- Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and Kacey Musgraves have been added as performers on the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards. Other performers on the January 26th show will include Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Sara Bareilles, Stevie Wonder, Katy Perry, P!nk, Robin Thicke and more. Blake Shelton will also perform as part of a special performance featuring Merle Haggard, 2014 Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. The show will be hosted live from Los Angeles by LL Cool J on CBS.
- You could win an all-expense paid trip to see Taylor Swift’s Red Tour in London by showing off your most brilliant Keds concert look. Now through January 26th you can log onto Keds’ Facebook page, like the page and submit a photo of you in clothes that you would wear to a Taylor Swift concert. The winner will receive a trip for four to London to see Taylor Swift in concert.
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Tim McGraw has unveiled part of his plan to bring new music to his fans in 2014. His brand new single, which will be the first release off his next album, will be called “Lookin’ for That Girl,” and it will be available on iTunes on January 21st, but you can get a first listen to it here thanks to Entertainment Weekly.
“This last year was unbelievable, and I don’t have any plans to let off the gas now. We didn’t want to waste any time getting new music out,” said Tim. “With every album, my approach is to push a few of my own boundaries and try things I’ve never done before. It was hard to choose a lead single off this project because I really felt like we had six or seven good options. I kept coming back to ‘Lookin For That Girl’ because even though it may be a little different for me sonically, I couldn’t get it out of my head!”
Tim has also announced he will launch the Sundown Heaven Town Tour (which is borrowed from a line in ‘Lookin’ for That Girl’) in May. He’ll hit the West Coast first and then visit 30 cities throughout the summer. Tickets for select cities will go on sale beginning January 24th through Megaticket.com. Get tour dates here.
- Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum will join Enrique Iglesias and John Legend as performers on the upcoming NBC special, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful. The two hour special will be hosted by former swimsuit cover model Heidi Klum and will feature some of the most famous faces who have appeared in the magazine’s swimsuit edition, including Tyra Banks, Christie Brinkley, Kathy Ireland, Marisa Miller and Kate Upton. Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful will air February 3rd at 9pm ET on NBC.
- Congratulations to Justin Moore who announced that he and his wife Kate are expecting their third child this summer. Justin has two daughters, Ella, who is 4 and Kennedy who is 2, and Justin told People, “We are so blessed that God has given us this gift for the third time.” While Justin would love to have a son, he says he just hopes for another healthy child, but he says, “Ella and Kennedy want a brother.”
- Brantley Gilbert just released his new single, Bottoms Up, which is his first new release in over four years. While the song was officially released to radio yesterday, Brantley made the song and the video, featuring 1930’s vintage to modern day party scenes, available to his fans back in December. The song quickly shot to #1 on the iTunes Country Singles Chart and the video has already been viewed over 1.2 million times on VEVO. Fans will have a chance to get a sneak preview of even more new music from Brantley when he kicks off his 22-city Let It Ride Tour on March 27th, with special guests Thomas Rhett and Eric Paslay. Get tour dates here.
- The NOW That’s What I Call Music franchise will be releasing a second installment of NOW That’s What I Call Country Ballads on January 21st. The CD will feature 18 of the biggest country ballads from the past several years from artists Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, The Band Perry, Eli Young Band and many others. The album will be available in stores and through digital music retailers.
- Jason Aldean will kick off the 2014 Burn It Down Tour on May 1st in Roanoke, Virginia. The tour will visit roughly 50 cities through the end of the year with Florida Georgia Line and Tyler Farr joining Jason as his openers. Part of the tour has Jason teaming up with Major League Baseball to visit baseball stadiums across the country, including Nationals Park (Washington, D.C.), Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia, PA), PNC Park (Pittsburgh, PA) and Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati, OH). Tickets for the Burn It Down Tour will go on sale beginning January 24th through Megaticket.com.
- The first ever iHeartRadio Country Festival has been unveiled and it will include a huge line-up of stars performing March 29th at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Florida Georgia Line, Eric Church, Lady Antebellum, Hunter Hayes, Carrie Underwood, Jake Owen and Dan + Shay,with more to be announced will all be part of the inaugural festival, which will be hosted by national radio host Bobby Bones and will be broadcast live on Clear Channel’s Country music radio stations and on iHeartRadio.com. Tickets for the first ever iHeartRadio Country Festival go on sale Saturday, January 18th at noon EST. For more information visitiHeartRadio.com/countryfestival.
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The Academy of Country Music is once again giving the fans the chance to vote for the finalists and the winner in the ACM Awards New Artist of the Year category. The eight semi-finalists as voted on by professional ACM members include BMLG’s Justin Moore and Thomas Rhett. The ACM is teaming up with Great American Country for the fan voting process, which will begin Tuesday, January 21st, through voteACM.com andGACTV.com/ACM. The fan votes will be combined with the professional membership votes to determine the three finalists and the winner, who will be announced during the ACM Awards on April 6th, live from Las Vegas. Great American Country will air several specials spotlighting the semi-finalists and finalists for the New Artist of the Year leading up to the awards, beginning with ACM Showcase, which will feature all eight semi-finalists. The special will debut on Monday, January 21st at 8pm EST.