Rolling Country 2010

Musically, and in terms of singles-worthiness, I like "Care" and "Collide" pretty well; "Rock On" is the most affecting. Speaking of Mumford, Frank, here's my show preview & take on their album, though it's mostly a matter of art appreciation (but as such, and though it takes some repeated listening the album holds up, while def taking me from my rut of preferred listening):

"Tremble, little lion man /Your boldness stands alone/Among the wreck." Drawing on their reputation for poetically rowdy shows, UK folk-rockers Mumford and Sons' "Little Lion Man" is a shrewd point of risky departure for their debut album, "Sigh No More." The little penitent waits for musical shots of tough love's grace. He gets enough to break away, through rising cycles of obsessive drama. These can turn bleak; that's the risk. But the little immigrant does a "Dustbowl Dance" while hometown love and war renew their vows.

And while I'm at it, here's Marling too (haven't heard the EP, they might well be at their best there, esp, since this seems like a year for EPs, intended and in albums that require and reward cherry-picking):

At 17, British singer-songwriter Laura Marling released "Alas, I Cannot Swim," powered by a teenage appetite for folk-flavored melodrama and mischief. If your castle explodes, it might be justice, or just because. Marling's new "I Speak Because I Can" conjures with spontaneity, stagecraft, complex subtexts and direct address. Concerning her banished lord of disorder, she confides, "We write, that's all right/I miss his smell." Sounds promising. Ditto when Marling, now 20, also muses, "I wouldn't want to ruin something that I couldn't save." Let's hold her to it.

Nashville Scene ballot looking like this I think -

TOP TEN COUNTRY ALBUMS OF 2010:

1. Jamey Johnson - The Guitar Song
2. Taylor Swift - Speak Now
3. Laura Bell Bundy - Achin' and Shakin'
4. Keith Urban - Get Closer
5. Little Big Town - The Reason Why
6. Alan Jackson - Freight Train
7. Reba McEntire - All the Women I Am
8. Kenny Chesney - Hemmingway's Whiskey
9. Easton Corbin - Easton Corbin
10. Merle Haggard - I Am What I Am

TOP TEN COUNTRY SINGLES OF 2010:

1. Taylor Swift - Mine
2. Jamey Johnson - Playing the Part
3. Kenny Chesney - Somewhere With You
4. Martina McBride - Wrong Baby Wrong Baby Wrong
5. Brad Paisley - Water
6. Trace Adkins - This Ain't No Love Song
7. Tim McGraw - Still
8. Laura Bell Bundy - Drop On By
9. Sunny Sweeney - From a Table Away
10. Toby Keith - Bullets in the Gun

Looks good erasing. Anybody heard the True Blood soundtrack? I got a press release about a show in the Louisiana cafe where the show is filmed, featuring Jace Everett, C. C. Adcock, a bunch of other contributors, maybe all of em. Thanx to xhuxk for linking stream of Jace Everett's Red Revelations upthread. Also wondering about True Grit soundtrack (seen a couple good reviews already, but no mention of music. Apparently it's closer to the book; a good piece on the suthor, Charles Portis, in recent NYTimes: a truly deadpan comic novelist, it sez, unlike most, who signal when they're trying to be funny, but also blends the seriously serious into the comments of unwittingly amusing characters, True Grit a bit more shadowed than his others, apparently)

Yo Indexed, speaking of the Loretta Lynn tribute, here's xgau, with good excerpts of tracks in the podcast:
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/22/132206305/singers-have-a-ball-on-album-dedicated-to-honky-tonk-girl-loretta-lynn

Rolling Country 2011