Elizabeth Cook's 'Great Television' Honors Snider, Lifts Women — SkimNews
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- Elizabeth Cook releases "Great Television," her eighth studio album and first since 2020's "Aftermath," produced by Shooter Jennings at Sunset Sound Studio 3 with collaborations from Wynonna Judd and Turnpike Troubadours' Evan Felker
- Cook describes the 11-track LP as a companion to "The Easy Kind," an IFC docudrama based on her life in which she appears as herself during the film's premiere run
- The leadoff track "Sunset Promenade" opens with saved voicemails from three women in Cook's life — artists Ashley Monroe and Chelle Rose, plus a niece — and Cook nearly cracks singing about isolation and wanting "a friend I can stand to do my time with"
- Cook's advocacy for female artists traces back nearly 20 years to "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman," which Kaitlin Butts credits with boosting her bar tips; Cook says Loretta Lynn once told her the Nashville machine wouldn't bury the song because Lynn herself "had nine songs banned from country radio"
- Todd Snider, Cook's longtime sounding board and email confidant, died in November 2025 at 59 from complications of pneumonia, and Cook calls his loss "the unkindest cut of all" while urging fans to "study every phrase, every verse, every album cut" of his catalog
- Cook wrote the album track "The Easy Kind" after being sent to rehab where she says she was "under a hundred pounds," starved, and falsely accused of purging; she says the experience taught her "how strong I could be"
Why it matters: Cook is putting out what she calls her most complete and personal record while still grieving the November 2025 death of Snider, the friend she used as a creative sounding board — meaning fans get his influence filtered through her voice one final time. The album also functions as a deliberate platform for her 27-year push to elevate women in country, naming Kaitlin Butts, Ella Langley, and Willow Avalon while cautioning that past surges for female artists weren't sustained.
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