Blake Shelton’s “Boys ‘Round Here” Video (A Rant)

I’m sorry people, but unfortunately this exists…

Apparently we’ve been fools America, toiling aimlessly and unproductively with the issue of race for 150 years when the solution was right under our noses. Why did we fight The Civil War? Why did we waste our time with the civil rights movement? Why did we integrate schools when the whole damn time all that we needed to bridge the racial divide were bouncing cars and really really bad music? What a shame that the hydraulic automobile shock wasn’t invented in 1860 so Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant could’ve just rolled their respective shagging wagons up to Appomattox and worked that shit out by swapping dance moves. Blake Shelton is a goddamn genius. Somebody give that douche nozzle a Nobel Prize!

If equality is what Blake Shelton was looking to strike in the video for “Boys ‘Round Here,” then he deserves a big pat on the back. Because anything and everything about this eye-raping edifice to the universal monoculture and hyper-driven consumer excess mixed with vomit-inducing racial tokenism is as equally repulsive as it is embarrassing. Yes, let all of the rationally-minded people of the earth, regardless of sex, race, creed, religious background, or social status come together and join hands in perfect harmony to collectively declare like a chorus of hosannas that this video blows complete and utter ass. Hallelujah!

This dude is gonna live forever!
This dude is gonna live forever!

The problem with this video is that if you don’t take it as a given that white people and black people are inherently distrusting of each other, then the premise doesn’t work. Just like with the Brad Paisley and LL Cool J collaboration “Accidental Racist,” Blake Shelton is using the race card as a Trojan horse to hopefully invade mainstream radio with country rap, positioning this song so that if you disagree with it, then you’re closed-minded, ignorant, and don’t want country to evolve.

Yes, this is the evolution of country music people! And we’ll finally know that racism has been forever vanquished and country music has finally evolved when every single song on the radio sounds exactly the same, and contrast and diversity has been forever bled out of culture. Because the way all people can come together is not by understanding and celebrating our differences, but by resolving them until we are all the same. Oh, and isn’t it convenient that this would also make us all so much more susceptible to mass marketing?!?

Country Taking Submissive Role to Rap in Mono-Genre

Even this cow thinks these people are tools.
You can tell by the look in this cow’s eyes that even she thinks these people are tools.

But enough conspiracy theories, I ask any of you that either own cattle, know someone who owns cattle, or anyone that works with cattle what the likelihood would be that you would have a porch party and invite a heifer to just be standing there to pet like a lap puppy? And how ironic is it that right after Boyz to Men shows up to the party is when the lyrics about “keepin’ it country” kick in? Combine all of that will the silly placement of the Pistol Annies like coiffed sirens at the edge of a shit crick, and this is video is so contrived it hurts my soul.

And I would bet you blinged-out car rims to cowpies that more fans of this song think that Blake Shelton is name-dropping Chewbacca in the “chew tebacca chew tebacca” refrain than have any idea what the hell a “Bocephus” is.

But we’ll have the last laugh folks, trust me. This country rap crap will be the pet rock of our generation. For many, this song and video is their entertainment. For the rest of us, our entertainment is watching those knuckleheads be entertained by this garbage. So do the world a favor, and if you find someone who is a fan of this song or video, for the love of God, don’t have sex with them.

Two guns way down!

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Your official Saving Country Music “Boys ‘Round Here” healthy replacement alternative courtesy of Corb Lund:

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