Martina McBride - "Everlasting"

[bboat11]

Martina's new album of Soul and R&B covers is now available for listening here!

1) Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
2) Suspicious Minds
3) If You Don't Know Me By Now
4) Little Bit Of Rain
5) Bring It On Home To Me (feat. Gavin DeGraw)
6) Come See About Me
7) What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted
8) I've Been Loving You Too Long
9) Wild Night
10) In The Basement (feat. Kelly Clarkson)
11) My Babe
12) To Know Him Is To Love Him

My initial thoughts are extremely positive! The album has a very nice flow from beginning to end, and every single song has its own particular groove to it. There is also a very noticeable degree of vocal growth and maturation present in these recordings. I am loving everything on here so far; there is not anything I even slightly dislike. I will come back and do a more detailed posting later, but for now I want to hear what y'all think!

[Kentucky25]

Interesting that Gavin DeGraw has now done two duets with female country singers this year.

[someguy]

I've pre-ordered it from Amazon, so I'll wait until it comes to listen to it, but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm glad to see it getting positive reviews.

I had the same thought about Gavin. His pop career isn't really doing well right now, so I wonder if he's considering making a switch, especially after seeing how well Darius Rucker and Sheryl Crow are doing.

[Deleted]

I love her and I love the album. Her vocals are exquisite; she could sound great doing anything. "Suspicious Minds" and "Wild Night" are excellent, and "If You Don't Know Me By Now" and "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted" are enjoyable. "Come See About Me" and "In The Basement" are standouts - her and Kelly Clarkson should record together regularly. I love them both. I would have loved some huge ballad, but I know Martina wanted to do something nobody expected and I definitely enjoy the resulting track. I love how she emotes, and how you can hear her attitude through her vocals. Truly great vocalist. I can't wait to hear these songs live.

[someguy]

Hits has her selling 20-22K this week. Not amazing, but not a disaster by any means either.

[Deleted]

[someguy]

I finally listened to this today, and wow. So good. Martina sounds really at home singing these songs. On first listen, the uptempos ("My Babe", "In The Basement") are probably my favourites, but "Suspicious Minds", "If You Don't Know Me" and "To Know Him Is To Love Him" are excellent also. I read a review (I forget where) that said something to the effect that this album isn't Martina 'countrifying' R&B songs, but rather she is singing them as if she were an R&B singer. That's my impression as well, and I think she absolutely pulls it off. I hope she isn't doing singing mainstream country but, if she is, I like this new direction.

Oh also, I didn't realize that there was a deluxe addition, so I bought the two bonus songs on iTunes. Her cover of Pink's "Perfect" is amazing!

[Deleted]

Apr 13, 2014 13:39:01 GMT -5 someguy said:

I didn't realize that there was a deluxe addition, so I bought the two bonus songs on iTunes.

Target - but not Target Canada - has yet another version. They have two more bonus songs, "That's How Strong My Love Is" and "Baby What You Want Me To Do."

[someguy]

Apr 13, 2014 13:43:36 GMT -5 @dawson said:

Apr 13, 2014 13:39:01 GMT -5 someguy said:

I didn't realize that there was a deluxe addition, so I bought the two bonus songs on iTunes.

Target - but not Target Canada - has yet another version. They have two more bonus songs, "That's How Strong My Love Is" and "Baby What You Want Me To Do."

Thanks! I'll have to track them down. All of these different editions from different stores can get a bit frustrating! I wish there was an option to buy the bigger (complete) deluxe version. Business-wise, I get why they do it, but it can get a bit annoying.

[onebuffalo]

#1 country, #7 top 200 CD with 21,000 copies sold. Congratulations, Martina McBride!

[bboat11]

Apr 16, 2014 10:07:04 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

#1 country, #7 top 200 CD with 21,000 copies sold. Congratulations, Martina McBride!

Woohoo, go Martina!!! I know these high peaks are partly due to lucky timing since it was a fairly sparse release week, but I think she can definitely be happy with 21,000 copies selling considering the fact that she is no longer on a major label and has had very little promotion. With no singles, awards show slots, etc., this thing has pretty much sold based on name recognition and word of mouth, so I am very impressed with these numbers!

On the contrary, didn't "Eleven" sell 40-something thousand copies in the first week, and only chart at #4 for Country? I would say that was a pretty unlucky release week compared to this one

[Deleted]

Martina McBride Scores Historic #1

Martina McBride made history this week as the first solo female artist to debut at #1 on the Top Country Albums chart with an independently released and distributed album in the chart's 50-year history. The album Everlasting is also Martina's fifth #1 on the Top Country Albums chart. On Billboard 200, Everlasting debuted at #7, marking Martina's sixth Top 10 debut and her highest since 2007. Everlasting is Martina's first independent project on her new label Vinyl Recordings, marketed and distributed by Kobalt Label Services.

"Putting Everlasting out on my own label felt like a good decision. I've only been signed with two major labels, RCA and Republic Nashville, and have always had great relationships with them so making the change was not about that. But Kobalt has many of the elements of a major label and it just seemed like the right time to try a different business model. It is a lot of responsibility but exciting at the same time to be doing things a bit differently. We put together a great team to carry this project through," shares Martina.

[someguy]

The #1 is huge for her at this stage of the career. The fact that she can pull this off on her own, with no support from radio, is quite impressive. She has to be happy with the response to the project at this point.