course just last week on October 25th (not sure why it was released on a monday) Taylor Swift's much anticipated 3rd album came out.  I guess quite a few other people bought it too since I heard it sold over a million in it's first week!  A couple of my favorite songs on the album are ones that are actually not about the boys in her life.  Never Grow Up is the new version of The Best Day from her previous album Fearless.  While not really being about the same thing, it is one of those slow songs about life when younger that makes a person cry when hearing it.  And I'm kind of a sucker for those kinds of songs.  Mean is a song about all of the Taylor haters out there.  Not so ironically it is the most country/bluegrass sounding song she has ever done for all of those that say she is pop and not at all country.  Although those are my 2 favorites, the song that I feel is the best lyrically written song that she may have ever done is Dear John.  It is rumored to be about John Mayer, and by listening to the lyrics it definitely could be.

So if you are looking to buy some new music I would recommend any and all of these CDs.  I actually gave a The Band Perry CD and the Sugarland CD for a couple birthday gifts.  Gotta spread the country music love!

Carrie Underwood in Omaha

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Carrie Underwood for the 4th time in concert.  And this was the closest I've been at one of her concerts-5th row!
The only bad parts about the concert were having to sit through the opening acts.  Sons of Sylvia were first, and although they are quite a talented trio of brothers, there were some issues with their set.  First was that they didn't feel like they fit at a country concert, except for the couple minute bluegrass breakdown they did.  A couple minutes after doing that the lead singer (who to me looked and acted like some sort of drug addict) was doing moves on the stage that I'm sure made some parents cover their young kids eyes.  A guy with spandex looking pants kneeling on the floor and making gyrating moves is something I did not want or expect to see going to a concert such as this.  The 2 girls next to me and I kept laughing at all his crazy "moves".  At one point he was in front of us singing and we were trying so hard not to laugh since he could probably see us only being 5 rows out!  I think they are better suited opening for perhaps another American Idol alum like Adam Lambert. 
Billy Currington was pretty good and for the most part stuck to playing all his hits which easily filled up his time slot.  I was stuck in a dead part of the crowd so nobody stood during his entire set.  I would have liked to a couple times, but I was told by an usher once at that venue to sit down because nobody around me was!
And of course the highlight of the night was getting to see Carrie perform.  Just like the last time I saw her (ok the last time was CMA Fest, but the time before that) there were lots of costume changes and vocals were spot on.  Some of the highlights were her entering from the floor while sitting on a couch.  At one point she was singing while swinging on a swing.  And then there's the part that she's above the crowd in the back end of a pickup.  She sang 2 songs while in it and between the 2 songs she said she wanted a way to get to the back that was simple and said that she was very afraid of heights.  So she ended up with something not very simple and up high in the air.  If she was scared, she sure didn't show it, except for maybe holding on almost the entire time to the microphone stand which I'm sure was very securely attached to the pickup bed.  Probably the greatest vocal part of the night was when she performed Jesus Take The Wheel.  Just like she had done when I saw her at CMA Fest this summer, at the end she broke out into the song How Great Thou Art.  It just gives a person chills at how well she does that inspirational song!  I'm looking forward to the next time she comes around, hopefully next time she'll have some better opening acts.

Here are a few pictures, more can be found at my Facebook page

Kiss Goodbye

In August, Little Big Town's latest CD titled The Reason Why came out.  A song on that album that caught my ear the most was Kiss Goodbye.  Each time I heard it I kept getting stronger and more vivid ideas for a music video to go with the song.  And pretty much every time I listen to the song, the video idea plays in my mind. First, for those that don't know the song, here are the lyrics-

[stanza 1]

When you lose somethin
It’s all that you want back
You wait impatiently
But it don’t work like that

[stanza 2]
When you lose someone
The first thing that goes through your head
Is if you run fast enough
You just might catch up
But it don’t work like that

[chorus]
You just gotta watch it fly
Stand there on the sidelines
Go on and swallow up your pride
Know its gonna be alright
Wish it well and close your eyes
With a kiss goodbye

[stanza 3]
Well the hardest part
Yeah it hurts so bad
Is when she spreads her wings
But it’d be a selfish thing
To try and hold her back
But it don’t work like that

[chorus]
You just gotta watch it fly
Stand there on the sidelines
Go on and swallow up your pride
Know its gonna be alright
Wish it well and close your eyes
With a kiss goodbye

[bridge]
When you lose something
It’s all that you want back

[chorus]
You just gotta watch it fly
Stand there on the sidelines
Go on and swallow up your pride
Know its gonna be alright
Wish it well and close your eyes
With a kiss goodbye

Like a kiss goodbye 

You can also listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IfjfYCI-rg

And so now comes the reason why I wrote this blog to begin with which is to share my idea for the music video aka my "treatment" for the video.

0:00 to 0:25 (this time block is the intro of the song before any words start) A woman is looking through a photo album of her daughter as a baby and toddler.  There would be shots of her turning the pages of pictures as well as shots of her smiling and showing emotion towards the pictures she is looking at. 


0:25 to 0:48 (this is the first stanza of the song) The girl in the pictures, who is now ~5 years old, comes into the room with dad.  The mom closes the photo album and goes and picks up a backpack and luch sack and gets her daughter ready for school.


0:48 to 1:15 (this is during the second stanza) The mom is dropping the daughter off for her first day of school.  As she watches her daughter go in she realizes that her daughter forgot something in the car so she gets out of the car and starts rushing towards her daughter at the end of the stanza.


1:15 to 1:48 (this is during the first chorus) The mom catches up with her daughter and hands her the item she left in the car.  She gives her daughter a hug and then a kiss (when the line "with a kiss goodbye" is sung).  She then watches her daughter continue on into the school.


1:48 to 2:52 (third stanza and second chorus) The daughter is now 18 and graduated high school.  There are a couple different ideas I have for this part, and a third idea is to do a combo of the other two ideas.
Idea #1: The mom, dad and daughter are packing up the daughter's car to leave home.  During the line "with a kiss goodbye" in the chorus, the mom and dad both give the daughter a kiss and then they watch the daughter drive off.
Idea #2: The mom, dad and daughter are moving the daughter into a dorm or apartment.  As with idea #1, the mom and dad would give a daughter a kiss during the line "with a kiss goodbye" and then the they would leave the dorm or apartment.
So idea #3 would then be loading the car up, then moving in the daughter with the ending of idea #2.

2:52 to 3:05 (this is during the bridge)  It is the wedding day of the daughter and she is with her bridesmaides in the dressing/prep area as her mom watches her daughter getting ready. 

3:05 to 3:33 (this is during the last chorus)  The mom watches the processional of the wedding and the dad walking the daughter down the isle.  During the line "with a kiss goodbye" the dad gives the daughter a kiss as he hands her over to the groom.

3:33 to 4:02 (the end line and 22 second outro of the song) During the line end line "like a kiss goodbye" it is the end of the wedding when the groom kisses the bride as the mom and dad look on.

And of course in between all of the storyline shots where would be shots of Little Big Town.

 All of the songs on the album are great, I recommend getting it if you like what you heard with this song!

Running Tunes

Today I ran 6.2 miles.  I'm running a 10K next Sunday, which is 6.2 miles, so I wanted to make sure that I could actually do it.  I've been running a lot this year.  It all started when early this year a friend and I decided to run a half marathon at the beginning of May.  Before training for the half marathon, whenever I went running, which wasn't that often and I didn't go very far, I would listen to my music on shuffle and would have to skip songs on a regular basis if it didn't feel like a good song to run to.
For some reason, when I started training for the marathon I started listening to only Lady Antebellum.  They are my favorite group so I love all their songs and never felt the need to skip a song when it came on.  That made it easier to concentrate on the running and not as much about what song may pop up next and if I'd want to skip it, which would mean fumbling around with my mp3 player while I'm trying to run. 
Because I have so many songs by Lady A, even though I may have 10 versions of Need You Now and multiple versions of other songs as well, I was able to run almost the entire half marathon before I had listened to all of them and had to start it over.  And I continue to listen to only Lady A when I go running.  I listened to them today when I went running, and I will have them with me when I run my 10K next sunday.  Since May, I've gained even more songs so I could probably do that half marathon now and not listen to them all, of course I'm not in my half marathon shape so I'd probably be walking half of it.  Then I would probably hear them all.

Welcome to the start of this blog!

So I got the idea to start this blog to post things relating to music, mainly country music.  I'll post videos, write about artists I love and hate, awards shows, etc.  I doubt I'll post everyday, but I do plan to post on a regular basis!