Hi, my name is Brittany Ward and I am an Associate Music Supervisor at PlayNetwork. All kinds of music find their way to my ears, but I gravitate towards new sounds in rap, retro sounding R&B, pop and country music. Below are 3 albums that kept coming up for me throughout 2019.
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Artist: Young Thug
Track: Just How It Is
Twitter: @youngthug
For anyone that knows me, I am a fan of the Grammy award winning rapper Young Thug and so it’s likely not a surprise that So Much Fun is on my “best of” list. This is technically Thugger’s debut album, but he has been exploring sounds and releasing mixtapes for years, so this album feels more like a college senior year project turned in at the end of a long semester. He has perfected his sound and ideas so this album makes me happy from start to finish because it’s just so Young Thug.
Artist: Lil Nas X
Track: Old Town Road (Official Video) ft. Billy Ray Cyrus
Twitter: @LilNasX
Honestly, how can you argue that Lil Nas X had one of the biggest years in all of music—from breaking the record for longest running #1 on Billboard to starting a whole controversy over what is or isn’t country music. Well, Lil Nas X IS country music (at least this year) and his genre-bending abilities and range make for a truly easy listen with his 7 EP. He jumps into country music on obvious songs like “Old Town Road” and “Rodeo” (with an amazing feature from the one and only Cardi B), but also gets into grungy and punk sounding rock pop songs, even using an interpolation of a Nirvana song. He cites some of his country rap inspirations as Young Thug and the underrated Lil Tracy (once a Seattle local) so in my mind, he was always destined for greatness.
Artist: The Highway Women
Track: Redesigning Women
Twitter: @TheHighwomen
The Highwomen is a supergroup of four award-winning country singers: Washington state native Brandi Carlile, arguably one of the next biggest names in country pop Maren Morris, hit-song writer for huge country stars Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires who brought the group together after hearing a lack of women in country music on the radio. This is one of the most interesting albums overall in this genre in 2019—the political and humanitarian ideals in some of the songs bring up issues not often touched on in popular music (when the first song on an album makes your tear up, you know you’re in for a ride). There is not a skippable song on it because they are all so different with stylings all over the country spectrum from a modern day pop country vibe to vintage 70’s sounds to a direct rewrite of a song by 80’s country supergroup The Highwayman, which is a part of what originally inspired the group.
