CMT Blog: Recent Posts

For the thousands of young adults who are college-bound this fall, Jennette McCurdy's "Not That Far Away" is sure to resonate. However, this fresh-faced 18-year-old has already established herself with a budding acting career in Nickelodeon's iCarly. Now she's hoping to find her way into the country field with a contract on Capitol Nashville and a cozy, colorful video that finds her signing up for an open mic night. Since she looks so comfortable up on the stage, her family and friends in California probably don't need to worry too much. Check out the video.

I've blogged before that I'm not all that interested in sports. Not as a spectator. Not as a player. And I think part of that stems from living in a neighborhood where people are so completely over-the-top about sports. You can't just sign your kid up for a baseball team at the local park district, you have to get him on a traveling team and plan your vacations around his all-star game schedule. And if he plays basketball, you'll need to sign up for special shooting clinics. And football? Well, he's going to need a personal trainer at the very least. It's gotten so bad that parents actually talk as if they are grooming 7-year-olds for college scholarships. But Kenny Chesney has changed my mind.

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I know Carrie Underwood is crazy about her new husband, Mike Fisher, but is she seriously letting him handle the interior design of their new house in Ontario? That is true love right there. That's what Us Magazine is reporting about the new house Mr. & Mrs. Mike Fisher are building in Ottawa, where Fisher needs to be for his position with the Ottawa Senators hockey team. It must be so hard to choose where to live as a couple when both of you travel for a living and when your current homes are separated by more than 1,000 miles. I suppose they could've split the difference and set down their roots midway between the two, perhaps in Akron, Ohio, or Pittsburgh. But Ottawa won. Fisher apparently told Canada's CTV that he loves it up there and that "Home is where we are." Aw. How sweet is that?

Photo credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Roman White is the man behind the new Taylor Swift video, "Mine." You can scour the Internet for details on the shoot (what designer was wore, how hot was that guy in it, is there some kind of kissing scene, where did they shoot it), and you will never find more comprehensive scoop than in White's own blog now that the video is officially finished. He rants a bit about how hot it was in Maine ("I'm talking eggs boiling on your buns HOT!"). And he reminisces about the producer getting accosted by a sea gull and about getting a Hugs A Lot bear from Swift at the end of the project. The shoot started on a 2,000-acre estate, then the cast and crew headed to a small town called Cape Porpoise. White doesn't give a premiere date for this insanely anticipated video, but since the song itself was released earlier than planned, maybe the same will happen with the video.

Photo credit: Peter Kramer

Rosanne Cash's music has remained one of the constants in my life as a young adult. I've always felt a connection to her songs, even though I've never felt that "Seven Year Ache" or escaped from a hectic life by "Sleeping in Paris." After reading her new memoir, Composed, it seems that we also share an inherent urgency to travel, an early love for language and a determination to build a life in music. Fortunately, Cash is further gifted with the ability to write concise lyrics with an interesting melody to match, plus her earthy singing voice is so revealing. All the while she remains rooted to country music through her father, Johnny Cash, and their intimate connections to the Carter Family, but continues the circle on her own terms.

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Eric Church knows there's more than one way to handle any situation, and in "Smoke a Little Smoke" you can guess his preferred remedy. With lyrics touching on a breakup, we get the idea that Church is ready to let this one go -- and sit back and fire one up. Now, we all know smoking ain't cool, but obviously the image here is that Church is a badass who will smoke if he feels like it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a "spark 'em if ya got 'em" kind of guy, but in this case it might be nice to know a little more of the back story. Just a few lines about what it was like before she left could transform "Smoke" into an upbeat song with some real heft. How long did he have to hide that stash? How many Friday nights did he spend watching I Love Lucy? But second-guessing aside, one of the arrangement's most interesting features is its building-block approach -- it starts off with one guitar riff and builds up piece by piece. See if you can find similar elements in Church's newest video.

Nightline now has a segment called Nightline Playlist and they let the person they're interviewing do all the talking. In this story with Martina McBride, she raves about the music she loves for a good five minutes. She spends the first minute talking about what a career song "Independence Day" was for her and how important it was for her to not record fluffy girl songs or novelty songs. But then she goes on to list what's at the very top of her playlist from other artists. And they are: "Crazy" by Patsy Cline, "Mad Love" by Linda Ronstadt, "Respect" by Aretha Franklin, "Friends in Low Place" by Garth Brooks and "Somewhere Over the Raindow," the Eva Cassidy version. "I never get tired of it," McBride says of the song she sings so well in concert.

If it was not for Jerrod Niemann's swift rise to fame, and his very infectious "Lover, Lover," I might never have heard of Sonia Dada. Neimann remade the group's 1992 hit, "You Don't Treat Me No Good," into "Lover, Lover." And if it was not for Kenny Chesney's "Down the Road," I might not have taken it upon myself to fall in love with Mac McAnally's music, as he sings the thoughts of a hesitant father on that tune. And really, I might not have paid enough attention to Kelly Clarkson until she and Reba McEntire came together for that unforgettable collaboration on Clarkson's "Because of You."

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Kanye West wants a fur coat. Kanye West orders bellinis too early. Kanye West drinks New York City tap water. Kanye West likes his new collaboration with Beyoncé. And Kanye West is thrilled he has more than 600,000 followers on Twitter. And that's all well and good, for Kanye West. But have those 600,000 people forgotten what West did? Do they not remember that just about a year ago, he yanked the microphone out of Taylor Swift's hands during her MTV VMA acceptance speech for "Love Story" "You Belong With Me" and told her and the millions watching that, essentially, Beyoncé had the better video? I am not quite over that. So I don't know that I'd want to follow him. Plus, nothing says "It's All About Me" quite like a man with around 610,000 followers and 0 people on his following list.

Photo credit: Christopher Polk/Getty Images

If you're smart, you already know that you're never supposed to let your drink out of your sight at a bar, club, concert, whatever. There are all kinds of date-rape drugs that creepy freaks can easily slip in there without you knowing. And now creepy freaks have one more way to gross us all out. With their pee. This guy in Florida has been accused of urinating in cups and putting them on a bar in the House of Blues. And now he's out on bail. It's not clear whether he was doing it because he couldn't find a restroom, or if he was literally trying to get people to drink his pee just for kicks. In a dimly lit room, pee and beer would look very similar. So I may have to think twice now every time I'm at a show and the singer yells out that it's time for a holler 'n' swaller. Be careful out there.

Photo credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images News