Subject: Carrie Underwood

• Friday Chart Check

  April 27, 2007

• Chart Check

  May 10, 2007

• Country Music Awards

  May 16, 2007

• Drenched In Blog: Jack FM

  September 5, 2007

• One Small Step for Billboard, One Giant Debut for the Eagles

  November 7, 2007

• Houstonian Kady Malloy = Early American Idol Front-runner

  January 17, 2008

• The Blog of Lists: 25 Vegan Musicians

  April 25, 2008

• Roger Clemens Is Not Alone: More Famous Dalliances between Athletes and Entertainers

  May 1, 2008

• Texans-Cowboys: Yeah, It’s Only Preseason

  August 25, 2008

• Ten Performers Besides Bruce Springsteen Who Were Considered for the Super Bowl

  October 2, 2008

• Carrie On!

  The American Idol finals inspire Beatlemania-like frenzies on the Richmond Strip

  June 2, 2005

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: 2008's Heavy Rotation

  For the second (third?) year in a row, LOM didn't vote in either the Nashville Scene's best of country music poll or the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop best of American music poll. I'm just not a good list-maker. Detest that stuff. Just trying to compile a list of possibles makes my brain hate me. Anyway, I rarely get serviced by the major labels, and I don't listen to the radio stations that kowtow to the major labels, so I don't feel I have much context in which to wrestle with the important

  December 30, 2008

• American Idol Returns Tonight... Yawn

  Come back Kelly Clarkson, all is forgiven... If you've been lucky enough to spend the past several months in a media-deprivation tank - or maybe you just don't read the Houston Chronicle - then you no doubt know Fox's shrill-singing flagship series American Idol returns tonight at 7 p.m. (As opposed to its torture-sanctioning flagship series 24, which returned Sunday.) Rocks Off realizes many readers will greet this occasion by turning off their cell phones and instructing family members

  January 13, 2009

• Fight for Your Right

  June 4, 2009

• Idol Beat: The Top 11

  Photo by Ray Mickshaw / FOXPictured: Matt Giraud, exquisite gumline Traditionally, I've concluded the first Idol Beat of any given week with predictions as to who the American Idol judges or viewing public will send home the next night. This week I'm upending that, and predicting that no one will go home. That's right: all eleven of the remaining finalists are safe as houses. "But how is that even possible," you ask, you cry, you pound the sides of your PC monitor. Well, the judges have that

  March 18, 2009

• Unusual Suspects at The Usual

  Trackside bar welcomes amateur karaoke stars — and everybody else

  February 12, 2009

• Just How Texan are Hayes Carll and Miranda Lambert?

  August 7, 2008

• Miss Leslie: Between the Whiskey and the Wine

  July 3, 2008

• Texas Albums

  2007's best Texas albums, from Houston, Austin and beyond

  January 3, 2008

• Miranda Lambert

  November 22, 2007

• Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride

  Carnival Ride

  November 8, 2007

• Dress Blues

  Once a Drive-By Trucker, Jason Isbell strikes out on his own

  August 9, 2007

• Idol Chatter

  Opening day for America's fourth national sport is upon us

  January 18, 2007

• Hope Springs Eternal

  A northern suburb tops our third installment of rating greater Houston's taste in music

  August 10, 2006

• Never Go to a Party in Friendswood

  Where does your town rank in the Houston-area good-taste stakes?

  February 2, 2006

• Idol Beat: The Top Three

  Disclaimer: Thanks to technical difficulties brought about by the crap DVR capture feature of our limp-ass new cable box/provider, I missed the first 15-20 minutes of Tuesday's episode of American Idol. Please feel free to attempt to conjecture about whatever you think I would have said - had I been able to watch - in the comment section. Or just call me a homophobe, or get all up in my grill for screwing something up! Whatever. So I have no idea what song the American Idol judges decided

  May 13, 2009

• Creep Show

  May 14, 2009

• The 2009 Houston Press Music Award Nominees

  Here they are, folks. You nominated 'em, we mulled 'em over and sorted out the stuffers, and now the 2009 Houston Press Music Awards ballot is set. Normally Rocks Off would say something cute like read 'em and weep, but since we've been listening to almost nothing but '80s hard rock and new bands that totally sound like '80s hard rock (Low Man's Joe, The Answer, Charm City Devils) for the past couple of days, we'll just say this: Eat 'em and smile. Just kidding. We know this is serious stuff, an

  May 21, 2009

• Houston Press Music Awards: And The Nominees Are...

  Here they are, folks. You nominated 'em, we mulled 'em over and sorted out the stuffers, and now the 2009 Houston Press Music Awards ballot is set. Normally Rocks Off would say something cute like read 'em and weep, but since we've been listening to almost nothing but '80s hard rock and new bands that totally sound like '80s hard rock (Low Man's Joe, The Answer, Charm City Devils) for the past couple of days, we'll just say this: Eat 'em and smile. Just kidding. We know this is serious stuff, a

  May 21, 2009

• Running the Numbers

  May 28, 2009

• Randy Travis

  June 25, 2009

• It's 4:30 p.m. and Taylor Hicks, Clay Aiken, John Mayer, Nickelback and ICP Still Suck

  Er... no comment. OK, maybe one or two...​In the world of rock writing, there are just some artists' fans that you can't help but fuck with. While you're alternately enamored and disgusted by their chosen obsession, they exert a near religious fanaticism for their fixation of worship, making them all too open for mockery. In the past decade, the increasing omnipresence of the Internet and the advent of American Idol have created a new sub-species of rabid followers who take each barb thrown in

  September 14, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: Has Miranda Lambert Sparked a Revolution In Nashville?

  If there is a ticking time bomb signaling the impending end of the '80s hair-band nature of mainstream country music, Miranda Lambert is probably lighting the fuse. Lambert's third album, Revolution, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart last week and sold 23 percent more (almost 69,000 units) out of the gate than her previous album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which ended up as the 2008 Country Music Association album of the Year.​It doesn't take many listens to the searing Revol

  October 22, 2009