NPR has just unveiled their list of their "25 Favorite Albums Of 2014 (So Far)," and two Country artists have made the list.
Superstar Miranda Lambert makes the cut with her new Billboard 200 No. 1 album Platinum. "Miranda likes to say in interviews that she's no role model. And thank goodness," says NPR's Ann Power. "On her fifth studio album, country's longtime self-aware bad girl offers something more powerful than craziness and kerosene: a deliberately holistic portrait of 21st century femininity, with room for vulnerability, regret, gentle nostalgia, hope and plenty of humor. Lambert speaks through characters who are married and independent, sexually confident and anxious about their looks, longing for home comforts and eager for the wide open road. The music ranges just as widely as Lambert's worldview, from traditional bluegrass to honky-tonk rock to the well-burnished country that radio requires. Lambert herself always retains her individualistic edge. 'You don't know nothin' about girls,' she sings, confronting stereotypes in the album's lead track. Don't worry; Miranda will school you."
NPR also cited modern outlaw Sturgill Simpson and has sophomore set Metamodern Sounds In Country Music. Of Simpson, Powers says, "There are people who fret about the health and purity of country music and there are those who just keep the damn stuff alive. On his second solo album, Sturgill Simpson pumps oxygen into familiar forms — the honky-tonk all-night drunk, the philosophical road song, the country-politan ballad, the gospel singalong, the trucker anthem — with the no-fuss creativity of a rebel with a cause, and a plan. The Kentucky native, now living in Nashville, set out to make songs that honored tradition but rejected easy associations: Instead of odes to girls with painted-on jeans, Simpson applies his majestic baritone to sometimes psychedelic ruminations about fate, personal agency and the Zen interconnectedness of all things. His muscular touring band keeps Simpson grounded while letting him range wide. The result is hard country with no edges made for people with big sky minds."
The list also includes selections from Beck, Los Lobos, Toni Braxton and Babyface, and others. Click here to see the full feature.
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