CD-Charts Position 81
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Ragged Glory

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Neil Young

Release Date September 10, 1990
So it's fair to say that without Neil Young's "dirty" guitar sound, perhaps grunge may not have been what we know today. From Pearl Jam working extensively with the man to Kurt Cobain quoting him in his suicide note, Neil Young was a driving influence. So in 1990, after the somewhat low key release of Nirvana's "Bleach," it begins to look like a new breed of musician may be coming out of Seattle, perhaps the torch is going to be passed on, and what Young started will be taken to its logical conclusion? Then Neil Young and Crazy Horse strike out with an album that proves that they not only influenced this scene, they can define it too. An album from a band in its third decade that just screams to be recognised as a contemporary of the likes of ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 82
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Ingenue

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: K.D. Lang

Release Date March 16, 1992
This album is so very important for me personally but also for k.d lang.

It is where she left her C&W roots behind and branched out. Now, I loved her earlier stuff but here her amazing voice is showcased and k.d gets the chance to really fly.

This is one of the great torch song albums, a gem and an intimate insight into how she was feeling at the time of writing and recording. It is an album about love, tenderness, pain, solitude, sadness and joy.

Apparently she was suffering from an unrequieted passion while she was writing many of the songs. I think we have all been there, regardless of our sexuality and who could fail to be touched?

For me, although it isn't about the issue, this album helped ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 83
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Kill To Get Crimson

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Mark Knopfler

Release Date September 17, 2007
This album hugely disappointed me. Mark Knopfler is my idol - the reason I ever picked up a guitar and tried to play it. He is, and will always be, a genius with a six string. I love and listen to "Sailing To Philadelphia" over and over again, and there are some cracking tracks on "Shangri-la" as well.

But this album is not anything like what I expected. I would put forward that "The Scaffolder's Wife" is the only one with a bit of oomph to it. I have to agree with the other reviewers who call it dull and tuneless. Mark appears as a bit part player in the whole recording, seemingly concentrating more on the production side than the musical contribution side. Memorable riffs are, sadly, almost non-existent. This is a true "Folk" album, but not ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 84
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the best of

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Don Williams

Release Date September 10, 2001
I'm 19, and I love Don Williams. I admit that I didn't hear of him until a few months ago, please don't hate me. I was sitting in ront of the computer in our living room, when I heard some really nice music coming from the kitchen where my mum was. I really like country music, especially Marty Robbins, Dolly Parton, and Lonestar, and I asked her who it was. She replied Don Williams, I went back to the computer, logged on the internet and bought this CD, and his love sogns cd, which really was a comfort when I was going through a bad patch after moving to university. 'Tears of the loney, keep falling all the time, Tears of the lonely never dry.' What a sad song! But it isn't on this cd, so if you want to hear it, you'll have to listen to the love songs cd.
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CD-Charts Position 85
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At Dawn

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: My Morning Jacket

Release Date January 01, 2005
The first thing you notice when listening to `At Dawn' if, like me, you've approached their back catalogue, er, backwards, is how faithful it is to a kind of alt-country orthodoxy when compared to the more magpie-like tendencies of `It Still Moves' and `Z'. Arguably it is more a consistency of mood than genre, given that it rarely rocks out in the ways that they later afforded themselves, but their sultry Kentucky twangcore does embrace languid Beach Boys harmonies and reggae among other appropriated musical tinges. The tempo is invariably unhurried and spacious, all reverb and humid ambience - there is a palpable sense of Kentucky's electrically-charged summer air - even if the sound is a little more polished than that of its successor.

Once again, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 86
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Asking For Flowers

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Kathleen Edwards

Release Date April 28, 2008
After Failer and its follow-up Back to Me, Canada's finest has truly delivered with an exceptional and varied offering. Edwards has been likened to Lucinda Williams and Flowers compares favourably with the classic Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. With such an unusual voice, excellent backing musicians and an ability to write clever, accessible story songs, she hits the mark again and again on the album. Everyone will have their own favourites but the opener, Buffalo, showcases Edwards' unique voice backed by piano and strings. Oh Canada, a scathing attack on her own people as they bury their collective heads in the sand faced with the world's problems, rocks out with more than a cap doffed to Neil Young, whilst I Make the Dough is the most 'country' track but transcends the ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 87
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Heartaches and Highways - The Very Best of Emmylou Harris

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Emmylou Harris

Release Date July 18, 2005
I always had a problem with Country as a youngster, growing up as I did in a working class English town and hooked on Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Sabbath. Though I could listen to Johnny Cash, some of the female country stars of the time (Tammy Wynette etc) really grated on me.

I bought this collection on a whim while working out in California a couple of years ago. This was the first time I really listened to her as a recording artist in her own right, though I was familiar with her work with Gram Parsons and her excellent backing vocals on Dylan's Desire.

I must say that this album blew me away. Her voice is totally exquisite and it is little wonder that her talents been in such demand over the years. Though The Grateful Dead first introduced ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 88
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American V: A Hundred Highways

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Johnny Cash

Release Date July 03, 2006
This is a masterpiece, this is how records should be done, crisp sounds, a great and passionate voice, an intensity that is difficult to see in other records. I think this is his best performance ever, too bad he was not there to listen to it. His version of "Further up on the road" is just unbelievable, I think Springsteen might have cried when he listened to it. Similarly "four strong winds" is really good and better, for example, than Neil Young's version on Comes a Time.
A record that will make you cry, with passion and soul. I don't give 5 stars easily but this is just too good.

CD-Charts Position 89
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The Shepherd's Dog

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Iron and Wine

Release Date September 24, 2007
South Carolina-born, Texas-based Sam Beam's third studio album as Iron And Wine is one which has split his fanbase right through the middle. Described by some fans as comperable to 'when Dylan went electric', The Shepherd's Dog is the sound of an artist evolving, expanding, creating and refusing to be defined by his previous work - and it's wonderful. Always interesting, this piece of work gathers folk influences ranging from the late 60s/early 70s (Simon & Garfunkel, Tim Buckley, Nick Drake) to the contemporary (Elliott Smith) and combines them with a vision of the unlimited and unconstrained, both in terms of structure and instrumentation, resulting in a dizzying dozen tracks of intriguing artistry inspired by, according to Sam Beam, "political confusion".

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CD-Charts Position 90
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Mercy Now

CD-Charts > Music > Country
by: Mary Gauthier

Release Date February 14, 2005
This woman has lived! The songs here deal with such a wide range of deep, at times dark, material. The atmosphere of the album is with you in the first few notes, and its the type of CD that really won't let go. Listen to this late at night when you're prepared to think about the lyrics. Some of these great songs got in my head straight away.

I would buy this again without any hesitation.