[caption id="attachment_90604" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Marie Miller[/caption]

Everyone! I have important news! Sometimes, if you just scroll around through the genre pages on iTunes, you can find amazing songs you've never heard before. For instance, a few weeks ago I was digging through new arrivals on the country page, and I not only found this beautiful, unfairly ignored ballad by LeAnn Rimes, but also discovered "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller.

(watch the the video for "You're Not Alone" below)

Now I had never heard of Marie Miller before, but after listening to a sample of this song, I was ready to learn. It's actually ridiculous that "You're Not Alone," which is about a woman insisting she can help a friend in need, has been classified as a country song. It's obviously in the vein of folk revival artists Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling, and the Lumineers. The rolling rhythms of the drums and acoustic guitars---not to mention the slightly low-fi sound of the backing vocals, which suggest a bunch of people are shouting along from the back of the studio---drop me into that rootsy sweet spot. And I think I hear a mandolin in there? And definitely a plinky piano. Add it all up, and you get a foot-stomping, back-porch jam.

Vocally, Miller reminds me of Gemma Hayes, who dropped some amazing songs and albums in the mid-aughts. Miller's voice has more of a falsetto break, but their slightly exaggerated phrasing and obvious love of stretching a note could make them cousins.

The point is: Marie Miller seems to have the goods, and I'm glad I stumbled across her music. According to her sparse Wikipedia page---which has a lot more info on it than her official website, by the way---she plays a ton of instruments and had some early success as a Christian pop singer, which would explain her gorgeous folk interpretation of "Silent Night." And which could make her the folk rock Katy Perry. So wrap your mind around that.

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Mark Blankenship doesn't even have a back porch in his apartment, but if he did, he would totally jam there. He tweets as @IAmBlankenship.