Ingrid Michaelson’s become more of a household name in the past few years with singles such as Girls Chase Boys, and this summer she’s embarking on a tour with some other artists to promote her latest album, Lights Out. The A Summer Night Out Tour Sampler has been made available free on NoiseTrade, which features three tracks from Lights Out itself, a live track from Ingrid Michaelson, and tracks by Greg Holden and Oh Honey.

It’s evident from one look at the cover of Cam’s first EP that her songs will be more on the poppy side of the divide than the traditional side of country. Despite My Mistake, the first single, having the potential for a crossover hit and not being particularly country at all if you don’t consider the mention of bars, the rest of her EP has more country-esque lyrics and instrumentation. The songs that appear to be more personal (that also happen to be more country) tend to be the best.  

In country music this year, women supporting other women has been a strong theme, and as Kalie Shorr noted in a recent tweet, Mickey Guyton always comes up as an example of that. Unsurprisingly, Guyton’s EP has a strong adherence to that theme, with many motivational songs that women or girls can jam to in order to improve their mood.  

Rachel Platten - Fight Song At first listen one might think Fight Song is a typical motivational pop ballad, but in reality, it's much more. Fight Song sounds so real, and there's hardly any unnecessary instruments or production. Even the production effects in the chorus fit in well, as they're accurate to the title and really do make the song sound like a fight song.

Tori Kelly - Should've Been Us The latest single from Tori Kelly's album Unbreakable Smile continues the R&B-esque flavor of the singles so far. It's undeniably catchy, but perhaps due to its long list of seven different composers, does not sound as real as Unbreakable Smile or even Nobody Love. I've actually preordered Unbreakable Smile on iTunes, due to my excitement over Tori Kelly as an artist herself and the co-writers such as Ed Sheeran, Toby Gad, Ilya and Claude Kelly. I probably won't like the other songs with huge numbers of composers (Expensive and California Lovers) but I'm still very excited.

Britney Spears feat. Iggy Azalea - Pretty Girls Britney Spears is seeming pretty irrelevant right now. Her last album, Britney Jean, was her first album to spend only one week in the Billboard top 10, and Pretty Girls, despite bringing in Iggy Azalea, arguably the biggest star of last summer, is her lowest-charting lead single ever. It was predicted to revive Spears' career and chart higher due to a music video and performance at the Billboard Music Awards, but sadly, it appears nobody really cares about her anymore, and I'm definitely not the only person who thinks it's annoying and too reminiscent of Fancy. Perhaps it has something to do with how the production team behind many of her earlier hits has moved onto other, younger artists...such as Taylor Swift.

This album was released a few years ago, which generally goes against my review policy, but I'm making an exception because it just came out on Spotify, and I've very recently discovered her music and fallen in love with quite a few of the songs. (Also, shh, this is my blog. I can post whatever I want. Don't question the webmaster.)

Swifties have been joking that this year's Billboard Music Awards should just be renamed the Taylor Swift 1989 Awards presented by Billboard, and with her leading the finalists with 14 nominations, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be. I've listed my predictions for selected awards, as well as who I hope wins.

The last time I reviewed Kelsea Ballerini, it was in November following the release of her debut EP. Since then, she's had her Opry debut, headlined a CMT Next Women of Country tour and become much more prominent due to a tweet from Taylor Swift. Safe to say, she's becoming something pretty big, and she thoroughly deserves it. I preordered the album, which I really don't usually do (I've only preordered two albums that I've reviewed on this blog before) and it was an excellent decision.