Angry Birds Star Wars was highly praised last year, as Rovio and Lucasfilm managed to merge both universes sans any creative compromises. Angry Birds Star Wars II comes forth with huge pressure to continue the franchise's prodigious momentum. Though it's a given this app will be bring in even more financial success to both parties, is the Force truly with our feathered heroes? Or have these birds finally crash landed into the Dark Side of complacency?
Ash Bowers is the perfect voice for his new single 'Shake It Off.' The Tennessee native sings with true grit. His working class upbringing comes through on this song about "shaking off" troubles holding you down.
Hunter Hayes' duet with Jason Mraz is his fifth single release from his self-titled debut album and its repackaging. But 'Everybody's Got Somebody But Me' still manages to show something new to those who haven't bought it. It's a change of pace from the heavy ballads and the more intense country-rocker 'I Want Crazy.' This is the most fun he's been since 'Storm Warning.'
The most important thing a new artist can do is quickly distinguish themselves, and Brothers Osborne do that on their debut single 'Let's Go There.' While not a great lyric, their vocal sound and the bluesy arrangement make this a track to keep coming back to.
Charlie Worsham's debut album is about as splashy as a summer drought -- but that's not his style. The Mississippi-born instrumentalist puts his schooling to work on 'Rubberband,' an album that will compete for the best debut effort of 2013.
Morgan Frazier's new single 'Hey Bully' is a neat and tidy soundtrack for an anti-bullying PSA. The singer shares a story she seems intimately familiar with, but the scattered lyrics don't quite latch on as tightly as one hopes.
Jason Michael Carroll pulls back the production to reveal a new sensitivity in his single 'Close Enough.' The singer has a unique way of taking a phrase and turning, twisting and shaping it to mean several different things within a three-minute song. It's a talent that's on display once again during this regret-filled ballad.
There's an easy sweetness to American Young's harmonies. On their debut single 'Love Is War,' the duo does more than just mirror one another. Jon Stone and Kristy Osmunson are two distinct, yet compatible halves of a truly unique piece of country fruit.
Luke Bryan plays it safe on 'Crash My Party,' his new album and the follow-up to the tremendously successful 'Tailgates and Tanlines.' With the exception of the infusion of hip-hop on two songs, there is little to differentiate the two projects.
The familiar shuffle that has held down so many of Dierks Bentley's best songs is back in a brand new way on 'I Hold On,' the new single from the upcoming 'Riser' album. Instead of a locomotive guitar, it's the bass that drives this uptempo track about love, faith and family.
It's almost unfair to call 'Bakersfield' a Vince Gill and Paul Franklin album, because there are so many other skilled musicians who add an important solo, fill or backbeat to the 10-song project. Often when so much talent fills a room, egos bump like elephants at feeding time. But there's space for everyone on this project.
'Don't Let Me Be Lonely,' the third single from the Band Perry's 'Pioneer' album, is thematically similar to their biggest hit, but few will confuse this song with 'If I Die Young.' The latest track may not be as instantly catchy, but it's every bit the sharp songwriting effort the cut from the trio's debut album was.