#creative nation

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa being interviewed by Jamie Owen for #CreativeNation earlier today.

Creative Nation presents Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, hosted by Jamie Owen earlier today.

🌟 Celebrating 77 Years of Freedom 🌟

On this historic day, we honor the sacrifices and dreams that shaped our beloved Pakistan. As a proud Pakistani and a creative professional, I channel my passion for storytelling, design, and digital strategy into bringing ideas to life. Whether through compelling visuals, engaging social media campaigns, or thought-provoking content, my work aims to inspire and uplift, much like the spirit of our great nation.

Here's to 77 years of resilience, creativity, and growth. Together, let's continue building a brighter future, one story at a time. 🇵🇰💚

Happy Independence Day! 🎉

4. Lori McKenna - The Balladeer

country / americana

This album blew me away. The songwriting is incredible, so much depth. There’s a good chance you don’t recognize McKenna but she’s part of the powerhouse songwriter trio Love Junkies. She wrote my favorite song on Nightfall by Little Big Town as well as my favorite song off The Highwomen, “Crowded Table”. Balladeer is just so good. 

Favorite Songs: “When You’re My Age” “Balladeer” “This Town is a Woman”

"When lonesome doesn't quite define how so alone you feel I'll walk with you, even if it's uphill." -Uphill

MY FAVORITE SONGS OF 2O2O

With the new season comes an exciting line up of country releases, one of our most anticipated was the debut album from our September artist of the month, Maggie Chapman. With much support from both Creative Nation, Maggie's label, and her fans 'Vignette' was finally released on the 16th after weeks of countdown song teasers building hype and it was definitely worth the wait. Despite only being 17, Maggie has already been recognised by Rolling Stone magazine, USA Today and Esquire lifestyle magazine - we have no doubt that this album is only the start for her. As far as talented gals go, Maggie’s got it all and it’s so wonderful to see the ladies killing it!

 The album is cleverly titled Vignette, which Maggie describes as meaning, "In literature, a vignette is a short, well-written, descriptive scene, not entirely a full story. This seemed like the perfect word to describe my debut album because in so many ways, it is the ‘little vine’ that the music I make in the future will stem from." Maggie is first and foremost a songwriter and her passion for literature and writing is conveyed in the album with brilliant metaphors, literary references and a showcase of writing beyond her years.

Wonder Woman was obviously going to be one of our favourite tracks, it's an inspiring girl power anthem written with April Geesbreght and Tiffany Vartanyan. Chapman says she wanted to "write an anthemic, motivational song for girls. A song that you could listen to while putting your makeup on in the morning that could give you this confidence and make you feel like you could accomplish anything and everything that day." We love that it's achieved exactly that and will definitely make it onto all future motivational playlists. The song is scattered with clever patriotic references and focuses on the power of hard work and confidence in yourself, it celebrates being a powerful woman with lyrics such as, "fierce like a lion, not afraid of trying, if we're going down, we're going down fighting." In a largely male dominated industry, it’s wonderful to have these themes being sung about to let girls know that they can do anything they want to if they work hard.

Another standout track is a Jolene-style song about competing with 'the other woman', who is so much better. The song is based around children’s book, Charlotte's Web with a darker twist. It features a sultry, more edgy intro and references to the book scattered throughout the song, again just showcasing Maggie's extraordinary writing capabilities. The lyrics paint a perfect picture and the song cleverly plays out like a story whilst making you feel the struggle of being inadequate and completely helpless in a relationship. It's definitely one of the best written songs on the album and combines Maggie's love for music and literature in a song, other tracks on the album with the same literature references such as Golden Girl are some of our all-time favourites and you can tell that this is where she's in her element and producing some of her best music.

It Should Have Been You is a popular track among fans and critics and if you listen to the lyrics, you can understand why. The recording is live and raw so the song fully captures the emotion intended when writing it, which can often be lost with heavy, commercial production. Maggie tells that story of bumping into an old partner and realising that they should have stayed together. Although it's based on real life events, it’s written in a way that makes the song relatable for anyone else who's been though a similar situation, so many of us have had 'should've been' relationships and this is literally THE song for them. The lyrics are incredibly written and so honest, including lines such as, "please don't ask me if I'm happy now 'cause I'd always believed that you might come around, back to me." The honesty and emotion presented in the song is prime example of what makes music so special, it connects people though experiences and puts feelings into words, for someone of just 17 to be able to present that so well is inspiring and makes us so excited to see what else Maggie can come up with as her skill develops with age.

The closing track on the album, Sweatshirt is definitely one that we've had on repeat since we first heard it and it’s possibly the most relatable. It tells the story of a girl still holding onto her ex-boyfriend's sweatshirt and the symbolism of the piece of clothing. I'm sure most of us have held on to a partner’s jacket at some point and the lyrics capture the memories and emotions that can be held in such a simple item. The writing is just another example of using clever metaphors and is something you'd expect from a more experienced artist, not from a debut album.  It also showcases some of the best vocals and melodies on the album making it one of those songs that you want to listen to on repeat for hours (you know you’re all guilty of doing so).

We're BEYOND impressed with the quality of the whole album and as I'm sure you've gathered, we're in awe of Maggie's insane talent. We can't wait to see the opportunities the album creates for her because it's quite literally a masterpiece and as we expected, the perfect autumn album. It's so exciting to witness an artist be so certain in the creative direction of their music because it doesn't happen frequently, especially with such young artists, Maggie is truly one of a kind and it's an honour to be able to watch her career develop.

 Tracklist:

1. Golden Girl 2. Pickin' Petals 3. Graffiti 4. Unbreak 5. Charlotte's Web 6. Wannabe Rebel 7. Give Me A Minute 8. Wonder Woman 9. It Should've Been You 10. Sweatshirt

Our favourite tracks: Golden Girl, Pickin' Petals, Wonder Woman, Sweatshirt

 Rating: 10/10

 Find updates on Maggie Chapman from her twitter page, official website and facebook page.

 The BelieveinNashville Team

We’ve just hit September so new starts, colder weather and pumpkin spice lattes are JUST around the corner. Our AOTM is responsible for the perfect soundtrack to this (no pressure) so that’s why we chose the INCREDIBLY talented Maggie Chapman.

Managed by Creative Nation, she’s the name on everyone’s lips at the moment and once you hear her voice, there’s no questioning why this is the case. Brian Mansfield of USA Today has her over for shows and BMI Songwriter of the Year, Luke Laird, is the main man getting her name out there. Plus, she’s got an army of loyal followers.  It’s safe to say she’s got the best people behind her and this industry has clearly fallen for her for more than just her whimsical charm, sweet tweets to fans and ability to rock that perfect red lip.  

Maggie hails from Clearwater, Florida, and grew up journalling her ideas and thoughts as soon as she could write. She cites classic artists like Carly Simon and Tom Petty as influences and it all makes her more a storyteller than a country singer. It was a birthday trip to a recording studio that lead her straight to music city though. The studio in question couldn’t keep Maggie’s sound quiet and meetings with various industry types stemmed from them making the first move. This quickly lead to the suggestion of co-writing sessions in Nashville which eventually meant moving the family 700 miles to Tennessee so Maggie could pursue a career that was already gaining attention and looking so bright.

An obsession with classic novels and times gone by drives Maggie’s sound. This is seen especially in one of our favourite tracks, ‘Golden Girl’, from her self-titled EP released earlier this year.  The song takes inspiration from the relationship between The Great Gatsby author, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Teenage girls don’t normally sing about these sorts of things, let alone teenage girls within the country music industry. Maggie’s different and this proves it. The writing is flawless and original. It transports you to the twenties whilst also being refreshingly new. Inspiration from the world of literature is seen again in the gorgeous ‘Charlotte’s Web’, a song bursting with imagery but also full of clever references. Again and again, Maggie writes songs way above her years with not a stereotype in sight meaning that her songs could appeal to so many people as no one could possibly deny the talent she has purely due to her genre choice.

You can grab a copy of the EP here.

Maggie releases her debut album in just 11 days and we’re SO excited to see her go on and achieve so much with it. The album is cleverly named ‘Vignette’ meaning ‘a brief evocative description’ OR that cool fade thing old photos do. It’s so Maggie and the fact you can label it as such shows just what a character she is. We’ve been anticipating this release for so long and if Maggie’s teasers are anything to judge it by, it’s going to be an album full of poetic, anthemic  lyrics and a sound that, with the right support, could really make this girl go far.

We hope you love her just as much as we do and that your September is wonderful. We have SO much good music and so many new recommendations coming your way ASAP so get ready!

The BelieveInNashville Team

xo