The choices? Dolly Parton, David Cook, Limp Bizkit, Taking Back Sunday AND Beyonce. Oh, and Billy Ray Cyrus.
Let’s get Miley’s dad out of the way first. His new album out today is called “I’m American”. It is a collection of songs put together as a tribute to the US Armed Forces. And, believe it or not, DOES include an updated version of the Cyrus hit “Achy Breaky Heart”.
In the remake, you can hear the voices of Jamey Johnson, Craig Morgan and Darryl Worley of whom Cyrus says “Three guys that not only are they veterans themselves, but they also just sing with their voices and the power and the realism that they put into the song. For me as the writer, to hear them sing it was just absolutely an awesome experience.”
This isn’t the new version, but just for fun…
Dolly Parton, considered one of the most successful female artists of all time relases her 41st studio album “Better Day”.
Consider this “fun fact”- Dolly Parton has performed on a top-five country hit in each of the last five decades.
In addition to this new album release, Dolly is also working on her new movie ‘Joyful Noise’, set for release in 2012. The movie follows the story of two choir members who hold differing opinions on how to win a national competition.
There is a world tour planned and the album is described as having her usual mix of mainstream country, pop and bluegrass.
Season 7 American Idol champ David Cook releases his sophomore album “This Loud Morning” today. You may not know, but Cook is credited with a record-breaking 14 debuts on Billboard’s Digital Songs chart. His self-titled major-label debut album in November 2008 debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard album chart and spawned two Top 20 singles (the platinum “Light On” and “Come Back To Me”), it went on to sell more than a million copies, reaching platinum status.
In May of that year, Cook’s older brother, Adam, who had been fighting a battle with brain cancer, died of the disease. On December 2009, one day after the tour ended, Cook traveled to New York City to begin writing the songs that would become his second album, “This Loud Morning”.
Cook described the writing process for “This Loud Morning” as follows-
“I got off the road and all the things that happened that I hadn’t been dealing with while I was on the road reared their head, so as I began writing these songs that would eventually make up This Loud Morning, the act of using these songs as therapeutic outlets became a major release for me, and I think the end result is a bit of up, a bit of down, and a lot of honesty.”
It has been over 5 years since we have had a new Limp Bizkit album. This 13-track collection features guests such as Raekwon, KISS’s Gene Simmons and Lil Wayne. Fred Durst, lead singer for Bizkit has hinted in his recent tweets that “Gold Cobra” (the new album) is actually part 1 of a 2 part release.
I’ll admit that Taking Back Sunday IS one of my favorite bands. i’ve had a chance to interview them during theor stints on Warped Tour. Needless to say, I am excited about this collection of new music from the guys.
Fun fact? The album, titled simply “Taking Back Sunday”, was written in El Paso, Texas.
Another fun fact? Besides Linkin Park, Taking Back Sunday is the only other band to have a song in all three Transformers soundtracks. P.S. That new movie opens tomorrow.
Following her FANTASTIC headlining performance at Glastonbury over the weekend, Beyonce releases her 4th studio album titled “4” packed with a 12 song collection featuring the single “Run the World (Girls)” and collaboration with Andre 3000 from Outkast on “Party.”
After a secret performance following her Glastonbury appearance, Beyonce described the new album as “the best music I’ve ever made”.
The 12 songs appearing on the “4” release were chosen from over 60 songs that she recorded.
