The last few days have been pretty cool for George Strait – since Saturday, the man has celebrated a birthday, scored his 60th number-one hit, and now tops the country album chart with his new release, Love Is Everything! This latest accomplishment is pretty substantial – consider this: Love Is Everything is King George’s 25th number-one country album, and the runners-up in the record books on that front are Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, who’ve each topped that chart 15 times. What’s more, this is George’s 18th Top 10 album on the overall Billboard Top 200 Albums chart (where it debuts at number-two). Only three other male artists – Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan – have scored more Top 10 Billboard albums. That’s some pretty impressive and revered company, to say the least!
- Last week’s number-one country album, Lady Antebellum’s new Golden, slips to number-two on the country chart this week.
George Strait, who tops the country album chart this week with Love Is Everything, tries to describe what he looks when choosing songs to record. (:14)
“You know, I think it’s…I’ve always said melody, I think, catches my ear first. And I think that’s true for most people. I don’t know exactly what it is that I look for in a song, but just…it’s hard to put my finger on.”
Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum talks about writing, finding and recording songs for the group’s new album, Golden. (:27)
“Knowing that, you know, we wanted to kind of continue to grow and…everybody says the word ‘evolve.’ But it’s true. We were all in different places. We had more to say, and…and so, not only did we write songs that we were really excited about that told a story that we were proud of, but we got pitched songs that were great, too. And so I think we just really relaxed into the process and…and in that relaxation it almost gave us more confidence to take some more risks.”
