Florida Georgia Line’s Response to Tom Petty: “U Think We Care?”

florida-georgia-lineIt’s getting chippy out there folks, and the war of words swirling around the current direction of country music is heating up.

Yesterday the big story was that Tom Petty had said some disparaging things about the direction of country music to the Rolling Stone. In an interview that followed up on Petty saying from the stage of the Beacon Theater in New York City that modern country was “bad rock with a fiddle,” Petty elaborated on the point, saying in part,

I’m sure there are people playing country that are doing it well, but they’re just not getting the attention that the shittier stuff gets…I don’t really see a George Jones or a Buck Owens or any anything that fresh coming up. I’m sure there must be somebody doing it, but most of that music reminds me of rock in the middle Eighties where it became incredibly generic and relied on videos.

Though Petty’s comments did not mention pop country band Florida Georgia Line or anyone else specifically, it is probably safe to conclude that the duo that has been making headlines themselves for recently deposing a list of country music Hall of Famers at the top of Billboard’s longest-running #1 songs of all time list, is probably part of the problem Petty was talking about.

Well earlier today on Twitter, Florida Georgia Line responded to someone linking to a story on the Petty comments with a spirited, “U think we care?”

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And just in case you’re wondering if it is actually Brian Kelley and/or Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line that are responding to tweets (and using ‘U’ in their signature, lazy, Ebonic-driven style of writing doesn’t clue you in enough), they responded only a few minutes later with this tweet.

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And yesterday they also tweeted:

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I don’t think anyone was under the impression that Florida Georgia Line cared about anything uttered by anyone over the age of 35 that wasn’t directly responsible for their success, but to see the duo say it themselves and disrespect a man who among other accomplishments held is own in a supergroup that included Bob Dylan and George Harrison, and has sold an estimated 60 million albums, is still quite shocking. Scott Borchetta should have warned them that in these instances, they would be better served to keep their mouth shut and count their money.

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