10 Best Country Collaborations of 2016
Like any year before it, 2016 bore witness to numerous collaborations in country music, linking back to a tradition that has long been a part of the genre. This year saw country performers reaching out to artists outside country's lines more than ever, as well as upping one another's game by matching two killer voices with one killer song.
Beyoncé and the Dixie Chicks grabbed all the CMA Awards headlines for their funky reworking of "Daddy Lessons," but the CMA itself pulled off quite a coup with "Forever Country," its 30-artist mashup of classics by Dolly Parton, John Denver and Willie Nelson. Things got steamy with collaborations between Kacey Musgraves and Miguel, Kenny Chesney and Pink, and Brad Paisley and Demi Lovato, while Keith Urban called on a Latin hip-hop star and bona fide pop-music legend for a track on his latest album. In no particular order, here are the year's 10 best country collaborations.
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Brad Paisley featuring Demi Lovato, “Without a Fight”
Brad Paisley has played around with double entendre before (see: "Ticks") but never anything quite like the frank sex talk in "Without a Fight," his 2016 duet with pop star Demi Lovato. It starts with tangled sheets and a lack of sleep, depicting a couple whose propensity for fighting is rivaled only by their ability to make up by boinking the night away. Paisley provides a moody guitar riff that's more about groove than velocity, and Lovato uses her platinum pipes to elevate his normally subdued vocal approach. They resolve to smooth over any problems without always resorting to a knock-down/drag-out, but it sounds like their present system of conflict resolution isn't all that terrible, either. Paisley's choice to bring the politically progressive, feminist Lovato into the mix was a smart one, resulting in one of the year's most (and perhaps only) sex-friendly country singles. J.F.
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Keith Urban featuring Pitbull and Nile Rodgers, “Sun Don’t Let Me Down”
Countrified disco has quickly become a subgenre in the past year or so – see Thomas Rhett's "Crash and Burn" or Luke Bryan's "Move" – and Keith Urban went all the way back to the source by recruiting Nile Rodgers for this unexpected standout from Ripcord. Rodgers, recently announced as an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, helped codify disco's floor-wrecking formula with the band Chic and plays funky guitar on Urban's "Sun Don't Let Me Down." Rapper Pitbull is also onboard, delivering forceful, curfew-defying couplets. Urban has become an expert at this sort of inter-genre bingo, proving that even the most seemingly out-there ideas can produce great songs – in the right hands. E.L.
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Chris Young and Cassadee Pope, “Think of You”
It was a big year for duets on the country charts, but none proved as much of a break-out moment as Young and Pope's break-up anthem "Think of You." Over a sweeping, muscular rock arrangement, the pair comes to terms with not being the "It couple" any longer. Young pushes his voice to a lacerating edge, and Pope, a savvy partner, echoes his delivery with laser-like focus – the voice in his head that he just can't escape. In a twist on the traditional breakup song, this relationship's dissolution seems to have thrown an entire small-town ecosystem out of alignment, with friends apparently unable to go on. Sings Young: "It's like they don't know how to act." Get back together, please, if only for everyone else's sake. E.L.
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Kenny Chesney featuring Pink, “Setting the World on Fire”
With "Setting the World on Fire," Chesney recaptures the dreamy nostalgia of past hits like "Anything But Mine," but ups the ante with the addition of Pink. While it doesn't feel as intimate or organic as "You and Tequila," his 2011 duet with Grace Potter, "Setting the World on Fire" succeeds in painting the most realistic of 21st century pictures: one of a passionate fling in the City of Angels. L.A. is just as integral a part of the song as Pink is, with nods to movie stars, swank hotels and the scene of the hook-up, La Cienega Boulevard. If Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" romanticized the mundane aspects of the California life, "World on Fire" celebrates its decadence. J.H.
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Beyonce featuring the Dixie Chicks, “Daddy Lessons”
On Beyoncé's epochal concept album Lemonade, "Daddy Lessons" stands as an odd acoustic change of pace – not exactly a throwaway, but an opportunity to catch one's breath. Leave it to Queen Bey, however, to recognize that song's grander potential. In one of 2016's boldest crossover moves, Beyoncé turned "Daddy Lessons" into a drumline hootenanny throwdown, performing it live at the 50th CMA Awards with an assist from her fellow Texans the Dixie Chicks (in a return to country's main stage after more than a decade in exile over Iraq War politics). Dressed up with banjos, blaring horns and country-blues harmonica, this "Daddy Lessons" remake – which Beyoncé and the Chicks also cut in the studio – is a great example of what can happen when worlds, however seemingly disparate, collide. D.M.
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Eric Church featuring Rhiannon Giddens, “Kill a Word”
On paper, the lyrics to "Kill a Word" can resemble a simple string of quips – vows to "poison never," "shoot goodbye," "beat regret" – with a musical arrangement that's disarmingly peppy, as Church earnestly puts across his good intentions. But what helps elevate "Kill a Word" above punchline-country fare is the presence of Church's fellow North Carolina native and co-founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens. The vocalist brings a sense of dignified gravitas and classically trained operatic chops to the proceedings, especially the second run-through of the chorus. Sweeping in, Giddens takes the song to church with a call-and-response performance that can only be described as heavenly. D.M.
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Dierks Bentley featuring Elle King, “Different for Girls”
The premise to Bentley and the indie-rock singer's Number One duet may be a bit shaky – we'd argue that women can and do self-medicate a busted heart with whiskey – but the artists' vocal interplay and surprising chemistry makes "Different for Girls" a high-water mark in a year of notable collaborations. Bentley plays the compassionate narrator, sheepishly realizing that dudes have carte blanche when it comes to post-breakup bad behavior, while King spells out the expectations on her gender. Like in Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart," it's ok to do whatever gets you through the night, as long as you keep that crazy hid. But King's pounding-on-the-glass-ceiling delivery lets you know that arrangement won't work for her. Even if she doesn't openly admit it. J.H.
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Miguel featuring Kacey Musgraves, “Waves”
One of the most exciting, unexpected surprises of the year, this track on Miguel's remix EP Rogue Waves – featuring reimagined versions of the Wildheart song "Waves" – is easily the best of the five tracks, finding an entirely new perspective for the song in ways that other remixers fail to do. In addition to being one of the best collaborations this year, it's also one of the sexiest. Musgraves' sultry vocals perfectly complement Miguel's Prince-indebted sex god persona, while the slower tempo and the addition of rhythmic guitars and percussive backing vocals add to the song's entrancing, fever dream vibe. A spaghetti Western-styled guitar solo at the song's bridge gives way to an ethereal, twangy take on the chorus that's as catchy as it is hypnotic. With a tune like this under their belts, we wouldn't object to more from Musgraves and Miguel together. B.M.
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Brothers Osborne with Lee Ann Womack, “Loving Me Back”
A high point of Brothers Osborne's terrific debut Pawn Shop comes about midway through in "Loving Me Back," a slow-building ode to finding lasting love that features Lee Ann Womack. It's one of the album's more striking displays of TJ Osborne's signature baritone, with the song reaching catharsis via a triumphant chorus amplified by Womack's soaring harmonies. The song's simple arrangement – a couple of acoustic guitars, some piano – gives way to a searing electric guitar solo before the final chorus, setting up both the song's emotional and musical crescendos. Osborne may sing about finding solace in "the smoke and the whiskey," but he knows there's always hope for something lasting. B.M.
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Artists of Then, Now & Forever – “Forever Country”
When the CMA Awards set out to honor their 50th anniversary, they wanted to go big – as in, corral more of the genre's most massive stars and legends than anyone could count on their fingers and toes. Call it a Cliff's Notes for Twang: from Willie Nelson to Kacey Musgraves and Dolly Parton to Luke Bryan, "Forever Country" managed to recruit 30 different artists to contribute to this mash-up of classic John Denver, Parton and Nelson tunes that charts the genre's breadth and force. It may not be perfect – it's a little over-layered and schizophrenic at times – but it's a fitting, expansive tribute to the future with 50 years in the rearview. M.M.