Top 16 Favorite CM Radio Singles of 2008

It took me a while to think up of a list.  I wanted to keep it mainly mainstream-based (my excuse for not including alternative country/americana singles, those of which I really couldn’t list lol).  I didn’t listen to a whole lot of mainstream country radio this year, as compared to past years, because of, of course, XM Radio and my iTunes/iPod.  My list definitely includes, and excludes, singles that other sites have placed on their year-end lists.  For my own, I was bent on making sure that the tracks considered were mostly 2008-played singles, and so I came up with these.  Some of these are surprises and others maybe not so much.

Happy New Years to everyone and hopefully your 2009 is much better (I know the first half of my ‘08 was much better than the second, but I am satisfied with the time I got the spend the time with my family over this time – and kinda crazy – but it’s been a great year).  Btw, the pic above I chose because I was pretty green the whole year and I thought it looked nice, especially as a negative, as it is now)

Time to reveal my:

Top 16 Favorite Country Music Radio Singles of 2008:

• 16. “No Air” – Rissi Palmer:
  • Call me surprised as well.  When Rissi first came about, I supported her, but didn’t particularly care for her debut single (“Country Girl”).  It wasn’t until I heard her “countrified” remake of Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown’s pop hit, “No Air” that I became really interested.  Though Rissi’s version is still very poppy, I find myself lovin’ the heavy fiddle, mandolin, and steel production with the catchy vocals.  Too bad it wasn’t a hit.  Woulda been sorta cool if she maybe made this a duet with Keith Urban or something.

• 15. “Workin’ for a Livin’” – Garth Brooks & Huey Lewis:
  • Hahaha, another remake, I say?  Yes.  I find this a very catchy track, and it’s classic Garth: full of bluesy harmonica and rockin’ fiddle.  It’s like a hybrid of “Ain’t Goin’ Down (‘Til the Sun Comes Up)” and “Beer Run”.  To be quite honest, before this, I didn’t really know who Huey Lewis was, but had heard of him.  The music video is really cool and liking the NASCAR-theme.  Definitely a fun number to listen to and the lyrics are totally true.  I could do without the “working” female background vocals, however.  They’re annoying lol.

• 14. “Sounds So Good” – Ashton Shepherd:
  • The song title explains itself on how I feel about the track.  I love her über-twangy accent (I used to hate when people used that term, but it’s fine if I do it) and it confirms how much she loves being at home in the country.  Reminds me of the summer and of being out in the Arizona desert.  It’s contemporary country with traditional country soul.  I’m glad this song got played a decent amount, which was more than expected since radio kinda sucks.

• 13. “You and Me and Time” – George Jones & Georgette Jones:
  • I don’t think this song went anywhere on the charts, and was one of the best songs of 2008, IMO.  Georgette has such a beautiful voice and it’s very reminiscent of her mother, Tammy Wynette.  The song is about her childhood relationship with her father, and his absence that shadowed those times, and now, they’ve got time to be closer than ever.  It’s a sweet and pure country duet.  In the chorus, I love the pause after “time” and before “finally got together“… awesome.

• 12. “Rocks In Your Shoes” – Emily West:
  • Another one gone… newcomer Emily West really impressed me this one.  Very poppy, but as proven, country-pop can be done well, and she did it.  She got the title of the song from a phrase her grandfather used to say, if I’m not mistaken, and it took a big meaning.  Her voice reminds me of a younger, playful Patty Loveless.  One of the most catchiest songs of the year.  Check out her EP.

• 11. “His Kind of Money (My Kind of Love)” – Eric Church:
  • My favorite single from this guy.  I’ve never been too big on him, but have always liked this singles.  I really like the message of this song…money can’t buy everything, and you’ll realize that.  It can’t replace real and good love.

myTunes 36 Most Played Songs (12.10.08)

I’ve been thinking about doing this for quite some time – revealing what my top played songs are on iTunes.  By default, the most played playlist is set at 25 or something, but since 36 is my lucky number and 36 just happens to fit perfectly in the height of laptop screen monitor (to where I didn’t have to scroll down to see the whole list), it worked out so so good.

Revealing this list, for me, feels like letting out my public tax return information to the public lol (well, it wouldn’t be big at all, but just imagine that I’m a celebrity and this is now common knowledge).  I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, though some of my choices and rankings of some songs and artists might surprise/turn off/turn on some people, so it’s your choice on what you’ll decide to think of me from now on hahaha.  Whatever, though.  We all have our guilty pleasures/inner demons :p.

I’ll list it backwards, from #36 to #1.  It’s pretty accurate (well, these are based on plays from when I uploaded the tracks to my laptop’s iTunes in summer 2006, and from iPod plays, so it’s based from then).  You will see my varying tastes, from traditional/pop/alternative/rocking/country,bluegrass, rock, pop, and alternative rock.

These below are my stats, as of this moment, Tuesday night, December 9th. 2008 @ 11:23pm (out of about 39,000 plays):

iCF Random (11.25.08)

No new recommendation, at the moment, because I’m kinda busy…. and just plain lazy lol.  I was looking around online and found this, and thought it was interesting.  This is Glen Campbell singing a cover/remake of rock band, Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”.  Kinda cool.  I always thought it could work as a country song and I love the fiddle/violin solo in the Green Day version.  Great great song. This is from AOL’s Sessions:

- http://music.aol.com/video/good-riddance-time-of-your-life-sessions/glen-campbell/2198846

I tried to embed the video into the post, but it doesn’t work.  Just click the link then.

That’s all I really wanna say for today, maybe…

iCF Music Poll (10.24.08)

Time for a poll, I think.  I wanted to write a new recommendation, but of course, I’m pretty busy these days and I gotta get ready for my week long trip in a few days (gonna visit my friends).  Got some other good news: got internet back at home, so I should be able to post more often when I can.  I feel so far behind on several things right now, and am still catching up.  WordPress just added a new poll feature and I wanted to try it out!  I counted up all of my recommendations and the songs, and while there have been 36 recommendation posts, there have been 42 total recommended songs.  I divided the polls into six songs each.  Might be tough, but thought it might be fun.  I’ll make a post after the post is published with my own answers and why (I chose the palm tree background to coincide with my West coast trip lol – which I’d like to have variety, but y’know, that’d look weird…).

I gotta mention: very very excited for the upcoming OO7 movie, “Quantum of Solace” (out Nov 14th, 2008).  I’m gonna be Bond for Halloween :D (again, 7 years later  but this time, it will be better).  Also, I’m lovin’ the latest Lee Ann Womack album, Call Me Crazy.  Picked up my copy on Tuesday at Best Buy and am listening to it now!  Go here to read my review on it (it took quite a while to type it up!).  Any country fan will appreciate the album.

Enjoy the rest of October.  Say “hi” to your mother for me… I’ll be in Cali in a few.

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iCF Music Update (7-19-08)

Hey there.  If you did not read yet in my last entry, right now my internet is not working, so I cannot make any more blog entries for the moment (it sucks, I know).  I’m at the library right now, for just a while, and thought I’d inform you before you grew concerned and got in a disarray over my absence (haha).  I’ll try to make some new ones offline on my laptop and upload them when I come to the library next time.  I wanted to again thank you all again for visiting my blog and reading whatever.  I checked the site stats and it was getting a lot of visitors a few days ago, so I’m very appreciative.  Hopefully you continue to visit, and just read old entries, and check out other blogs for the meantime!  (or I think you can subscribe to the blog, and get informed by email when I write a new entry, but I’m not sure how to do that, exactly).

Anyway, until then, no fancy pictures, or other entries.  I’ll see what I can do.  I’m exhausted this week after so much working!  I need me a Good Time (Alan Jackson-style):  “G with an O, O with a D, T with an I, and a M with an E! “

Updates on iCF Music, music in general, and me!

(The title is a bit over-excited but whatever lol) I’m currently sitting on my bed at home, and it’s 2:43am in the morning, and I don’t wanna go to sleep until maybe an hour later (I don’t have work tomorrow, so I don’t have to worry about that, though I am getting tired…:p ).  I’ve spent a good portion of the night working on this blog because I want to show I’m committed to it and will update whenever I can (plus, I’m really enjoying it…I love using WordPress – much MUCH better than Blogger.  (If anybody’s thinking of blogging, start with WordPress.  Thank God Kevin suggested the switch.)

What’s with the picture on the left you ask?  I just thought it looked cool and wanted to use it lol.  Tonight, I made a new recommendation entry (#24) with Trisha Yearwood that you can read by scrolling down AND I spent a bunch of time fixing all the old blog entries and adding some new links to them as well.  They look much better IMO (I don’t know how it looks on Internet Explorer though, because recently I made the browser switch to the new Mozilla Firefox 3 and let me tell you: incredible! and I ain’t looking back ;) ).  This blog looked weird on IE and I noticed it looked fine when I switched over, and I’m very impressed with everything so far.  Another thing I worked on with the blog is the new “Recommendations Directory” page, which can be found at the top right of the blog anytime.  I created it so it would be easier to navigate through all the recommendations.  It took me a while because of all the links and stuff, so I hope it comes to good use :) .