The other possibility is that the genius shit will come not from within the niche markets but from without — especially from cred-free mainstream country. After all, despite its redneck/red-state veneer, there’s a reason country is one of the few growth markets in pop music. Luke Lewis points to Tim McGraw’s recent cover of Ryan Adams’s “When the Stars Go Blue,” one of the best Top Five hits on any Billboard chart. “I was out getting a sub sandwich the other day and the guy behind the counter said, ‘Don’t you have Ryan Adams on your label? I’d never heard of him until I heard this Tim McGraw song.’ ” Niche markets are fine, but the pop marketplace hasn’t lost its capacity to inspire wonder.
Related:
Turn the beat around, June tunes, E-hanging out, More 
- Turn the beat around
I do a lot of thinking about music. Coincidentally or not, I have a lot of friends who don’t, but get a kick out of the fact that I do.
- June tunes
Mark Twain once observed that it’s “better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.”
- E-hanging out
Uh, we definitely didn’t download any of the albums illegally and therefore can’t tell you that Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is Spoon’s finest work and a contender for album of the year.
- Willie Nelson
At a secure 73, Willie Nelson’s not about to change to please a hot young alt-country buck, his taut touring band, or the sizeable audience of hipsters they might bring along with them.
- Drive-By Truckers
According to the liner notes, these hard-living Southern rockers recorded most of their seventh album “within hours” of writing it in the studio.
- Easy, tiger
It’s been interesting to, however briefly, listen to songs I’ll likely still enjoy in twenty years.
- Junior miss
Former glam-rocker Jesse Malin’s 2003 solo debut not only offered proof that he could make it as a singer-songwriter — it was the best thing he’d put out.
- On the racks: July 18, 2006
Plus MSTRKRFT and Lily Allen
- Prolific
Ryan Adams’s transition from Whiskeytown frontman to solo artist wasn’t exactly smooth.
- Boston music news: March 23, 2007
Stepanian describes the band’s sound as “early Bruce Spingsteen meets Counting Crows and Ryan Adams."
- O, Canada!
You’d be forgiven for assuming that nothing’s been going on in Canada for the last few years beyond the interconnected shenanigans of that country’s indie-rock elite.
- Less
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