Back to news 12/03/18

CHURCH, DIERKS, KACEY AND BROTHERS OSBORNE HAVE SOME OF ESQUIRE’S TOP 10 BEST COUNTRY ALBUMS OF THE YEAR.

CHURCH, DIERKS, KACEY AND BROTHERS OSBORNE HAVE SOME OF ESQUIRE’S TOP 10 BEST COUNTRY ALBUMS OF THE YEAR.
Artists
Brothers Osborne
Dierks Bentley
Eric Church
Kacey Musgraves

Esquire magazine released its list of the Top 10 Best Country Albums of 2018, and UMG Nashville has several on the list including Brothers Osborne’s Port Saint Joe (No. 7), Dierks Bentley’s The Mountain (No. 5), Kacey MusgravesGolden Hour (No. 4) and Eric Church’s Desperate Man (No. 2). Ashley McBryde’s Girl Going Nowhere, John Prine’s The Tree of Forgiveness and Pistol Annies’ Interstate Gospel were also on the list.

Kacey’s CMA Album of the Year, Golden Hour, summed up the last chapter of her life. “The title Golden Hour just seemed to sum up this chapter of my life perfectly. I mean not only am I from a town called Golden, Texas, but leading up to making this record, there’s been a lot of beauty in my atmosphere and in my world. I love the picture that pops in my head when I hear that title. It’s also an actual song on the record, but it’s just this warm, golden feeling that I’m really happy to have in my life, and I found it to be the perfect title for this record.”

Dierks took to the Rocky Mountain resort town of Telluride, Colorado, which every summer plays host to a celebrated bluegrass festival. Owing to his well-documented love of the genre, Bentley has attended the festival multiple times over the years, always making a point to slow down and tune back in to the world around him. But after performing on the festival’s main stage in 2017, the beautiful surroundings became more than a much-needed getaway, it reflected where he is in life; his past, present and future and the album reflected the happiness he felt.

“I think the unifying thread that runs through The Mountain would be just happiness and positivity, just a real kind of vibe of being grateful in the moment that you’re in, you know? The album really started off just as a tiny idea of something to do with the West,” says Dierks. “The album kind of wrote itself to be that story of just songs like ‘Living,’ ‘Can’t Bring Me Down’ and ‘The Mountain,’ just the vibe of just being really grateful and inspired by your surroundings and not just the mountain vibe, but the surroundings on the road too. The people that I meet on the road that are climbing their own personal mountains and the stuff they’re trying to overcome. I hear so many stories backstage at the Meet-and-Greets, and I was unknowingly inspired by those stories, and I think that gives the whole Mountain [album] a great metaphor between the actual mountains and the mountains people are pursuing in their own lives.”

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Audio / DIERKS BENTLEY TALKS ABOUT A UNIFYING THREAD THAT RUNS THROUGHOUT HIS NEW ALBUM, THE MOUNTAIN.

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Dierks Bentley (unifying thread in The Mountain) OC: …their own lives. 1:22
“I think the unifying thread that runs through The Mountain would be just happiness and positivity, just a real kind of vibe of being grateful in the moment that you’re in, you know? The album really started off just as a tiny idea of something to do with the West. I wasn’t sure if it was a sonic idea or some sort of lyric or an overall vibe, and I didn’t really know where to go. I just put it on the backburner and kept just doing what we were doing which was touring nonstop. I had some shows up there. I played a show, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June (2017) and it was just so inspiring and so fun, and I kinda had the idea to come back and write there and I did. I came back in August, then I came back and recorded there. That initial little idea I had, I thought I wasn’t going to work on that all, but it turns out I was just kind of in a back door way. And the album kind of wrote itself to be that story of just songs like ‘Living,’ ‘Can’t Bring Me Down’ and ‘The Mountain,’ just the vibe of just being really grateful and inspired by your surroundings and not just the mountain vibe, but the surroundings on the road too. The people that I meet on the road that are climbing their own personal mountains and the stuff they’re trying to overcome. I hear so many stories backstage at the Meet-and-Greets, and I was unknowingly inspired by those stories, and I think that gives the whole Mountain [album] a great metaphor between the actual mountains and the mountains people are pursuing in their own lives.”