Award winning singer-songwriter and critic’s favorite, Anthony Smith, is joining the ranks of artists like Big Kenny, Gretchen Wilson and Toby Keith by launching his own record label, Krankit Records, LLC.
With an established team of industry veterans to guide the label, Krankit Record’s first album release will be Smith’s Sunshine with the lead single and video “Love Is Love Is Love.”
“This is a special record and I want to put my own stamp on country music with its release. We are very proud of Krankit and what it stands for and feel strongly that this will be the first of many successes that the label enjoys,” Smith said.
Krankit Records, LLC is a joint venture with Artist Garage, LLC who distributes through Fontana which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Mike Regan will serve as the director of operations for the label while Larry Pareigis and Nine North are the radio promotions partners . Jules Wortman of Wortman Works Media and Marketing as well as Nicole Cochran of Nic of Time Communications will run public relations and media for the label.
“The first single, ‘Love Is Love Is Love’ is vintage Anthony Smith with creative lyrical content and his unique vocals that can be duplicated by no other,” says Larry Pareigis who is working the radio promotion. “I believe ‘Love is Love is Love’ has the unmistakable Anthony Smith sound and at the same time is the most commercial single he’s sent to Country radio,” said Pareigis. “Nine North is honored to be partnered in the launch of Anthony’s label Krankit Records.”
About Anthony Smith:
Anthony Smith has had over 200 songs recorded by other artists including “Run” and “Cowboys Like Us” by George Strait, “Kristofferson” by Tim McGraw, “Chrome” and “I’m Trying” by Trace Adkins and “Who Invented the Wheel” by Trisha Yearwood. This is Smith’s sophomore record, the first being That Ain’t Country for Mercury, which he calls a “songwriters record”. The eagerly anticipated follow-up, Sunshine is poised to be an extraordinary collection of music that in Smith’s words, “is not Nashville”.
Blake Shelton is slowly clawing his way onto the A List. He’s started gaining real traction in the hit making department and has developed a long list of concert songs. Plus with a few high profile TV stints he’s becoming a big name.
Just when he gets there it looks like they change the game. His latest album isn’t really an album. It’s a download collection of songs. Packaged as a Six Pack and out 3/2/10. It looks like the smaller packages of music are potentially more lucrative. That’s surprising to most outside the music biz who don’t realize that the cost of printing physical disks and cases are not the big cost. A substantial cost is publishing rights and royalties.
Expect to see more of this as the music biz shifts to an itunes-singles focused world.
Blake Shelton
In fact , Hillbilly Bone will drive a lotof the sales for Shelton’s SixPack, but there’s some other – mostly fun – stuff on the collection to make it worth your download. From Can’t Afford To Love you to Kiss my Country Ass he continues to showcase his funny side. In fact – after hearing several different versions of Kiss My Country Ass – Shelton’s is the only one I’ve heard that really works.
Josh Thompson is not a hat act… but kinda sounds like he could be. He’s the real deal and he writes too. In Fact, he
New music now out...
had a hand in writing every track) on his new CD “Way Out Here” just released this week on Columbia/Sony Records Nashville. The new CD - download on iTunes.-is a nice break from the pop country that’s starting to be back in vogue with the Nashville Country labels.
Thompson is from Wisconsin and his debut album, out this week, is fun to hear. I don’t know of many country stars that grew out of Wisconsin but I do know first hand there’s a lot of farmland to grow some country ”way out there”. Maybe that’s why his traditional – but rocking – country sound comes across as fresh and not a remake of someone else’s stuff. In fact there’s a lot of “country boy” themes in his new collection of songs… but Thompson’s found new ways to express it. Not “redneck” or “hillbilly” but he sings about being from “Way Out Here.”
His ”You Ain’t seen Country Yet” is worth a good laugh with a line about making love to the sounds of a Haggard casette (if you haven’t…”you ain’t SEEN country yet”). Add in his rapid fire toungue twisting twang on radio hit “Beer On The Table” and you got a fun mix that defines what Thompson does. As a bonus there’s a serious side painted in “Sinner” that will resonate with the bible belt country fans too.
Thompson is currently playing to packed clubs with Eric Church on the Jagermeister Tour.
Listen for the nod to the legends with “Blame It On Waylon” and an ”old” Kenny Chesney flavor on the well-written “Back Around” that sounds like it could be a current radio hit anywhere in the country.
Overall Grade: A surprise collection that proves traditional leaning country can still sound young and fresh.
Download: Beer On The Table although it may disappear from the radio top twenty soon it’s a song that should have hit.
Delete: None – this is one to listen to cover to cover.
Doing a Greatest Hits – when you’ve had as many chart-toppersas Kenny Chesney – is never any easy thing. But when you’re as musical and creative as the full-tilt songwriter/showman from Luttrell, Tennessee slowing down the creative process long enough to catch up can be harder.
So, with his well-documented love of college football yielding ESPN’s college football theme “This Is Our Moment” earlier this fall and the high-impact stadium concert experience “Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3-D” screaming out for a song to tie the 5-stadium, 6 night and a whole lotta, in-between footage together yielding the driving ”Ain’t Back Yet,” Chesney needed a way to get the music into his fans hands.
Always one to color outside the lines, the man who played to over a
million fans for the 8th consecutive summer, decided that given the
immediacy of this music, it made more sense to do the unusual – and put
the two songs on his currently available Greatest Hits II. Working with
the team at his label to find a creative way to make this happen, the
result offers a few options to get one’s hands on “Ain’t Back Yet” and
“This Is Our Moment.”
“Those two songs are so much a moment,” says the man who played the New
Orleans’ Saints Super Bowl Victory Bash in Miami Sunday night. “You want
them when the moment is still fresh… and I won’t have a record out til
next fall. So with all the options that are available in today’s world,
I kinda felt like there has to be a way to get this music to people, to
be creative with it. I went back to my record company and asked them to
help me figure this out.”
Available digitally on March 2, the songs are also being stripped onto
physical copies of Chesney’s Greatest Hits II and should be in the marketplace
around the same date. As with anything that is outside the mold, which
is much of the way Chesney dreams, details are being sorted out as they
go. But for the man who grew up on the songs of Tom Petty, Van Halen,
Jackson Browne and Alabama, the most exciting part of this is the
ability to accelerate the process.
“It’s the possibilities that have always thrilled me,” Chesney says.
“Not what’s been done, but what could be… It’s what made me leave
Luttrell all those years ago… say ‘Why not stadiums…’ and then last
summer, ‘Why not 3-D?’ If you keep asking and dreaming, you can do
amazing things. And, you know, that’s what these two songs are about,
too: the work, the will, the desire – and what’s possible.”
“Ain’t Back Yet” isn’t going for radio airplay until early March, but it’s
already country’s radio’s most downloaded song. The theme from “Kenny
Chesney: Summer in 3-D” captures the drive it takes to get to being one
of the guy who’s sold over a million tickets each of the past 8 summers.
Top new country group Gloriana will be featured on the AT&T Team USA Soundtrack for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. The foursome recorded a brand new song, “The World Is Ours Tonight,” for the soundtrack which is available now for purchase on iTunes. Shop at the iTunes Music Store.
The proceeds from the tracks purchased during the Olympic Games, which take place through February 28th, will benefit Team USA. Gloriana, Rascal Flatts, Mariah Carey, and 3 Doors Down also recorded exclusive music videos that will appear during broadcasts of the Olympic Games on NBC.
“To be able to team up with such amazing artists including Rascal Flatts and Sugarland on this soundtrack and support Team USA and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games is an opportunity we are so grateful for,” said Mike Gossin. “We hope it helps Team USA to win Olympic Gold across the board!”
Gloriana joins other well-known artists on the soundtrack including Sugarland, Rascal Flatts, Mariah Carey, 3 Doors Down, and Train among others, to help support the men and women on Team USA competing at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. AT&T wireless customers can purchase songs, ringtones, and answertones through the MEdia Mall (AT&T App Center), and can access a link to these never-before-released tones by texting*USA to 2257 (standard text messaging rates apply). In addition, the music videos which will be featured during NBC’s Olympic Games coverage will be available via TV, PC and wireless device through AT&T U-verseSM TV, AT&T Fan Zone and wirelessly through AT&T Mobile Video.
Rounding out an extremely successful start to 2010, Gloriana has been nominated for an Academy of Country Music Award for Top New Vocal Group of the Year. Fan voting for the three newcomer categories will begin at VoteACM.com on Friday, February 26th, and will close on Friday, March 12th. The 45th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will be broadcast live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas Sunday, April 18th at 8:00pm EST on the CBS Television Network
For more information on Gloriana visit: www.gloriana.com.
Hats off (no pun intended for hat act lovers) to Lady Antebellum’s Charles, Dave and Hillary on topping the overall and country album sales charts with 481,000 debut-week sales for the group’s Need You Now. The Nielsen SoundScan total is the biggest debut by a country artist since Taylor Swift’s Fearless bowed with 592,000 units in November 2008.
A large percentage is suspected to attributed to massive downloads of the smash multi week title track. Combined single downloads are figured into the tally. Christmas iTunes cards must’ve helped here. Record breaking January sales.
Dave Tweeted -”We’re Absolutely stunned!”
The band used their weekly webisode to thank the fans — see the brilliant thank you below…
Biggie of the night was Taylor Swift’s win for Album of the Year. Zac Brown took the New Artist honors and Lady A, Keith Urban, and Taylor all walked away winners at the Grammy’s. Performances included a powerful version of “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum that’s sure to sell a few extra thousand copies of their CD just out.
Zac Brown’s performance with Leon Russel started slow but buit to manic fun.
Country Album went to Taylor Swift…
Country Song Award for Songwriter went to Taylor Swift and Liz Rose for White Horse
Country Collaboration to Carrie Underwood and Randy Travis
Country Group/Duo Performance went to Lady A for Need You Now
Country Instrumental to Steve Wariner
Female Country Vocal to Taylor Swift White Horse
Male Country Vocals to Keith Urban / Sweet Thing
Additional Winners and all the non-Country categories can be found HERE at Grammy.com
When their debut cd – the self titled “Lady Antebellum” – was released in 2008 it surprised a lot of people. The unknown trio debuted on top of the country album charts and at #4 on the all genre Top 200. The self-titled “Lady Antebellum” album ended up being one of the best CDs of the 2008.
This week Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley, and Dave Haywood will release their “sophomore” release “Need You Now” surrounded my much higher expectation. Overall CD sales have tanked since the first release but they have been one of the few acts – especially in country – to actually sell product.
There is a lot to be excited about. On top of a Grammy nomination The title track has already peaked on radio with a multi week number one and the follow up “American Honey” is sure to be another smash as country radio programmers realize that – after the group’s attention grabbing “CMA Group Of The Year” snatch (someone hand the smelling salts to Brooks and Dunn AND Sugarland) – this trio is one of the new leaders in Country. It seemed to happen very fast but diversity is taking over Nashville.
Some in Nashville are suspicious that this new CD may be all pop but after ten seconds of hearing “Our Kind Of Love” you can defiantly hear the group has found their country sound. It starts with a Charlie Brown piano lead in and they hits the fiddles. Hillary’s leading lady twang seems more out front than on the first album giving everything a more Nashville sound. The group really takes advantage of the duel leads to add a unique take on love songs. The trio had a hand in the writing too. Together they penned all but two of the songs on the record.
The album is filled with somber fare but also include some more fun cuts like “Stars Tonight” and “Perfect Day.” Prefect Day is surprisingly mainstream country with Hillary’s crisp voice really shining through.
“I was up until 5 in the morning one night while we were making the album, writing Dave and Charles an email,” says Hillary on the groups website. “I stepped back from it and just looked at why we wrote or chose each song, and it hit me that all of these songs are just about feeling to the utmost of your ability. Whether it’s ‘I’m so desperate for you, I miss you so much, I need you NOW’ desperation,’ or ‘American Honey,’ which is nostalgic and wanting to go back to that innocence and sweetness. And then you have ‘Hello World,’ which is this man’s story of this awakening in his soul, opening his eyes and seeing what’s important in his life again.”
“When you’re in the valleys, they suck and it’s not fun, but you appreciate the mountaintop way more whenever you’ve gone through something tough,” Hillary continues. “That’s how I personally try to live my life, just enjoying every moment—but when it hurts, let it hurt. Because you loved something or someone so much, it’s only natural to grieve that. So that’s what I verbalized to them, that I was proud of our ability to be that honest and just lay it all out there.”
There are a bunch of people looking to Lady A to re-invent country music. They haven’t changed it too much here (that’s a good thing) but there is a nice coat of paint to enjoy for a while.
Kelley shines on the somber but intense “Hello World.” The song is poignant and smooth with full orchestra and building energy this one will find some fans in the contemporary christian world too.
Watch for big sales the first week – perhaps overshadowed by Michael Jackson (or perhaps the other way around). Some of the story for release week continues to be the global shift to downloads and iTunes over physical CDs. Watch for the trio to make headlines.
Josh Thompson fans anxiously awaiting the February 23rd release of Way Out Here can now pre-order their copy of forthcoming debut album on Thompson’s official website.
Fans who pre-order the album on Thompson’s official website will also receive an autographed booklet. Visitors to the site can also view videos and upload photos, follow Josh on Twitter, check on upcoming events, interact in forums, and compete for the top score on the “Whack-A-Beer” online game. Fans also have the ability to stream and purchase all four tracks already available on Thompson’s self-titled digital EP.
While critics have already pegged Thompson as the artist to watch in the New Year, country music fans have also voted Josh Thompson as the ”artist they are most excited about for 2010,” in a recent poll taken on gactv.com. Thompson won the fan voted poll with a staggering 56% of the votes! To see the full gactv.com poll results, click here. With Way Out Here available in stores on February 23rd, his debut single, “Beer on the Table,” climbing up the airwaves and landing at MediaBase’s #18 spot this week, and his 32-date Jagermeister Country Tour kicking off next month, Thompson has a lot forward to in the upcoming year.
It was a shock to the country music world Today when Trace Adkins announced he was leaving his long time label Capitol Records Nashville for a new label home. He made a surprise jump to Toby Keith’s newly established “Showdog-Universal.”
The pairing is a powerful one-two punch with Adkins being the first signing for the new merger (others like Joe Nichols and Johnathon Singleton merged in from Universal South).
The other shock is the realization that Trace has released eleven albums.
More from Trace’s Website:
Toby Keith, Principle and Mark Wright, President of Show Dog-Universal Music have officially announced their first signing, platinum selling superstar Trace Adkins. Trace Adkins is a multifaceted entertainer who has achieved incredible success as a performer, author, and actor. Trace made his debut in country music more than a decade ago and has since become an undeniable musical force, earning his place among the most identifiable artists of his generation. Adkins has charted 27 singles, with 14 breaking into the top 10. His albums have achieved gold or platinum status with three making their entry at #1.
“While touring together this past summer, Toby and I had some time to get to know each other better and we discovered that as artists, we share a common vision,” says Adkins. “I’ve had 15 great years at Capitol Records/Nashville and I respect and appreciate everyone I’ve worked with there. But, the excitement surrounding this merger is very invigorating and I’m really excited about the future and the opportunities and possibilities that are ahead at Show Dog-Universal Music.
“I’m so excited to be working with Trace,” said Keith. “We both worked the same old bar circuit of the Southwest years ago at the same time. We are just alike and see eye to eye in so many ways. Me and entire Show Dog-Universal Music staff are ready to tear it up for him.”
“The first time I heard ‘Every Light In the House’, I asked myself, ‘Why didn’t I sign this guy?’, and now I finally get to work with him,” commented Wright.”Toby and I are looking forward to teaming up with Trace; he is truly an exciting addition to the Show Dog-Universal Music family.
1. NEED YOU NOW
