Opinion & Commentary

You’ve got to give it up for Aaron Watson. Throughout his long and storied career as a Texas country chart topper, he’s always managed to stay true to himself. Standing in stark contrast to Texas country’s rowdier, more party-driven elements, Watson has carved himself out a unique niche. In the…

The bigger police unions in Dallas are criticizing the president of the Dallas black police union for sucking up to the chief of police, who is black. So, wait. I’m from Detroit. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t get. Before we get into the stuff about sucking up, remind me…

My idols have never really been of the pop star variety. The Taylor Swifts and Beyoncés of the world seem too put together, too F-L-A-W-L-E-S-S, for someone with my level of neurosis to find them relatable. I gravitated to the morose and self-aware lyrics of Morrissey and the tales of…

We’ve all been there before: You plan your night around a show in Deep Ellum, meet up with your friends, grab pre-game drinks and carefully figure out what time you need to show up to catch the openers. But then things get awkward. Doors were at 7:00. You get there…

First of all, I hope you will at least extend me the courtesy of accepting that I do not want to see the city of Dallas swept away to Galveston on the foaming teeth of a tsunami, especially if it involves me being up there on the teeth in any…

In the past few years, the Dallas music scene has been fortunate enough to watch some of its brightest stars take their rightful place in the national music conversation. The success of St. Vincent and Leon Bridges has shined a light on a scene that has long been better than…

Tonight is going to be a big night in Dallas. For the first time ever, there’s a Selena tribute band out of Austin called Bidi Bidi Banda coming to town to play Annette Strauss Square at the AT&T Performing Arts Center and it’s the best thing happening in Dallas this week…

Machismo is the ticket to a very successful country music career, and that’s the way that it’s always been. Despite myriad contributions from trailblazing female artists, it is always the men who are remembered, especially in country music. Just look at the reverence reserved for Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings,…

Everything’s bigger in Texas, and when it comes to the State Fair that’s doubly true. Whether it’s the fried cholesterol on a stick, the cattle and pig pageants, the Ferris wheel or Big Tex himself, the fair’s motto might as well be “Go Big or Go Home.” Except in one…

You’ve probably already heard from every music media outlet on the planet that Dallas’ own patron saint of indie-pop, St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, made an appearance back in her hometown last week. She wasn’t playing an intimate show or recording an album — she was at Resident Taqueria serving…

This time of year, pretty much anyone with any taste in music is looking toward Austin. If you consider yourself a true music nerd, you’re probably still recovering from the first weekend of Austin City Limits, arguably the city’s best music festival. No doubt, there is some thrill in seeing…

Late last week Erykah Badu dropped a remix of Drake’s club banger “Hotline Bling,” and it was every bit as bonkers as we could’ve hoped it to be. Cover song aren’t usually Badu’s thing, but c’mon, her son Seven Benjamin (of Andre 3000 lineage) even had a co-writing credit …

As the indisputable king of country music, George Strait is still riding high after his farewell to life on the road in the summer of 2014 in Dallas. The show at AT&T Stadium was sort of the end of an era, twenty-plus years of Strait selling out stadiums across the…

It’s October in Texas, which means only one thing: festival season. With it comes the eternal question for Dallas music fans: Will I go to Austin, and if so, for which festival? Today kicks off the first of back-to-back weekends for Austin City Limits, with Fun Fun Fun Fest set to…

Six Shooter is a recurring feature where we highlight six new releases by North Texas based musicians with some extra ammo to spare. Yesterday we announced voting for the 27th Annual Dallas Observer Music Awards is now open. If you’ve been keeping up with Six Shooter you’re probably familiar with…

Very rarely do the paths of the Great White Way and Nashville cross, but they certainly have in Dallas. Following its world premiere at the Dallas Theater Center, Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical is poised to make its way to Broadway. Propelled by an all-star cast, including American Idol alum…

For the past couple months, the indie music blogosphere has been practically buzzing at the prospect of everyone’s favorite mop-haired and melancholy singer, Ryan Adams, releasing a song-by-song cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989. In the beginning, most people just assumed that Adams was playing a big practical joke on the…

Selena fandom is serious business. Ever since the beloved Latino singer’s tragic death 20 years ago, the devotion of her fans has reached the level of cult status and then some. From homemade art to full-on festivals and even lookalike contests, there are no tributes that are too good or…

It was 25 years ago, almost exactly to this week, that Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard country charts. With it, the Oklahoma native shot into a realm of popularity and success that country music hadn’t seen before — or since, for…