Cory Graves
This Week, Maren Morris Was Everyone's Hero.
Each week, we take a survey of the local music scene and try to determine which acts in town are really putting in work and seeing it pay off. Which bands have the most intriguing shows coming up? Which bands are getting the most press around town? Which bands have accomplished the most notable feats of late? Based off these criteria, our music writers submit a list to be weighted and compiled into a master list revealed each week in this here space. We like to think it's fairly revealing. Check out our previous Buzz Rankings here.
After making her Opry debut last week, local expat Maren Morris continued racking up the good press ahead of the release of her major label debut album tomorrow. What kind of press, you ask? Well, the New York Times called her Hero LP “the canniest country record in recent memory,” and Rolling Stone called her “country's breakout star.”
Pretty high praise! Enough to earn Morris her third No. 1 in our weekly, local music power rankings, for sure.
Other list-makers earned their spots this week thanks in part to their own album releases and/or release shows this weekend, including Charley Crockett, Leoncarlo, Daniel Markham and Quaker City Night Hawks, which will do two release shows for its third LP at Lola's.
Morris also drew several comparisons to similarly buzz-y Kacey Musgraves due to her inclination towards making smart country and dropping four-letter words. Musgraves, meanwhile, announced this week not only a Christmas album is in the works, but that she'll be doing a free show at the State Fair of Texas this fall, which delighted several outlets around town.
The other big story of the week is Lift to Experience's pair of reunion shows, the second of which will be the last-ever set performed at the soon-to-be-shuttered Rubber Gloves. Tons of other buzzy bands are playing the venue's three-day last hurrah, including Slobberbone and Record Hop.
Elsewhere: The Toadies announced two new beers; Leon Bridges performed in the crowd at Sasquatch!; and War Party premiered a new video.
(Also receiving votes: Rat Rios, Curtis Mayz, Polyphonic Spree, DJ Sober, Snow Tha Product, Oil Boom, FXXXXY, Pale Dian, Mountain of Smoke, LEV, BigHand/BigKnife, VVOES, Crit Life, True Widow, Nervous Curtains, Poor Bastard Sons, Dorrough, Pareidolia, Lord Byron, Azalea Project, Buffalo Black, Marked Men, Spooky Folk, Devy Stonez, New Science Projects, Hogpig, Vincent Neil Emerson, Sur Duda, Somebody's Darling, Cut Throat Finches.)
