John Drake

Dear Independent Booksellers

Amazon's Mission

Heard this the other day and didn't want to forget it.

Amazon Mission:

Being Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.

How Artists Push Us Forward and Pull Us Back

Like every other form of art, country music has expanded over the last two decades---becoming younger, flashier, pop-ish.

Which isn't bad. Most everything adjusts with the constantly evolving world that feeds it.

This latest expansion of country music was unmissable at the ACM Awards. The flash, the glitz and more were on full display.

Then Miranda Lambert played "Tin Man". And there it was. A shove back at the new. A reminder that country music, at its truest form, still digs deep. Still brings forward hardcore truths.

It's a beautiful song... How someone can take something so personal, bounce it off of The Wizard of Oz, and then produce something so good, is an incredible act of creativity and art.

Artists dig deep for all of us. They carry the weight of that around. They push us forward. And sometimes, they pull us back, as if to say, "remember what this is really supposed to be about."