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Amy McCarthy

Amy McCarthy is a food writer and country music critic who splits time between Dallas and Houston. Her music writing is regularly featured in the Houston Press and has also appeared in Texas Monthly, Salon, VICE, Playboy, and Pitchfork.

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A Country-Music Christmas Wish List For 2016

By Amy McCarthy
Dec 25, 2015

Not to brag, but we’ve been pretty damn good this year, and that means that Santa’s going to come along on Christmas Day and make all our holiday wishes come true. That’s probably not going to happen — I don’t think Santa can fit a new take on the Bob...
Wheeler Walker Jr. Crosses Country's Fine Line Between Satire and Stupidity

By Amy McCarthy
Dec 15, 2015

If there has ever been a time that country music has needed to step back and poke fun at itself, it is now. For the past several years, music snobs have happily cast the genre aside as bro-country and songs about trucks confirmed everything those snobs already knew about the...
Mainstream Country's 10 Worst Songs of 2015

By Amy McCarthy
Dec 11, 2015

As much fun as it is to complain about country music, there is no shame in loving this entirely American genre that has produced such talents as Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. Country music is, at its best, the best music in the world. At its worst, though,...
Surprise: Country Music Did Pretty Damn Good in the 2015 Grammy Nominations

By Amy McCarthy
Dec 8, 2015

For country fans – and fans of most genres, let’s be real – the annual release of the Grammy nominations does not confirm or deny anything you didn’t already know. By the time these nods roll out in December, the hype over the year’s best songs, artists, and videos is...
Radio Play or Not, Dwight Yoakam Is One of Country Music's Greatest Treasures

By Amy McCarthy
Dec 3, 2015

With a few key exceptions, these days it isn’t the good artists who get all the press and airtime on country radio — it’s the jackwagons who make country music look like the butt of some redneck joke. As such, you probably haven’t heard much of Dwight Yoakam’s Second Hand...
Country Music Needs the Dixie Chicks Now More Than Ever

By Amy McCarthy
Nov 25, 2015

You could say that country music is currently, perhaps unwittingly, sitting at a real turning point. As critics sit and debate over who is and is not “authentic” and who’s going to be its next “savior,” fans are starting to get turned on to music that has traditionally been marginalized...
The 10 Raunchiest Songs in Country Music History

By Amy McCarthy
Nov 18, 2015

Country music has a reputation as a pretty strait-laced genre. You don’t get the reputation as the “God, guns, and beer” crowd without keeping it, for the most part, clean. Which means that country songwriters had to get creative, layering tracks with subtle (and not-so-subtle) sexual innuendo. To put it...

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Amy McCarthy