Nashville Garbage Wins Again - or - Let Mason Ramsey Do His Own Thing

By now, everybody has heard the story of the yodeling kid, aka Mason Ramsey, whose intoning of Hank Williams' classics at a local House Of Rollbacks in Kentucky, just across the border from his home state Illinois, catapulted the video of that performance into internet virality. TV shows, a guest spot at Coachella, a first performance at the Grand Ole Opry, and now he got country-Biebered up and released a terrible debut single "Famous." All that in less than a month.



Oh, I was ecstatic like so many other traditional country music fans (aka old farts). Here was a young lad of 11-years pouring his heart out with Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues." A little late to the game, I normally don't pay that much attention to viral videos and memes, I shared it on facebook and stated that "...this is real country. And Hank is smiling."







Well, Hank and I aren't smiling anymore.



It seemed too good to be true, a visit on the Ellen DeGeneres TV- show, not only saw him getting a scholarship to study in the future but also made it possible to go visit and sing at the mother church of country music, The Grand Ole Opry. But that visit to Nashville bore strange fruits, the record-machinery under the auspices of has-been-artist Jake Owen and his Big Loud Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic got hold of the little rebel singing Hiram's songs and set him straight: Turning him into a Justin pop-starlet. Accused of the "kidnapping" of the boy's dream are beside Owen, Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard, EDM-pop-country garbage-writers - Corey Crowder (Kane Brown), Sarah Buxton (Chris Lane), and Canaan Smith (Florida Georgia Line) and to top the atrocities, they hired FGL producer Joey Moi known for his crimes with Nickelback.



Hastily Social Media accounts were created, suddenly there was a website, a facebook page, an Instagram showcase, and a Twitter feed. As far as I know, all these are restricted to kids older than 13 years old. But the onslaught got started and started it did - poor Mason gained over 4000 followers on Twitter per day, alone. And "Famous" his debut was released the same day, "The Yodeling Boy" was squeezed into the FGL set at the Stagecoach festival, to promote the drum-machine ditty.



Not only is "Famous" a dumbed-down, generic mass production, but its lyrics also wouldn't make a reading book for first graders. Please read and digest with caution:



Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool to be on TV

So all the folks back home can see me

And that I'm livin' it out

All the things I used to dream about

Yeah, it's pretty great, singing on a stage

Proud 'cause there ain't an empty seat in the place

But, girl, ever since I met you

I got a whole new perspective



And people eager to know what happened to their @lilhankwilliams (his Instagram moniker) started clicking on YouTube (> 8 million) and he started to dominate Spotify (> 5.6 million) which amounts, with other streaming services, to over 15 million streams in one week. And the single is currently going to radio, which may or may not pick it up, as they may hopefully see the whole deal as a novelty factor with a faster half-life than a rotting egg in the sun.



Producer Joey Moi and the other perpetrators should be charged with musical child molestation and treason in the name of true country music.



The only good part is, that the original video where he sings his idol's song still leads with 37 million spins and Hank actually saw a 2000% increase of spins on Spotify. How sweet would it have been if the kid actually would have released a remake of a Williams' classic?

The Grand Ole Opry asked him back and Mason will make another 3-hour road trip back to Nashville to play this coming Saturday 5/12. I hope he sticks with Hank, as he got a standing ovation the first time doing it.

But as the Grand Ole Opry wrote: "Mason is rising fast in the music business." - just let's all hope not too fast, this kid deserves better.



*/***** (1/5)





Sources: Pandora - Next Big Sound, YouTube, Billboard, Guardian. Grand Ole Opry

Newcomer Seth Ennis - "Woke Up In Nashville" - Single Review

Even so he grew up all around the world thanks to his colonel dad, Seth Ennis calls Valdosta, Georgia home.



The 23 year old is the newest signee by a major label, putting ink on a contract today (9/6/13) with Arista, which belongs to the Sony Music Nashville family and releasing a first official and thematically fitting single "Woke Up In Nashville."



According to a press release, Randy Goodman, Chairman & CEO of Arista parent Sony Music Nashville, is excited to sign the new talent: “He represents everything good about our format and its future; young, energetic, incredible songwriter and performer. He’s the whole package and the real deal!”



Seth tried for some time, after funding and releasing an EP "HOPE IS ALIVE" in 2012 through crowd-funding, he moved to Nashville a year later. He also came up with a first own promo video, introducing himself to Nashville and the world.





Seth Ennis from Lucas Hicks on Vimeo.



During the three years in Nashville, he was able to get a solid team (management, publishing and booking) behind him and was now awarded with a record contract.



Seth co-wrote his debut single "Woke Up In Nashville" with a couple of heavy-hitters, David Hodges former member of Evanescence and other groups and Blair Daily, who penned hits for Kip Moore - "Beer Money", Kelly Clarkson - "People Like Us", Rascal Flatts - "Stand" and Uncle Kracker "Smile". Fellow Georgian Corey Crowder, who writes for the same publishing company as Seth does, produced the debut single. Crowder had success as a producer with a top ten digital single for Jamie Lynn Spears "How Could I Want More" and is the featured songwriter on Eric Paslay's latest two singles.



"Woke Up In Nashville" is now available at all digital retailers and can also be heard on Apple Music and Spotify. Ennis who started playing piano, when he was 7 later added drums and guitar. On his new single he played all the instruments and sang all the vocals. Even though sounding quite generic like everything coming out of Nashville, he has a nice vocal range, between Pop, R'n'B and Country. (Whatever happened to just simply singing a song and setting the accents by voice modulation and not by over-singing and over-layering the vocal tracks.) The arrangement is definitely leaning more towards a piano driven Rhythm'n'Pop side.

The lyrics are a bit syrupy but still better than a lot of what I've heard lately - the theme in it's widest sense actually has a big tradition. Boy is leaving hometown and girlfriend in search of new opportunities and success, chasing his dreams and encountering a lot of hardship and loneliness. It's no "Sunday Morning Coming Down," "Guitar Town" or "Detroit City" but it definitely has it's moments. Below are a couple of lines from different verses:



I loaded up the hand-me-down car

Went for broke, broke your heart



I woke up in Nashville

Cause those Broadway lights don't shine

The way that your eyes did

When they were staring back

Right back in mine



Been trying to live

With only half of my heart

Just sleep walking in the Tennessee dark



The song lives because of its strong lyrics, instrumentation and especially vocal over-production pull it some down, but overall it's quite a solid debut for a new artist. There is currently no word yet, if Arista will try to get the song into radio for airplay.


★★★/★★★★★ (3/5)







Sources: Press Release SMN, http://sethennis.com/, Vevo, Vimeo,

SR: "Angels In This Town" Lift Eric Paslay Out Of "High Class" Misery

Coming off his terrible first single "High Class" of his sophomore album "DRESSED IN BLACK," Eric Paslay just released his follow up single "Angels In This Town."



The good news: it's not as bad as the stupid "High Class" which stalled in April of this year at #32 of the Hot Country Songs Charts. And even though co-written by Eric with Corey Crowder and DJ Telemitry (aka Jesse Frasure) and having an urban dance club feel to it and mentioning Justin Timberlake, it failed to crack the Hot 100 Pop Charts.



It also destroyed my hope of maybe an artist that has musical integrity. After seeing him about three years ago unannounced at the Saxon Pub in Austin - see my blog "Eric Paslay - Emerging Artist - Proven Songwriter" - I was all hyped up, that there may actually be an artist with integrity. Damn was I way off the mark. Actually things weren't that bad at first, his debut release "ERIC PASLAY" was half decent, contained "Country Side of Heaven" as well as the quite amazing "She Don't Love You" which reached #15 in April of '15.





So Eric got from his snotty white trash "High Class" to a more down home style, replaced the black suit with jeans and ball cap again and on the way down, actually found some form of spirituality, albeit only in concept and lyrical content. Crowder is again a co-writer, third one in the round this time was relative newcomer Eric Dylan, who just released "Pink Flamingos."



The music production by Marshall Altman is with it's R&B loops still way over the top and Paslay's strength, his actually fine voice, is stretched way to far into arena-rock over-sung screeches.



Too bad, because the story line of the song is very promising, although (too) simple - scoring the winning touchdown in highschool football game, evading a deadly car-crash and still being alive. Yes miracles happen and angels are among us. With a more subtler instrumentation and maybe even a church choir behind it, to actually invoke the karma musically as well - this could have been a better song and maybe using the angels to help somebody more unfortunate instead of winning a football game would have shown real compassion for the angels out there.



★(★)/★★★★★ (1½/5)

Angels In This Town (Audio) - Eric Paslay

Watch Angels In This Town (Audio) by Eric Paslay online at vevo.com. Discover the latest music videos by Eric Paslay on Vevo.

Sources: Vevo, ericpaslay.com, Billboard