Here's Kellie's performance of her new single "Best Days Of Your Life." It was written with her BFF Taylor Swift.

The second single of her self-titled sophomore record features Kellie's buddy Taylor Swift.  That alone will give the song a boost at radio.  That boost, however, isn't the only thing going for Kellie here as this song looks, sounds and feels like her big break-out hit. Or does it?

It's that time of the week again, it's time for the Soundscan chart numbers.  With 176,414 copies sold, Kenny Chesney's "Lucky Old Sun" Landed on top. While it was a great week for Kenny, John Michael Montgomery's return netted him the less-than stellar place of 172 with "Time Flies.

Here's the EPK made for Kristy Lee Cook's new album "Why Wait."

Kellie Pickler went from American Idol to rising country star quite quickly.  After a Gold-selling debut album and a few successful singles, Pickler returns with a self-titled album that has the goal to establsh her as a star.  "Don't You Know You're Beautiful" is the lead single and it's doing its job to that end.  But does the album have more than one big hit? Read more to find out.

The CMA announced their first round of performers today.  Keith Urban, a 3 time Male Vocalist and one-time Entertainer of the Year winner, leads the pack of performers.  Other artists scheduled to perform include Taylor Swift, Brooks & Dunn and George Strait.  Click the image to find out whomelse is performing.

Like six other people, Kristy Lee Cook has used the American Idol platform to realize her dream of a country music career.  From the beginning of the show it was obvious that Cook was one of the most commercially ready packages of the seventh season, after only the winner David Cook and runner-up David Archuleta. While commercially viable, does "Why Wait" succeed in making Kristy Lee relevant?

The list of nominees for the 41st annual CMA Awards was released and there were few surprises.  Kenny Chesney leads the nominees with 7 nominations including top noms for entertainer, male vocalist and album of the year.  Who else was nominated? click to find out.

Kellie Pickler started out on American Idol and has found some success in country music with a Gold selling debut album. Here's the debut single from her upcoming sophomore album.

Why do country music labels decide to sign and foster reality show contestants at the expense of nuturing and promoting talent organically? We come up with a couple reasons and a solution to the problem.