Music >>

• Best Local Rock Dust-Up
  The Alcohol Stuntband vs. Jennifer Herrema
  When former Royal Trux member (and, we are obliged to mention, former supermodel) Jennifer Herrema brought her band RTX to Springwater, a rowdy show was perhaps to be expected. But this night got downright weird. While openers The Alcohol Stuntband were a few songs into their set, Herrema began... More >>
• Best Name Change
  The Titts
  Back in July, local sleaze-rockers The Titts looked up from their nether regions long enough to consider a name change that might eventually catapult them into worldwide success, or at least mainstream radio play. They wanted something that retained all the charm of the jugg-ular but kept their... More >>
• Best Country Album (2 Comments)
  That Lonesome Song, Jamey Johnson
  Johnson has been roundly celebrated for bringing outlaw back, partly because he's the first male country singer in ages who doesn't sound like he ends each evening at 10 p.m. by saying his prayers and tucking his loving, well-behaved kids into bed. Sure, the rowdy fellow has a drink or two, and... More >>
• Best Place to See New Music
  8 off 8th
  For more than three years now, the Mercy Lounge and BMI's 8 off 8th series has been the best game in town for free live music. Virtually a right of passage, 8 off 8th is where bands have their coronation onto the local scene. The weekly event gives both newcomers and established local acts alike... More >>
• Best New Songwriters' Club (2 Comments)
  Norm's River Roadhouse
  Norm's isn't a place you stop on the way to or from somewhere else. Located out on River Road Pike, on five acres next to the Cumberland River, it features a back-to-nature setting and an intimate room that seats only 35. The focus is on rough-hewn acoustic poets rather than the Music Row pros... More >>
• Best New-Model Country Star
  Taylor Swift
  With its loyal fans and splinter-proof radio stations, country music fought off the erosion of album sales well after rock 'n' roll suffered a mighty defeat. But eventually Music Row had to signal its own retreat, and who among them would have guessed that their knight in shining armor would be... More >>
• Best New Bluegrass Act
  The Steeldrivers
  New bluegrass bands packed with virtuosos appear annually, and the Steeldrivers are no different: Banjoist Richard Bailey, bassist Richard Fleming, guitarist Mike Henderson and fiddler Tammy Rogers give the band instant credibility with a talent-rich lineup. But most new bluegrass bands struggle... More >>
• Best Local Band Sticker
  Danger Bear
  The problem with most band stickers is that they just say the name of the band. But if the person looking at your sticker has never heard of Six Parts Seven or Neva Dinova or whatever—or doesn't even know those are bands—you're really not communicating with anyone but the converted.... More >>
• Best Local Rock Dandy
  Jon Burr of How I Became the Bomb
  A glistening pinky ring. A lithe coif of wavy blonde hair. White leather shoes with tiny gold buckles and occasionally even a spacesuit. These aren't the adornments of a West Hollywood pimp, but rather those of How I Became the Bomb frontman Jon Burr—and aside from the Bomb's synth-heavy,... More >>
• Best Major Label Signing
  Little Big Town to Capitol
  Three years ago, Little Big Town shook up country music's conservative formulas with stunning harmony arrangements and a musical breadth incorporating funk rhythms and a classic-rock influence that sounded inventive instead of clumsy. Surprisingly, country radio went against type and embraced... More >>
• Best Album by a Music Critic
  Mission Door, Peter Cooper
  Readers of Cooper's Tennessean articles would expect literacy and adventure in his lyrics and an Americana tilt to his musical choices. But with a lived-in voice and the wisdom to recruit steel-guitar master Lloyd Green to help with arrangements, Cooper proves to be as musical as he is lyrical... More >>
• Best Folk Album by a Country Artist
  Coal Kathy Mattea
  Mattea always drew on folk music as an influence—something country stars could get away with in the '80s. Since going indie six years ago, she has steadily moved deeper into acoustic music, and with Coal, she makes a quantum shift into hardcore traditional sounds and blue-collar social... More >>
• Best Club Act Nominated for a Grammy
  The Time Jumpers
  The best live country act in Nashville, the Jumpers were accustomed to filling the Station Inn with celebrities and the city's elite musicians for their Monday night swingfests. But this group of top session players hadn't realized how far their reputation had spread until they received two 2008... More >>
• Best Resurgent Movement
  House Parties
  With a local club scene that's often criticized for lacking crowds, why expand the city's offerings with living-room shows? That's easy: House concerts provide a less formal, more immediate way to connect to the music that moves you. Whether it's rockers shaking the windows at a crash house near... More >>
• Best Musician's Autobiography
  Society's Child, Janis Ian
  Like her songs, Ian's frank autobiography pulls no punches with a tight, power-packed narrative that balances literary quality with soap-opera dramatics. Her story carries more than its share of shocking Behind the Music details about the artist getting screwed by business suits and abused by... More >>
• Best Comeback
  Carlene Carter
  For years, Carter struggled with a drug addiction that took her lover, Howie Epstein of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and other close friends. Her sister Rosie died of similar means, within months of the passing of her mother, June Carter Cash, and stepfather Johnny Cash. Her recovery came... More >>
• Best Career Evolution by a '90s Local Rocker
  Matthew Ryan
  Ryan's anthemic roots-rock seemed to have him heading for the big-time when A&M Records enthusiastically signed the gruff young singer and songwriter in 1997. But like most every other worthy rocker of his generation, he got stuck in the gears of the demoralizing machine. But he slipped away... More >>
• Best Place to Be an Asshole
  Nashville Cream
  Ever have trouble fighting the urge to say something truly asinine? Do you wish there was a place where you could fully explain how superior your tastes are? Let me tell you about a magical piece of cyberspace called Nashville Cream, the Scene's music blog. Through the comments section, you're... More >>
• Best Life-Threatening Concert
  Monotonix at Springwater
  You know those shows that, afterward, you feel lucky to have been there? After the Monotonix show at Springwater back in June, everyone was fortunate to catch a badass band deliver a badass show, and, more importantly, no one got hurt. At a Monotonix show, you have to keep your wits about you.... More >>
• Best Local Release
  Glass Elevator by MEEMAW
  The Glass Elevator EP by MEEMAW opens with the line "Well, I'm gonna kick your ass on the Fourth of July," but the record has proven to be a year-round ass-kicker. Like legendary punk records before it, Glass Elevator is stripped of polish—the drums thud, the guitar is shrill and the bass... More >>
• Best Local Rock Record to Come out of Nowhere
  Cheap Time
  Nashville music biologists struggle to find the origin point of the rich-kid punk nebula that encompasses bands like JEFF, the now-defunct Be Your Own Pet, Turbo Fruits and, eventually, Cheap Time—the groups have shared members, branched off and mutated so often that they've almost earned... More >>
• Best Album to Establish a Band's Cohesive Sound
  The Feeler, Ghostfinger
  2005's These Colors Run was a hell of an album to follow, but its manic genre-jumping didn't lend it cohesion. With the release of this year's The Feeler, Ghostfinger's mustachioed mastermind Richie Kirkpatrick has honed in on a sound he's sticking with, and it falls somewhere between Gram... More >>
• Best Secret Show
  Metallica at The Basement
  Do I really need to write any more than that? This might feel a bit like salt in the wound, since it's never fun to hear that the party you weren't invited to was totally awesome. (Not that I would know since, ahem, I wasn't invited, either.) But if you don't believe it, you can find clips on... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop Tape For Your Next Gatorade Binge
  Young Buck, Cashville Takeover
  There are few 21st century music trends that get my goat more than the "artist-as-omnipresent-brand" bullshit that the industry is so enamored with right now. Frankly, we like our artists to make music, not sports drinks. One of the biggest offenders is Curtis "Vitamin Water" Jackson, a.k.a. 50... More >>
• Best Press Kit (Cyberspace Edition)
  Combined Visions
  There are a lot of promoters around town that could learn a lesson or two from Tyzayh Gold-Kiser and the Combined Visions crew. Setting up a show-specific website with well-designed artwork, easy-to-find information and a plethora of multimedia that's simple and eloquent wins a lot more points... More >>
• Best Hipster Duo That Isn't JEFF The Brotherhood
  Jensen Sportag
  Sure, one group plays gloriously unwashed stoner-punk and the other plays slick, spaced-out future funk—but who else in town can rally Nashville's capris-worshipping hipster set so effectively? The White Stripes? Pshaw. And I'm not saying this just because they're the only people in the... More >>
• Best Under-Reported Music Story
  Magic Wands
  So, did you hear the gossip about Magic Wands and their disaster-prone attempt to get out of the country and play at the U.K.'s Glastonbury Festival? No? Oops—our bad. But you heard that they spent most of August recording their debut with the knob-twiddler behind Santogold's stellar... More >>
• Best Place To Dap Dip, Jungle Strut or Simply Shake Your Butt
  Funky Good Time
  They get funky monthly and if you don't know, ya better ask somebody. The single most enjoyable monthly party in town, FGT pulls its sounds and style from a broad spectrum of influences and creates a classy, casual vibe that comes as a welcome relief from most of the yuppified, meet-market... More >>
• Best Door Guy (1 Comment)
  Bobby, Mercy Lounge
  Mercy Lounge's door guy, Bobby, is as pleasant and jovial as he is massive. That's great news, because the last thing you want from a dude that could bust you open like a bag of CornNuts is a deficient sense of humor. Unlike many bouncers in town—who take their jobs much too seriously and... More >>
• Best Upcoming Country Star
  Sarah Buxton
  Music Row insiders pass around Buxton's demos faster than record business gossip. A former local club rocker, Buxton has evolved into a raspy-voiced country rocker whose songwriting sparkles with personality. Breaking through the usual careful country sentiments, she creates forward-looking... More >>
• Best Off-the-Row Country Act
  The Wrights
  Hardworking husband-and-wife duo Adam and Shannon Wright keep bucking convention with two album releases within a year, both wholly different from each other, and both wholly different than anything else currently going on in Nashville or country music. This year's covers album, In the... More >>
• Best Measure of Your Band's Notoriety (4 Comments)
  Gumby Dancing Onstage
  Since John Bruton helms two of the city's most popular venues—The Cannery Ballroom and adjoining Mercy Lounge—he sees so many bands they're bound to blur together. But that doesn't mean that he can't appreciate a good one when he sees it. In the past few months, his enthusiasm has... More >>
• Best Americana Debut
  The Good Life, Justin Townes Earle
  For his full-length debut, the enigmatic young Earle settled on a mix of vaudevillian debauchery and cheeky Texas swing, only occasionally slipping into the self-examining, singer-songwriter tones of his father Steve and his other namesake, Townes Van Zandt. The jaunty, upbeat style serves as a... More >>
• Best Arena Rock Show
  Bruce Springsteen at Sommet Center
  Convincing yourself to drop serious scratch on an arena rock show can be an understandably tough sell. Long lines followed by more long lines, the uncomfortable seating/standing area, the drunken idiot who keeps spilling beer on you—and just where the hell are you going to find a parking... More >>
• Best Closing Bar We Never Went To
  Bar Twenty3
  We actually did hit Bar Twenty3 a few times over the years, and we peered across the patio every time we attended City Hall. With its velvet ropes, permanently reserved tables and beefy bartenders, it was like living in Los Angeles all over again, only without the star power. It ain't what you'd... More >>
• Best Neighborhood in Need of a Bar
  Germantown
  Coffee shop, check. Hair salon, check. Delicious restaurants, check. Gourmet chocolatier, coming soon. Historic Germantown has several of the necessary ingredients for a successful neighborhood cocktail (and even some not so necessary) but the straw that stirs the drink of neighborhoodliness is... More >>