Top 15 in '07 Part V - Country Music

I can't really say Country Music as a whole, it's mainly just that Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts both put out albums this year. Good albums (you can see them both on the right).


Carrie's "Carnival Ride" picks up where her last album left off, but she's better prepared this time to serve up a great album. Her voice is the best it's ever sounded (in her vast, what, 2 year career?) and it really shines on tracks like "I Know You Won't" and lead single "So Small". "Last Name" is this albums "Before He Cheats" and that's fine by me. She runs the gamut from snarly-attitude-girl on "Flat on the Floor" to country crooner with pipes of gold (and stunning range/control) on "Just A Dream". Like her first album every song is sing-a-long-able, but these songs are just slighter better; you can tell she spent quality time choosing her songs and songwriters.

Rascal Flatts' "Still Feels Good" kind of took me by surprise, literally. I was looking at CD release dates and theirs popped up...I knew somehow that I'd known about it, but it just came so fast! And then I found that their first single, "Take Me There" was already released, with a video and everything! Anyhow, it made it a little more awesome being surprised cause I didn't have to wait as long for the album to come out!

"SFG" isn't the Flatts' at their ABSOLUTE best, but they're still doing what they do really well: providing very slickly produced country-pop for the masses. Standouts include the title track, "No Reins", and the Jamie Foxx duet "She Goes All The Way". On my first couple listens I thought there were too many slow/mid-tempos on here, but the more I listened, the more I grew to like almost every single song (I still listen to "Bob That Head", unlike Brandie...)

In other 2007 country-ness I discovered Alison Krauss' "Maybe", The Wrecker's released a live CD/DVD, Kelly and Reba did an ok version of "Because of You", and aside from her pretty good "Nothin' Better To Do", Leann Rhimes did a duet with Marc Broussard on her "Family" album.