Month: March 2022

There’s nothing wrong with a little throwback tune, even if it might not ever be a big hit.

Parker McCollum hopped on social media this week to play an unreleased song for fans, with the caveat that they might not ever see it on a studio album.

“I’ve done everything that I can/ It don’t matter where it lands / Ain’t a damn thing I can do/ Heads you win, tails I lose,” Parker sings, strumming his acoustic guitar along to the mournful ballad.

It’s a sad tune that sounds like it’s from another era, but the singer says he won’t ever stop writing throwback ballads.

“I still try all the time to write songs that sound like the ones I grew up loving. Just sad old country songs,” he muses in a note that accompanies the video. “Wade Bowen and the Warren Brothers stopped [by] the house yesterday and we messed around with this one. Probably won’t ever make it on an album but I still love it.”

Next up, Parker’s got plans to join Thomas Rhett on his Bring the Bar Tour this summer. In personal news, he and his fiancée, Hallie Ray Light, will tie the knot this month.

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Walker Hayes may be “just tryin' to stay out of AA,” but he heads down to the bar to film the music video for his new single.

Walker shared a teaser of the as-yet-unreleased music video for “AA,” which features line dancing, strobe lights and, of course, a classic honky-tonk dance floor.

“Who's ready?” Walker wrote on Twitter, alongside the teaser snippet.

The dance moves featured in the video are similar to the ones Walker and his family shared on socials when they first introduced fans to the song. Ever since the release of his viral megahit, “Fancy Like,” family-focused dances have been a big part of the singer's success. His teenage daughter Lela choreographs his moves, and the family often come together for a dance party tailor-made for each new song he puts out.

“AA” is currently inside the top 20 and climbing at country radio.

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Reba McEntire is performing at the Oscars this year. She'll treat the awards show audience and viewers at home to a live version of “Somehow You Do,” which appears in the movie Four Good Days and is nominated for Best Original Song.

Four of the five nominees in the category will perform their songs during the show. Beyoncé will take the stage for “Be Alive,” from King Richard, while Billie Eilish and FINNEAS are duetting on “No Time to Die,” from the movie of the same name.

Meanwhile, Sebastián Yatra will perform “Dos Oruguitas,” from the massively popular animated film Encanto. Also nominated for Best Original Song is “Belfast,” performed by Van Morrison, which appears in Down to Joy.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Morrison was invited to perform on the Oscars stage but was unable to attend, citing his touring schedule.

As was previously announced, another song from Encanto, “We Don't Talk About Bruno,” will be performed during the telecast. Though it's not nominated, “We Don't Talk About Bruno” has achieved massive popularity online since the film's release, and it's the longest-running number-one hit from a Disney film, spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The 2022 Oscars will air live from Hollywood on March 27 at 8 p.m. ET. Tune in to ABC to watch the show.

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Maren Morris' next album, Humble Quest, comes on the heels of a global pandemic and the singer's transition into parenthood. She and her fellow artist husband Ryan Hurd welcomed their son, Hayes, in March 2020.

The pandemic forced Maren to prioritize her mental health. “I'm pretty sure everyone in lockdown and this pandemic has had to do a temperature check on their mental health, and maybe it'll become a more perpetual practice going forward — I hope it is,” she tells People.

Maren also experienced postpartum depression after giving birth to Hayes, another mental health challenge that caused her to grow as she worked on her new album. Her depression started to ease up when Hayes was about six months old, she explains, and therapy — and the support of Ryan — helped her make her way through it.

“I do check-ins all the time [with] therapy, which I've done for years, and my husband was a huge help diagnosing that, too,” she continues.

“Sometimes, it's just someone really close to you saying, Are you okay?'” the singer adds. “It's so simple, but it kind of snaps you out of whatever fog you're in that you think is normal, but isn't.”

Maren and Ryan have long supported each other both professionally and musically, and they topped the country charts together with their duet, “Chasing After You.”

Maren recently posted a photo of the couple sharing a hug, captioning it ,”this album wouldn't have happened without you.”

Humble Quest comes out Friday. Fans have already heard a handful of its songs, including lead single “Circles Around This Town.”

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Brett Young takes a positive approach to a broken heart in his new single, “You Didn’t.”

The simmering, R&B-leaning number finds the singer comforting the woman he loves who sadly didn’t love him back. But rather than making it a revenge anthem, the country singer takes a gentler approach, trying to ease her pain while he deals with his own. 

“I feel like it’s the most positive approach to a breakup ever,” Brett explains. “I think the subtext is that it’s very clearly a lie. It’s a guy saying he’s fine and then he understands he fell in love and she didn’t, but he’s lying. He’s still trying to take care of her in the process of getting his heart broken.”

The California native is known for releasing tear-jerking ballads, like the previous heartbreakers “Mercy” and “Like I Loved You,” which both topped the charts. Brett admits he’s not sure why country music fans gravitate to sad songs, but he believes “You Didn’t” is the perfect introduction to his next album. 

“[I] think it was such a fresh approach, and while realizing that country music fans really like to be sad for whatever reason, it felt like a good offering from this collection,” he says. 

Brett’s wife Taylor stars in the video for “You Didn’t.”

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