Brad Paisley

Dear Mama: A Mother's Day Hip-Hop Playlist

This Sunday is Mother's Day. (Yes, we're sure. Yes, there's still time to get her something.) And what better way to thank the person who brought you into this world than with the gift of music? Few genres have dedicated as many songs to the importance of mothers and mother-figures as hip-hop, but i ... More >>

The Ten Best Concerts in NYC This Week, 4/29/13

Kim Gordon, ?uestlove, Andrew Bird and Andrew W.K. walk into a Masonic Temple ... these are the 10 best shows in NYC this week.

LET'S DUET

A night of musical collisions

How to Spot Hollywood's Nonthreatening Black Man (NTBM)

Rand Paul Addresses Rightbloggers, Who Receive Him Well, Despite All Those Black People Getting in the Way

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul spoke at historically black Howard University last week, and it was a major event. No, he didn't seem to win any black votes for the GOP -- even his fans admit as much. But white people of the rightblogger variety were all over it, and that's what counts. Some ... More >>

The Real Conversation Started by "Accidental Racist" Is in the Comment Section of CNN

Yeah, Brad Paisley's "Accidental Racist" may not be a perfect song. It might not be a totally inoffensive or non-hilarious song. But, dangit, Brad Paisley and LL Cool J were just trying to start a conversation. "I felt like when we were writing this song," Paisley told Ellen DeGeneres, "it wasn't n ... More >>

Five Other Failed Rap/Country Experiments

The hubbub this week regarding Brad Paisley and LL Cool J's controversial duet "Accidental Racist" has, among other things, given a sign that the world might still not be ready yet for a full blown country and hip-hop crossover. While rap has been above an attempted crossover, no matter how poorly c ... More >>

How to Make Sense of Brad Paisley and LL Cool J's "Accidental Racist"

You might think progressive-minded social-critic types would cheer a development as unlikely as America's top male country star releasing a song that pleas for racial understanding, acknowledges the failings of our nation's founders, and features a black man rapping "Just because my pants are saggin ... More >>

Jason Aldean Stops in NYC: One Hip-Hop Fan's Terrifying First Country Show

I had no idea who Jason Aldean was when I was asked to cover his sold-out Night Train tour. I'm a hip-hop head and aside from seeing Taylor Swift one time live -- she was awesome, by the way -- country is probably my least favorite genre right behind Gregorian chanting and Broadway show tunes. So of ... More >>

Brad Paisley Tells Country Audiences There's Nothing Wrong With White Folks Becoming the Minority

Every couple weeks, starting now, the Voice takes a hard listen to the music in which millions of Americans soak. Brad Paisley, "Southern Comfort Zone" Current Billboard Country Singles Chart Position: 10 The Verdict: Holy shit, songs on the radio can still be important! So, here, in a shimmering ... More >>

Live: Wade Bowen Brings Texas Country To Joe's Pub

Wade Bowen Joe's Pub Wednesday, August 22 Better than: Happy hour, commuting home, whatever else you'd be doing at 7:30. "We ain't in West Waco, Texas anymore." If you live in New York, you hear something similar at nearly every county music show you go to, but last night at Joe's Pub, where Wade ... More >>

Deftones: Here Comes the Rain

Offering a master class in outperforming a storm

Zac Brown Band Stretches Country's Limits (And Its Legs) On Uncaged

Country music has never had a simple relationship with Mexico. While outlaws like Waylon Jennings once warned that there "ain't no God" on the other side of the border, Tim McGraw more recently took the opposing position, suggesting that God in fact created the country, but only as a place for trapp ... More >>

Live: Brad Paisley Keeps It Real At Jones Beach

Brad Paisley w/ The Band Perry and Easton Corbin Jones Beach Friday, June 1 Better than: Going to a show where an aging radio host plays out his mid-life crisis by telling me what music I can and can't listen to. He spent the '90s as a Nashville newcomer attempting to close the decade with his fir ... More >>

THIS IS 

COUNTRY MUSIC

Brad Paisley and the Band Perry headline the first Jones Beach event of the year

TEARDROPS 
ON HIS GUITAR

Glen Campbell says goodbye to NYC

The Band Perry, Taylor Swift Win Big At Last Night's Country Music Awards

Last night, country music's biggest stars (not to mention welcome outsiders like Lionel Richie and Kenny Loggins, who joined Male Vocalist of the Year Blake Shelton for a performance of "Footloose") convened in Nashville for the CMA's annual awards show. By the time hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Un ... More >>

Q&A: Michael Cumella Talks Old Records And His "Antique Phonograph Music Program"

Mac, at home with one of his most loyal listeners​ As even Brad Paisley has pointed out, we live today in something like the future. The past few years of continuously shrinking computers and continuously growing cities seem to suggest that he might be on to something. Then again, we still hav ... More >>

Summer Guide: Don't Take Brad Paisley to the Airport Strip Club

The country star likes six strings, not G-strings. Plus, summer music picks

This Week in the Voice: Catch the Summer Arts Guide

​What is there to do in sizzling hot New York City? Everything, of course! This week's issue of the Voice is jam-packed with everything you need to know to have the best summer ever. Also, Steven Thrasher gives us the story of the Hebrew Language Academy, a public charter school in Brooklyn wh ... More >>

This Week In The Voice: Lady Gaga, Kate Bush, EMA, And Brad Paisley

​In the music section of this week's Village Voice, available all around the New York metropolitan area: Rich Juzwiak gives the once-over to Lady Gaga's Born This Way and Kate Bush's Director's Cut; Theon Weber looks at the hazy world of EMA's Past Life Martyred Saints; and Mikael Wood talks t ... More >>

Yes, I 'Actually' Like It

More music to love, loathe, fear, and tragically fail to avoid

Bulls on Parade: Live From MSG's Arena Rock Rodeo

Where the soundtrack is more Jock Jams than Red State

The 1000TimesYes Top 100: The Top 100 2009 Records Of A Guy Who Listened To More Records Than You

You know, we actually have other shots of Chris, he just won't let us use them. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​As a guy who plausibly could claim he listened to more music than anyone in the last year short of Robert Christgau, 1000TimesYes's Christopher R. Weingarten seemed like the ideal guy to as ... More >>

Thanksgiving Playlist 2009: 100-Plus Songs Better Than Your Grandma's Lumpy Squash

Two years ago, William Bowers compiled this playlist. Any further additions? This holiday's abstract mandate can be sorta barren for us patriotically-challenged atheist vegetarians who maintain cosmic equidistance from our bloodkin. The term for it is even weird: "Thanksgiving" is a syntactical c ... More >>

Definitely Not CMJ: Brad Paisley Gets Metrosexual At Madison Square Garden

Karen BlakelyAt the Grand Ole Opry, which is just like MSG, when you think about it. CREDIT.​Brad Paisley/Dierks Bentley Madison Square Garden Thursday, October 22 Today's lecture topic is manhood. "There are no sissies in New York," Brad Paisley declares, bantering in the midst of "I'm Still ... More >>

This Week's Voice: 50 Cent's The 50th Law, Brad Paisley, Bob Dylan, Where the Wild Things Are, the Andy Williams Memoir, and More

Who moved my cheese? Illustration by Shane Harrison.​In this week's Village Voice, Rob Harvilla reads 50 Cent's surreally insightful self-help book, The 50th Law: "This book is actually kind of sad, in the bleakness of its cutthroat, shoot-nine-times-or-be-shot-nine-times worldview. Trust no o ... More >>

Michael Buble Knocks Paramore Clear Out of the Top 10

​This week in completely joyless chart news: International cipher Michael Buble sells a whopping 132,000 copies in three days to knock Barbra Streisand out of the number one spot; Kiss, whose Walmart-exclusive Sonic Bomb sold 108K, take #2; and Toby Keith's American Ride (not to be confused wi ... More >>

Brad Paisley Is Ready to Make Nice

A country star critics can love, with Obama-era tendencies Music Row can tolerate

News Roundup: Sonic Youth, Evan Dando, Jeff Hanson, Live Nation

--Tomorrow night, Sonic Youth will play the Apple Store in SoHo, by way of promoting their new album The Eternal, which comes out on Tuesday. The show is free, but you need a guest pass to attend. They can be picked up today at the SoHo store, with one non-transferable pass per fan on a first come, ... More >>

Brad Paisley Salutes Great Women, Guitarists, Puns

Sweet Twang

Brad Paisley channels his inner stand-up comedian

Country-Rap: A Secret History

The Academy of Country Music Awards: A Running Diary

The Grammy Awards: A Running Diary

Provincializm #16: Thank-Rock Playlist

The CMAs: A Running Diary

Sailin' On

Bad Brains on a boat—as absurd as it sounds, but thankfully much better, too

Academy of Country Music Awards: A Running Diary

The CMA Awards: A Running Diary

Offend in Every Way

Shooter Jennings de-sissifies modern country, wearily and warily

The Quarterly Report: Status's Favorite New Singles

Country Superstar Brad Paisley Gives New York Another Try

Backstage at the Country Music Awards

Men Like Them

Ignore the red states, red flags, and red herrings; Nashville’s less straight than you think

Tough Advice for Ellen, Angelina, and the Olsens

He's Got Reservations, but Not the Kind You Think

Enemy of Nashville Shakes Texas All Night Long

Brand New Men

Hillbilly Hunks Cope With Changing Gender Roles

Ah Know How To Undress Me

Sensitive Maleness in CMT's Countdown