Eric Church can’t wait to “go home” in May and deliver the commencement speech for the class of 2026 at the University of North Carolina. The “Hands of Time” singer was born in Granite Falls, North Carolina, and has been a lifelong fan of the Tar Heels. You’ll often see Chief sporting Carolina blue, or taking in an athletic event at Chapel Hill. And there’s no doubt that Church is a huge supporter of his home state. He and Luke Combs (also a North Carolina native) did tremendous work for hurricane relief through their “Concert For Carolina” event, which raised over $24 million for the state’s disaster relief efforts. As he told the University of North Carolina, he carries him home state with him through everything that he does: “Early on in my career, I traveled a lot. Even though I was tired, every night at 3 or 4 a.m. I would stay up to watch Carolina basketball just to feel closer to home. To this day, I carry North Carolina with me wherever I am. North Carolina — it’s home, right?” His fandom simply cannot be questioned. He once canceled a sold-out concert of his just so he could watch his Tarheels defeat arch rival Duke in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. He truly bleeds Carolina blue. So Church was absolutely honored when UNC asked him to deliver the 2026 Spring Commencement address. Is the country star an alumni of the university? No, he is not (he actually graduated from App State). But is there anyone out there that loves North Carolina more than Eric Church? I highly doubt it… especially when you hear what he has to say about it: “I’m a born, bred, dead guy. I can’t really remember a time when my identity wasn’t being a North Carolina fan. I didn’t know a lot about myself at 7 or 8, but I knew I was a Tar Heel. That’s the way I was raised. My dad would even introduce us as Tar Heels. I knew I wasn’t Wolfpack, and I wasn’t a Blue Devil. I was a Tar Heel. My entire life has been built around being a Tar Heel.” And now, Eric Church will deliver a speech to young, college graduates who have built their education and young experience as Tar Heels. On the night of May 9, 2026, the Chief will take the stage at Kenan Stadium to deliver a speech to graduates of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Church can’t express how honored he is to have been selected as the speaker: “Being asked to be the Commencement speaker at North Carolina is one of the greatest honors I’ve ever had. Being a Tar Heel ‘born, bred, dead’ and knowing what the school has meant to me and my family, it’s surreal. To be able to be there and celebrate the future, the students at the University of North Carolina as they go onto their next journey, I’m honored to do it, and I can’t wait to see everybody there.” View this post on Instagram Shout to the class of 2026 at UNC! Just a few more weeks until you officially graduate, and it doesn’t get much cooler than celebrating that with Eric Church himself.The post Eric Church’s Passion For North Carolina Drives His Excitement To Deliver UNC Commencement Speech: “I’m A Born, Bred, Dead Guy” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Rolling Stone released what they believe to be the 250 greatest albums of the 21st century so far… and my first question was, “How much love did they give to the country genre?” Obviously, the list reflects their opinion, and ranges from pop to hip-hop and everything in between. I was interested to see how much country music popped up, and after scrolling through the long list, I discovered that the genre ended up getting 10 spots out of the available 250. And that’s if you include some folk and pop country (and an album that the artist declared wasn’t a country album). For those bad with math, that means that country makes up around 4% of the list. As to how Rolling Stone came up with the 250 albums from the year 2000 and on (so far), they mentioned that they “wanted to show as much of the scope of this story as possible,” and did include multiple albums from the same artist on the list (both Beyoncé and Taylor Swift appear four times each). So without further ado, here are the albums that fall into the country music category and where they ranked on Rolling Stone’s list: 247: Purgatory (2017) – Tyler Childers 207: Hero (2016) – Maren Morris 130: By The Way, I Forgive You (2018) – Brandi Carlile 126: Cowboy Carter (2024) – Beyoncé 121: Chief (2011) – Eric Church 103: Traveller (2015) – Chris Stapleton 79: Southeastern (2013) – Jason Isbell 48: Platinum (2014) – Miranda Lambert 43: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (2014) – Sturgill Simpson 40: Golden Hour (2018) – Kacey Musgraves There you have it… saved you a lot of scrolling. Those are the 10 country albums that appear on Rolling Stone’s “250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century.” Feel like any were left out? Or that some of the albums that are included should be shifted around a bit? If you were to talk about commercially successful albums, Luke Combs’ This One’s For You or What You See Is What You Get and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album would like a word. One could also make an argument for Grammy-winning country records like Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country or George Strait’s Troubador to appear on the listical as well. Then since I’m a big Eric Church fan, I’d feel comfortable throwing Mr. Misunderstood, Carolina or Sinners Like Me out there as list-worthy. I’m glad Chief made the list… but it should have been a lot higher than 121. Hell, it probably should have represented the top country album on the entire list. That honor instead went to Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour (somehow I could sense some of you readers out there rolling your eyes reading that). There’s no doubt that the country music genre was underrepresented on the list. That being said, most of the country projects that were included were great picks (I personally appreciated the love shown for Sturgill Simpson). And hey… at least there weren’t any “Bro Country” albums from Florida Georgia Line on there. That’s a plus. Just in case you were wondering (and wanted to save some time scrolling) here are the Top 5 Albums of the 21st Century according to Rolling Stone: 5) Folkore (2020) – Taylor Swift 4) Stankonia (2000) – OutKast 3) Blonde (2016) – Frank Ocean 2) Kid A (2000) – Radiohead 1) Lemonade (2016) – BeyoncéThe post Only 10 Country Albums Included In Rolling Stone’s List Of The 250 Greatest Albums Of 21st Century So Far first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Lainey keeping it classy as always. From the moment it was announced back in 2024, Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER was destined to be one of the most controversial releases of the decade — if not ever — in country music. Of course, Beyoncé has remained one of the biggest figures in all of music over the past two decades, scoring massive hits with tracks like the RIAA Diamond-certified “Halo” and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” as well as “Crazy in Love,” “Irreplaceable” and “Drunk in Love.” For all intents and purposes, she has been nothing short of a staple in the pop and R&B world. Undoubtedly, her status in other genres made the move to country music all the more confusing and eyebrow-raising, especially considering the fact that, at the time, the genre was right in the middle of a renaissance commercially that we’re still seeing today. Famously, the album itself was about exactly what you’d expect from a “country” album produced by Beyoncé. While it wasn’t too dissimilar to the pop-country trash that has been peddled by country radio over the course of the last decade, you could hardly consider it a tried and true country project. Hell, she didn’t even call the album strictly a country record, instead calling COWBOY CARTER a “Beyoncé album.” “This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.“ While there have been a seemingly endless amount of think pieces written about the lack of love shown for her in Nashville, with many coming to the conclusion that it stems from bigotry and racism, the simple fact of the matter is that Beyoncé did not want to interact with the country community. From the start, it was clear that she had no intention to stay in country music or frankly even engage with the genre. She made next to no appearances in Nashville, did not appear at any country festivals or award shows and has shown no signs of making another country record. Despite all the controversy surrounding the release, COWBOY CARTER still received an incredible amount of love from non-country outlets everywhere…. and predictably so. Though the album had an mind-boggling 72 co-writers, the most among any projects nominated and an incredibly dissonant sound overall, it would score not one but three Grammys in 2025 for Best Country Album, Best Country Duo/Group Performance and the highly-coveted, all-genre Album of the Year. The Country Album of the Year win was particularly historic. Beating out the likes of Chris Stapleton’s Higher, Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well, Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion and Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind, she became the first black artist in history to take home the award. Unsurprisingly, the win ruffled a lot of feathers for a variety of different reasons. With that being said, however, Lainey Wilson recently revealed that she had nothing but love and respect for the “Irreplaceable” singer despite losing out on the award. During a segment in her new Netflix documentary, Keepin’ Country Cool, which debuted on March 17th, the “Watermelon Moonshine” singer would recall walking over to Beyoncé after the win, noting that she could tell they both had a lot of respect for each other. Additionally, she’d note that Beyoncé told her that the recognition and acceptance meant a lot to her. “I didn’t win, but it was time for us to lose something. I walked over to Beyoncé, and she was so kind. We had a lot of great things to say to each other. You could tell that we both had a respect for each other; it was like a ‘I see you, you see me, kind of thing. She said, ‘It means a lot that you walked over here and did that.'” Wilson would finish the brief segment by explaining that she never wanted to make the “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” singer feel excluded from the genre, despite many pushing towards it. And you probably even argue, Lainey made an effort to make her feel included despite Bey’s desire to not really be a part of it. In particular, she’d note that she’s always viewed country music as a genre that will “welcome everybody with open arms.” “I’m not one of the artists that’s like, ‘Hey, you go stay over there on your side. That’s not the way that I was raised. Also, when I think of country music, it’s always been: welcome everybody with open arms.” You can always count on Lainey for a classy response. Watch the Keepin’ Country Cool trailer here: The post “Welcome Everybody With Open Arms”: Lainey Wilson Says She Had No Problem With Beyoncé Winning Country Album Of The Year At The Grammys first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Fans are raving about the new pictures. Continue reading…