Counterpoints to the Claim That “Country Music Has Never Been This Bad”
In the process of criticizing modern country music, sometimes we lose sight of the bigger picture, or fall into “old man’s syndrome” where the past of the genre seems pristine and idyllic in our mind’s eye, and today’s smutty music perpetrated by sellout stars is an abomination to our beloved genre.
For sure, the boundaries of country music are being stretched like never before, while other specific issues such as the near evisceration of women voices on country radio playlists have no parallels in country music’s past. But there’s other issues and concerns that are as old as the genre itself. And though they have caused great consternation, they have not resulted in the implosion of the country genre. At least not yet.
So here are a some fair counterpoints to some of the primary criticisms of the country music of today:
Country Music Today is Too Sexist/Misogynistic
“The only two things in life that make it worth livin’
Is guitars that tune good and firm feelin’ women…”
— from Waylon Jennings’ “Luckenbach, TX.”
(written by Chips Moman and Bobby Emmons)
The idea that country music is just now learning how to materialize women is an exercise in selective amnesia at best. It’s certainly a fair criticism to say that the performers and songwriters of today are not nearly as good at using subtly and rhyme to let otherwise objectifying language slide by, but such language has been there since nearly the beginning of the genre, including some of the smut country songs from the “King of Country Music” Roy Acuff in the 30’s, and well into the 70’s and 80’s when aside from the last few years, country lyrics that marginalized women or treated them like pieces of meat arguably hit their peak.
There are many examples that could be offered to country music’s objectification of women, but possibly the best is the output of Country Music Hall of Famer and #1 hit machine Conway Twitty. All you have to do is look at some of the titles of his biggest hits such as “Tight Fittin’ Jeans,” “You’ve Never Been This Far Before,” and the extra creepy “I’ve Already Loved You in My Mind” to know that Conway Twitty was the sexual miscreant of country music way before Florida Georgia Line was implying they’d “Stick the pink umbrella in your drink.” And a lot of Conway’s questionable material (including “You’ve Never Been This Far Before,” and “I’ve Already Loved You in My Mind”) was written by Conway himself.
Conway also had an entire segment of his career devoted to duets with Loretta Lynn, who would often act as a counter-balance to Conway’s male-dominated perspective in some of the spicy back and forths duet style, with Loretta playing the foil to Conway’s shallowness and male-sided perspective. Those counterpoints from a woman’s point-of-view are what is missing in modern country music. It was the Queen of Country Music Kitty Wells’ answer song “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” in response to Hank Thompson’s “Wild Side of Life” that first put women on the mainstream map in country in the early 1950’s. But don’t let anyone ever tell you country music never stooped to recitations from creepy dudes until Luke Bryan and Sam Hunt showed up on the scene.
Today’s Country Stars Are Sellouts
Yes, you would never see Waylon and Willie schlepping Pizza Hut like Blake Shelton does today, right? Wrong. In fact you would be hard pressed to find any successful artist in any era of country music who didn’t succumb to the temptation of endorsement dollars at least at some point in their careers. Perhaps there’s a few, but some of those never sold out because they were never given the opportunity.
From Mothers Best Flour jingles sung by Hank Williams bisecting many of his earliest radio recordings, to Merle Haggard posing with a rocker of Dickel Whiskey, selling out has been a part of country music from the start. It was the dollars of advertisers that allowed the earliest country stars to take to the radio airwaves and broadcast their music to local and regional audiences. The only thing that’s changed is the dollar amounts today’s stars now receive for their ringing endorsements.
Maybe the best example was the sellout job Willie Nelson did in the early 90’s. His commercials for Pizza Hut and Taco Bell were more prevalent than his radio singles of the era. And even worse, Willie’s cozy relationship with Pepsico sucked Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash into the action via their shared experience with the era’s Highwaymen project. Yes, you can find commercials of Johnny Cash pushing Taco Bell’s value menu in 1992. Even T. Graham Brown got in on the Taco Bell action at the time.
The one and only excuse folks can make for Willie is that his Taco Bell/Pizza Hut stuff was all to attempt to repay the IRS for all the back taxes he owed at the time that threatened to bankrupt Willie and his organization and take them off the road. At one point the IRS was even after Willie’s famous guitar Trigger so they could auction it off.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, and Willie did what he had to do.
Besides, it gave us the song “The Woman with the Rose Tattoo.”
Pop and Rock Are Encroaching on Country Music Like Never Before
Ralph Peer was criticized for commercializing the sounds of rural people that were meant to be personal and intimate when he started recording primitive country artists in the late 20’s. Patsy Cline and Eddy Arnold had huge, genre-defying hits in their era that just as well could have been sold as pop songs. In the mid 70’s, the concern was folk pop artists such as John Denver and Olivia Newton-John walking away with CMA Awards over more established country stars. And in 1978, Willie Nelson had his breakout, crossover commercial success with a covers album of pop and jazz standards, Stardust.
In the March 1975 issue of Country Song Roundup magazine, Waylon was interviewed by P.J. Russell—the impetus being that a friend of P.J.’s was accusing Waylon Jennings of not being country, and that Waylon “sounded terrible” and “looked worse.” To the 2017 perspective this might sound like crazy talk. Today Waylon Jennings is used as a reference point for what defines real country. But in 1975 when Waylon was first introducing his now signature heavy beat, it sounded foreign compared to the fluffy, polished Nashville Sound that was the current rage.
What was Waylon’s response?
I’m not trying to change anything. I’m just trying to sing my kind of music. So people say it’s not country. Some people say I’m trying to be a pop singer. If I’d wanted to cut a pop record, I could have recorded a Buddy Holly song anytime in the past five years and had a pop hit, but I didn’t. I guess if I’m not country and I’m not a Mongolian aviator, I’m just singing Waylon’s music.
Synth and EDM Are Destroying The Sound of Country
Though debates can go back and forth about what exactly makes country music “country,” one of the primary factors that has separated the genre from other forms of music for many years is the organic origination of the sounds. Country music is made with wood and wire, not keyboards and synthesizers. This is what ties country music to its past and helps preserve the traditions that have made country music what it is today.
Certainly the move towards removing the organic nature of country music is reaching a fevered peak in the here and now, but that doesn’t mean synthesizers and computerized sounds haven’t encroached into the country music space in the past. It was the synth pop success of Exile’s “I Want To Kiss You All Over” that allowed the Kentucky-based band to transition to country music, and afforded them ten #1 hits through the 80’s. Anyone remember Sylvia, and her synth pop song “Nobody”? Sylvia was eventually was named the Academy of Country Music’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1982.
Even The Highwaymen supergroup got in on the action with the atmospheric synth textures to the group’s big, self-titled hit. Don’t think true country fans didn’t have reservations with the introduction to Willie Nelson’s version of Townes Van Zant’s “Pancho and Lefty” when they first heard the punchy synth-style keyboard introduction. By the time Tim McGraw released “Don’t Take The Girl” in 1994, most folks were focusing more on the quality of the songwriting than the synth bed the song is built around.
Wood and wire are natural resources extruded from the earth and employed by humans to make music. It’s like the “country” itself is singing out when you put a pick on strings, while synthesizers and EDM processes are distinctly of an urban, technological origination. What has made the EDM influences present in country music today stick out more prevalently is not just the sounds, but the words, themes, and annunciations that speak to a distinctly urban perspective. But Sam Hunt is far from the first to get synth-y in country music.
So What Does This All Mean?
Does it all mean we should be more understanding whenever someone wants to release a pop, rock, or EDM song as country, makes some sexist remark in a song, or sells out so hard that it somehow affects the music, because all of these things have been employed in country music before?
No, it doesn’t. On the contrary, it speaks to how there have always been challenges and existential threats to the country music genre, and each time they’ve been met with a stiff upper lip, spirited dissent, and efforts to make sure the integrity of country music stays in tact, and the traditions are preserved for future generations despite the monetary aims of the present tense. It’s better to be too cautious, and too critical, than to let the country genre fall into disrepair because of a lackadaisical attitude similar to what happened to rock in the early 2000’s.
Country music has persevered through adversity because the people of country music care about the music beyond their own listening habits. Country music isn’t just what they listen to, it is who they are. That is why they criticize, that is why they show concern, and that’s why those concerns should be heard and measured, so that the circle never becomes broken, and country fans have something to criticize and be concerned about well into the future.
Scotty J
July 31, 2017 @ 10:54 am
I would argue that the major difference between now and most other times in country music history is that there is no longer a core in the mainstream that featured a sound AND lyrical content that was easily identifiable as country music. No matter what else was going on there were true country acts succeeding in the mainstream at the same time.
At this current time we are not seeing hardly any of this as most of the acts that might do this are actually drifting to the fringes themselves.
So for me it’s all about a complete lack of musical diversity in sound and lyrical content that is the major problem.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
July 31, 2017 @ 11:02 am
(peers out from room)
is… is it safe? is it safe to comment without everything getting political?
the problem is not how it sounds, or how it treats women, or even how the artists act.
This article misses, in my mind, the issue.
The issue is that the songs suck.
it’s not about electric drums or misogyny, those things have been around and can continue.
Daniel Romano’s “Only on time asking” album is a great example.
Because he wrote some powerful songs regardless of how they sounded.
the songs are just crap.
not drums, not women, not mother’s flour jingles.
it’s all about the lyrics.
Scotty J
July 31, 2017 @ 11:13 am
‘is it safe to comment without everything getting political?’
Many thumbs up to this. I automatically tune out any topic even remotely political at this point.
pgwenz
July 31, 2017 @ 11:48 am
Scotty & Fuzzy are both right. Country has had its issues with pop-sounding material before, most notably with the “Countrypolitan” stuff of the 60s and the “Urban Cowboy” fad in the 80s. But what saves many of those songs and makes classics out of hits like “Crazy,” “He’ll Have to Go,” or “Lookin’ for Love” is that the lyrics were well written. The poppy stuff now just sounds like a bunch of recycled cliches gobbed together by a bunch of 9-year-olds.
That’s insulting to 9-year-olds.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
July 31, 2017 @ 11:54 am
exactly! it’s intelligent melody and lyrics. even though it sounds nothing like Hank Williams and a lot more like Tony Bennett.
Mike Honcho
July 31, 2017 @ 4:09 pm
That’s funny, because Johnny Lee would have never been discovered if it wasn’t for ‘Urban Cowboy’. It was also a huge crossover.
Greg Green
August 2, 2017 @ 7:00 pm
But almost any musical movement starts from a good place, then it’s merchandised beyond the artistry and the music reflects that decline. Even Hair Metal started from a good place.
Trigger
July 31, 2017 @ 12:52 pm
The point of this article was to be a “counterpoint” (like it was titled) or a Devil’s Advocate. And I think that is what is being “missed” here. I’ve done this before by pointing out the quality songs from bad artists, or how bad artists used to be good. But some folks don’t like seeing their heroes under the microscope. Nonetheless, it is a healthy, and important exercise. Of course the music of today is worse than it was in the past for a host of reasons. I make that point on Saving Country Music every single day in one capacity or another. But for that criticism to have merit, we also have to be honest. That was the point of this article, to for once, point out that country music, and even some of our most beloved artists, have a checkered past.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
August 1, 2017 @ 7:29 am
I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that feel like the biggest issue in Country Music is not electronic stuff or how it treats women.
Those things have been around, I never thought they were a problem before.
The thing that bothers me, is that whether electronic or acoustic, the songs simply suck.
that’s why I say Country Music has never been this bad.
Because even if it veered a little sonically, the songs were still decent.
all that other stuff is just giries to me.
not saying anybody’s wrong, just offering up my perspective on why Country Music is in trouble now, and I’m pinning the blame on lyrics, not on production or electronic drums.
Aerrieo
July 31, 2017 @ 1:45 pm
“It’s not about electric drums or misogyny, those things have been around and can continue.”
This may be the dumbest, most backwards thing I have ever read in the comments section on this site; and that is saying a lot. Naturally, I am referring to the misogyny part, not the electric drums, and the insinuation that it can continue. Hogwash.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
July 31, 2017 @ 7:21 pm
you must not like songs like
“Put another log on the fire” (tompall)
“hey good looking.” (hank)
“thank god and greyhound” (roy clark)
“women” (jamey johnson)
“tight fitting jeans” (conway)
of course if you like one of those, then congratulations you sir deserve a college degree from the school of missing the point.
such is the nature of songwriting, some songs may belittle women, if one chooses to get worked up about such stuff.
those of us with a bit of maturity don’t let ourselves get so wound up about something trivial.
because those songs are well written, fantastic masterpieces with coherent stories.
today’s songs, regardless of their content, are just dumb.
dumb dumb dumb.
Aerrieo
July 31, 2017 @ 7:26 pm
You are correct. I could care less about those songs. I do not argue about today’s country music. I argue that you “insist” misogyny can continue. I respect all the work Trigger has done on this subject.
El Pendebro
July 31, 2017 @ 8:06 pm
I can’t remember if when Tompall cut that he left Shel’s original subtitle of “Male Chauvinist Anthem” in the liner notes. At any rate it amuses me when others (not saying you Fuzz) look back at it like it was written earnestly. Silverstein was a great snarky songwriter, though I wish he stuck more to the likes of Oleander and Sylvia’s Mother.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
August 1, 2017 @ 7:33 am
of course it’s satire, it’s supposed to be funny.
but the idea that it’s not degrading to women if it’s funny is dangerous too.
that’s how a lot of trashy comedians get rich.
It’s okay to insult people if you’re funny but not if you’re running for President.
the idea that insulting anyone (and I’m guilty of being kind of insensitive and crass online too) is okay is bad.
The idea that it’s okay if it’s funny, or “tongue in cheek” is just dangerous because then we get all sorts of offensive stuff on the grounds that “it’s funny.”
so the idea that the song isn’t degrading because it’s sarcastic, in my opinion, is off-putting.
Kevin Smith
August 1, 2017 @ 5:34 am
Fuzzy, I’m with you. It’s called humor, people. Satire! This over extreme hypersensitivity is gonna be the death of us all. PC culture is insane! Tompall Glaser was covering Shel Silverstein who was a character who wrote mainly for comedic value. Neither Tompall nor Shel were quote ” misogynists.” Dare I mention Kinky Friedman who produced the nugget Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in bed! Now that many are horrified, look it up …Kinky is a funny Texas song writer who pals around with folks like Willie and Ray Benson. He does it for satirical purposes. Satire is a great art form and I guess you have to be intelligent enough to understand its point. On a deeper cerebral level satire actually makes fun of the negatives being mentioned in song. Bizarre how people college educated cannot understand comedic satire! For the record, my wife heard Put another log on the fire and cracked up. She gets the satire. She doesn’t take things too seriously. Young people today are waaay too serious. Learn to laugh folks. It’s part of what makes us human for God’s sake. Okay I’m off my rant now.
Trigger
August 1, 2017 @ 7:09 am
Once again you guys are arguing against nobody, which is what Fuzzy loves to do: pin an opinion on people that nobody holds, and then argue against it. The ol’ straw man tactic. Nobody was bringing up those sarcasm songs and presenting them as non PC.
Kevin Smith
August 1, 2017 @ 7:48 am
Wow..Some days a guy just can’t hardly win here. Getting lectured by the guy I sided with on the humor song. Geez folks…live a little…Man I feel like Charlton Heston in The Omega Man. Bunch of zombies coming at me…Then Trig calls it a straw man….sigh….Thanks….
I will go elsewhere…..
Trigger
August 1, 2017 @ 8:21 am
Kevin,
First off, my response was more to Fuzzy than you. The way the comments tier, it may have looked otherwise. Also, it’s not always a smart thing to side with Fuzzy since he likes to be contrarian for no other reason than to be contrarian at times. That was sort of the whole point of my comment.
Hayley
August 6, 2017 @ 2:09 pm
If only I had a dollar for every time this was said in context to a Fuzzy quote… The old man/white privilege runs DEEP with this one.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
August 6, 2017 @ 4:10 pm
blah blah blah go listen to Sam Hunt.
therhodeo
July 31, 2017 @ 11:04 am
My wife always listens to the Prime Country Sirius station and good lord early 80’s stuff before Yoakam and Strait came alone was trash. When I was growing up all I heard was people complaining about Garth or how un-country Lorrie Morgan’s “Something in Red” was but the Hat Acts and everything from that New Trad era is head and shoulders above the Urban Cowboy stuff.
StopPopCountry
July 31, 2017 @ 5:17 pm
We listen to Prime country quite a bit too and I have the same opinion. As someone growing up in the late 80’s, I was never subjected to it really until I started listening on XM more. The only older stuff I ever sought out were the classics. One day they had a countdown from 1982 and I just kept thinking how all the songs were horrible.
Ulysses McCaskill
August 1, 2017 @ 4:05 am
Willie’s Roadhouse, Outlaw Country, and the Bluegrass station (channel 62 I believe) are all awesome.
RD
July 31, 2017 @ 11:05 am
My two year and four year old can tell the difference between good country music and terrible country music. This past weekend we were driving in my wife’s car and I didn’t have my iPod. They were yelling for Waylon and Merle. My wife put on the pop country radio station and they began to cry. We flipped through the dial and found The Devil Went Down to Georgia. They liked this and enjoyed air fiddling to it, but then it went back to some pop country garbage and they started crying again. My wife had to shut off the radio and stream Waylon Live through her phone until they settled down again.
The Senator
July 31, 2017 @ 11:15 am
Sounds like you’re raising those kids up right.
Kevin Smith
July 31, 2017 @ 5:28 pm
You have the comment of the year in my opinion! Fine young-ins your raising there sir! Priceless!
Clint
July 31, 2017 @ 11:14 am
Good take here. I think the real problem is we dont have the balance of stone cold country on the radio now. I hope Pardi and Midland’s sound are bringing some of that back to Country radio
JB-Chicago
July 31, 2017 @ 3:04 pm
I like the Pardi album and the Midland EP even though most on here don’t Clint. I don’t really care. It’s better than hearing Chris Scott or Dylan Lane over and over the few minutes a day on short trips when I flick on the 2 radio stations here in Chicago.
Clint
July 31, 2017 @ 4:26 pm
I switch between stations so often, I dont even mind those guys some of the time. Moderation is the key
JB-Chicago
August 1, 2017 @ 8:54 am
Actually the Pardi/Midland tour is coming through Chicago with 2 nights. 1 in the city and 1 in the suburbs. Tickets went on sale an hour ago. Both will be sold out and we here will be enjoying 2 nights of current country whether anyone on this site understands why or not.
Ryan
July 31, 2017 @ 11:15 am
This article was very interesting and I value it for offering a different perspective. But it also doesn’t make me content with those four bad trends mentioned.
Though, that Johhny Cash commercial made me chuckle.
Taff Martin
July 31, 2017 @ 11:22 am
I think we have an amazing amount of great country music about at the moment, with songs as good as any from the last 60-70 years, the biggest problem is not the crap like Sam Hunt and co but what the radio stations are playing.
Stop listening to the stations playing some of the garbage and check out all the artists that are making exceptional country music like Jason Eady, Jamie Lin Wilson, John Baumann, and demand that they are played. If radio won’t play the songs you like stream/download or buy the CD’s.
I am finding new artists every day and finding it so exciting playing them on my show because I love country music, real country music, it’s out there you just have to look a bit harder these days.
Trigger
July 31, 2017 @ 1:26 pm
When consumers are presented with variety and alternatives, they make better choices. The problem is there must be a vehicle for them to discover there is a whole other world of music out there that they are not being exposed to. Criticism is one of those vehicles.
seak05
July 31, 2017 @ 3:54 pm
also spotify, youtube etc….I would somewhat argue that customers nowadays actually have far greater choice, and artists have far more platforms to get out music and build fans. Radio and labels are now only one way, not the only way.
I actually wonder sometimes if that isn’t part of why country radio stinks so much, and has so much hegemony. All the people who didn’t want to listen to the more bro-generic stuff left the audience once they had streaming alternatives.
Trigger
July 31, 2017 @ 4:25 pm
Spotify and YouTube are not enough. Access is not enough. It helps, but what people really need is a Sherpa to guide them to the best stuff, understand what they may like and their sensibilities, kind of like a big brother or sister making a younger sibling a mix tape. That’s why we can’t just chastise and write off corporate country listeners or ignore radio. We must engage them.
seak05
July 31, 2017 @ 5:50 pm
I’m totally down with continuing to engage. The thing is, sometimes when you present someone who likes FGL and Sam Hunt the latest Cody Jinks…they still prefer FGL & Sam Hunt.
Trigger
July 31, 2017 @ 9:52 pm
That’s when you present them with the Turnpike Troubadours. There’s a chink in every corporate country fan’s armor.
Greg Green
August 2, 2017 @ 7:21 pm
‘corporate country ‘
I like that phrase. Describes the whole gamut of Nashville doing it for money rather than the music. Some never cared for the music, others loved it but forgot they loved it. Or they discovered they liked money more.
Chris
July 31, 2017 @ 11:25 am
Re: the dance/EDM component – Dolly Parton herself released a few disco songs in the late ’70s. In fact, “Baby I’m Burnin'” in 1979 was the first single to be listed simultaneously on the pop, country and dance charts. And songs she released later on in the ’80s such as “Think About Love” and “Real Love” (with Kenny Rogers) were pure adult contemporary synth along the lines of Sylvia’s “Nobody.” “Real Love” was in fact a pop crossover although a very minor one.
And let’s not forget the country dance remix craze of the early and mid-’90s – so many were on the market that there were even compilation albums released. From my recollection it seemed to really take hold after the success of “Achy Breaky Heart.” Wynonna even pushed a remix version of “No One Else on Earth” to pop radio in 1992 and it was a minor crossover (even after the much more country “She Is His Only Need” had crossed over to adult contemporary without a remix).
But again, the point is that while these elements have always been present in country music they never seemed to completely take over the genre before to the point where every song on the radio sounded identical to the one before and the one after. Even when Dolly released a disco(-ish) song she did it as a double A-side with the flip side being something more country, such as “I Really Got the Feelin'” (flip of “Baby I’m Burnin'”) or “It’s All Wrong But It’s All Right” (flip of “Two Doors Down”).
By the way, compared to what passes for country today, John Denver and Olivia Newton-John’s mid-’70s crossover hits might as well be Hank Williams. (And the irony is that Olivia never set out to be considered country; her records were just marketed that way by MCA.)
GrantH
July 31, 2017 @ 11:30 am
What is very different about modern pop country compared to pop country from past eras is that you don’t have to sound “country” at all to play it. I was at a county fair recently in northern California and the main cover band playing there was cycling through a laundry list of country hits from the past ten years or so. But the crazy thing? All they had was a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, and a singer. No other instruments were required for them to play these covers. They were a bona-fide rock band playing country covers, yet they didn’t even sound that far off from the originals. And despite the fact that there was nothing “country” about what the band was doing, people were getting down on the floor like it was the best thing since sliced bread. I simply turned to my little brother and said “Welp, country music really is dead.” He’s in high school and even he knows.
Greg Green
August 2, 2017 @ 7:29 pm
I don’t know if you saw this from earlier in the year here, from Dave Mustaine of Megadeth:
“Metal guys, they’re pretty advanced with their playing. And when you watch country players, a lot of times they’re metal players that couldn’t get a gig so they settled for country,” Mustaine says. “Every single [country] band that I’ve met, any of the guitar players are like, ‘Oh man, I’m a huge fan of yours!’ It’s like, ‘What?’ Some of the performers too, they’re big fans, they love metal music.”
Melissa
July 31, 2017 @ 11:35 am
The biggest issue I have with today’s mainstream country (and pop) is most every song sounds like it was written by the same computer program. And maybe they were? I’m not familiar enough with pre-90s country to know if it was ever this generic, homogenous, and formulaic, but this is definitely the worst in my memory. There’s always been and always will be bad music, but I don’t remember such a lack of GOOD before (in the mainstream). I know the early-mid 80s are looked upon as a bad time, but I listen to big hits by Alabama, Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, Dolly, etc, and as blatantly pop-crossover as they are, they still sound like good songs written by actual human beings.
Obviously the lack of women is a huge problem too. “Tin Man” is one of the best singles of Miranda’s career and it might not even crack the top 10. That’s shameful.
Scotty J
July 31, 2017 @ 11:45 am
‘lack of GOOD’
Yep, I’ve mentioned this here before but there was a time when a bubble gum reality show country act like Sawyer Brown had a #2 hit with a truly great Mac McAnally song like ‘All These Years’. This is a song about adults and you just never hear that anymore. Virtually every song is a variation on the same two or three themes at this point. And they are all pretty damn juvenile in nature.
Melissa
July 31, 2017 @ 1:04 pm
I’d compare the computer-formula songwriting method to bad or out of place CGI in movies. You just KNOW when something isn’t real. It doesn’t feel right.
Greg Green
August 2, 2017 @ 7:38 pm
Here’s another one. Clear explanation with pictures, which are helpful for me:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eFrJ3mD0Zto
Why All Country Music Sounds The Same – Jim Lill
Mike Honcho
July 31, 2017 @ 4:14 pm
Not sure if this has been posted here before but this video shows how similar it all is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o
Batterycap
July 31, 2017 @ 11:49 am
It’s not that every so-called country song is bad. It’s that the preponderance are bad. This is a flip from the early 80’s where country was wandering a bit. I still recall the welcome Randy Travis was given when he came along and brightened the difference between true country and the stuff that was on the radio then.
I recall for some reason in 1979 when I was driving to work from Simpsonville, SC to Greenville, SC. n Bob Hooper of WESC played a new song from a new band that was called Alabama. The song was Tennessee River. He commented afterward that he thought that band would be around awhile.
I don’t see a Randy Travis or an Alabama out there today. Perhaps they are just 9 years old and trying to figure out how to play a guitar in their bedroom. If so, we will have to wait.
J
July 31, 2017 @ 11:55 am
I do think The Nashville Sound produced some of the schmaltziest middle of the road crap in American popular music, (with some glorious exceptions) so I agree that contemporary country at its worst isn’t uniquely awful, though it’s by no means better.
Also, the 90s and 00s ‘George Jones Country Gold Dog Food’ and ‘George Jones Country Sausage’ ads are pretty amusing.
seak05
July 31, 2017 @ 11:55 am
I’m not sure why doing commercials is included on here, music & artists need money in order to keep making music – “breaking news”. I at least believe that Blake eats pizza hut, and Willie has rolled through a taco bell or two at 2am.
But I digress…I think it’s perfectly good and necessary to say I don’t like “x” and here’s why, but pretending “x” has never happened before, or is really all that different from “y” in the past is bs. So a) thank for your this blog post and b) it’s why I get frustrated with the romanticizing of the past. Criticize what’s here on its merits or demerits, but don’t pretend like it’s some sort of exclusively modern problem.
Jon
July 31, 2017 @ 2:09 pm
Because those folks in your second paragraph forget about/weren’t aware of the things in your first paragraph.
Eduardo Vargas
July 31, 2017 @ 12:02 pm
Sorry, but it seems to me rather preposterous to equal and endorsement deal and artist does to being a “sellout”-
I mean, what’s wrong with featuring in the commercial of a famous brand? Is it somehow a sin to make money because of your fame? As pointed above with the Willie example, we don’t know how financially stable many of these stars have been when they made these endorsement deals, and it’s a way for them to get by.
A true sellout, by that definition, is someone who sells his artistic integrity for the sake of acceptance from the mainstream (or from acceptance by the “cool people”)
Trigger
July 31, 2017 @ 1:29 pm
That’s a good point, and should apply to older artists and contemporary artists equally.
Scotty J
July 31, 2017 @ 1:42 pm
As long as they are consistent then I don’t have a problem with endorsements by celebrities in general. Now if you go on and on about your sobriety and the problems alcohol has caused in your life and then you have a big beer endorsement deal or they sponsor your tour then that opens you up to fair criticism for me.
Eric
July 31, 2017 @ 12:15 pm
A country love song written by Trigger:
“Hello human being whose gender I would never dare to assume, do you wanna get some coffee with me?
I’ll let you do all the talkin’, while I sit silently.
I swear I’m not a mysoginist like those other dudes.
No? Oh, okay then, sorry for bothering you.”
That political correctness, guaranteed to make em swoon.
Trigger
July 31, 2017 @ 1:49 pm
It is dangerous and ignorant to assume that anyone who takes issue with the lack of female representation in country music is unmanly, or even politically motivated.
Eric
July 31, 2017 @ 2:44 pm
I’m fine with more female representation in country. More importantly than specifically more females I’d just like more good music, ideally. The thing I take issue with is how carelessly you throw the term misogyny around. That word has a real meaning, and it’s a pretty serious charge. It’s silly to label a guy who likes to sing about pretty girls a misogynist. Like, if you wanted to say that Conway Twitty or Jason Aldean are pervs who need to put their eyes back in their head, that might be fair, but they certainly don’t let on an attitude that they hate women, or consider them inferior. Anyway, I’m mostly just having a little fun with ya here, but I don’t think it’s at all misogynistic to notice when a woman’s attractive or potentially be inspired by it.
Trigger
July 31, 2017 @ 5:19 pm
Eric,
I agree that at times the misogyny term is thrown out there fast and loose, and when it’s unwarranted. At times I’ve probably done it too in the midst of a rant or something when I’m trying to purposely pile on for entertainment value. But what I did in this article was take points of view and compared and contrasted them. Those are not necessarily my points of view. I have called certain parts of modern country misogyny before and I’m not trying to distance from that, but the point here is to say that if we’re going to call Sam Hunt out for misogyny, then in fairness, that same accusation could be used against Conway Twitty.
One autonomous point I did make was that women are being excluded from radio like never before. This is not an opinion, this is statistical certitude, bolstered by the fact that we had a radio programmer a couple of years ago flat out advise country radio programmers to take songs off of their playlists very specifically because of their sex, and no other reason. That by definition is sexism.
Often when this subject comes up, I get accused of wanting to put women on the radio specifically because of their gender, and not taking into account the quality of the music. There could be nothing more further from the case, and I’ve made this point myself in MULTIPLE articles over the last few years. Yet somehow I still get yoked with the thought that I want Kelsea Ballerini on the radio just because she is a woman.
Similarly, I get yoked with thinking stuff is misogyny when I haven’t said so. In fact not to long ago I was accused of engaging in misogyny when I said Miranda Lambert’s music appeals more to the female perspective. I’ve also been accused of misogyny by Margo Price and Aubrie Sellers, and other journalists:
https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/i-am-not-a-misogynist-an-editorial/
The problem here is everything has become politicized to the point where people can see the nuance in discourse. People just assume I must be some ultra-sensitive left winger when it comes to these issues when I’m having opinions assigned to me that I never even made. I do think there is a big gender issue in country music. But I do NOT think that calling women hot is misogyny in itself, and I do not think that we should put more women on radio just because they are women.
seak05
July 31, 2017 @ 5:58 pm
Alright, I’ll say that more women need to be on the radio just because they’re women. Like with men a variety of women should be presented, Miranda, Aubrie, Ashley, Carrie, Maren, Kelsea…in today’s country radio all have a place.
And the reason that more women need to be on radio just because they’re are women: we get used to & find comforting that which we hear often (numerous studies have shown this), when we don’t hear women’s voices represented regularly, the few times they come up they then strike listeners as “shrill” etc. As compared to the frequently heard male voices. Which is then reflected in call out numbers, which then leads to fewer women getting play.
(also speaking of subtlety, saying a statement or thought that someone makes/has is misogynistic is NOT the same thing as saying someone IS a misogynist, i.e. when you regularly write women make music that appeals to women, but don’t regularly write that men make music that appeals to men. Especially since, sadly, 75% of Luke Bryan fans are women, so maybe it would be more accurate to say that all music appeals more to women.)
CountryKnight
August 1, 2017 @ 9:00 am
Seak,
So it is not really about true equality then? Radio should play the best songs because they are the best songs regardless of gender.
I oppose adding any artist to a playlist just because of their sexual orientation.
And unless, you can make sure that radio plays those names you mentioned adding women for the sake of adding women would be disastrous for the genre. Radio isn’t adding Ashley or Margo. If forced, they are going to add more Kelsea ripoffs. No thanks. The women problem on Country radio isn’t going to be fixed until the stupid problem is fixed on Country radio.
Like, Fuzzy once said: I would be OK with Country radio if it is 100% male or 100% female as long as the songs are good.
And there should never be a place for Kelsea’s music on the radio.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
August 3, 2017 @ 6:04 pm
“Like, Fuzzy once said: I would be OK with Country radio if it is 100% male or 100% female as long as the songs are good.”
but apparently when I bring it up it’s a straw man argument. yeesh.
I looooooove Tommy Makem. no reason, just so.
I also really enjoy Lorrie Morgan and Allison Krauss. I listened to one of my krauss cassettes twice driving to work, just let it flip over and play a second time.
Bertox
August 3, 2017 @ 6:15 pm
Allison Krauss on cassette gives me a warm, fuzzy twoshirts feeling…
HayesCarll23
July 31, 2017 @ 8:00 pm
This had me rolling…hahaha…
FLYINGBURRIO2486
August 1, 2017 @ 9:13 am
I am so tired of this “women in country” argument. More women need to be on radio just because they are women? Are you serious? As bad as you think misogyny is, feminism is no fucking better.
Dooley
July 31, 2017 @ 1:34 pm
Great article that puts a lot of things in perspective. Especially regarding the tainted view that the past has always been better, more earnest, more real. But by taking a closer look, things have remained pretty much the same within the contextual time frame.
From the very beginning, country music has been a reflection of the surroundings it was created in. The Carter Family took what instrumentation was available to them and accompanied lyrics with it, that put their feelings in motion. It’s just the most natural and human thing, to pick up and incorporate experiences that you are exposed to. Hank Williams took inspiration from a black blues guitarist and made it his own. Had he come about 10 years later, he might have incorporated some of the early rock’n’roll. It’s always, what’s out there, that forms and influences especially young people, be it for the better or the worse. And if they consider themselves artists, they might create something new out of it. Like Hank Williams did and like Elvis did.
As mentioned, Waylon was always considered as one of the first, to bring the rock music influence into country music with his heavy bass back beat. We may frown about it today. But then, would we really consider the Eagles as Rock by todays standards? Willie’s 4th of July picnic was fashioned after Woodstock, because Rock Music and what it meant to the people was the biggest thing at that time.
When the outlaw movement tried to break out of country music, because these guys wanted to do their kind of music, instead of what the very purist Nashville at that time considered country music, they didn’t care what label it would eventually get. They saw people liking it and coming in droves to hear it. As Willie wrote out of frustration about people telling him, what his music had to sound like:
“Mr. Purified Country don’t you know what the whole things about
Is your head up your ass so far that you can’t pull it out
The world’s getting smaller and everyone in it belongs
And if you can’t see that Mr. Purified Country
Why don’t you just write your own songs”
How can we expect music to remain untouched by the sign of the times? Can we really expect young musicians not to soak up influences they are confronted with in todays world, where even in the most remote location there is a chance you will get satellite radio, that offers all kinds of styles and options. Artists are expected to create from what they have available. And in contrast to the Carter Family or Hank Williams, today they have iphones and with it, all that todays technology allows at their finger tips.
Do we expect them to close off their eyes and ears to what’s right in their hands and no longer endless miles away in the big city, as it used to be some 70 years ago. Let’s face it, if you like it or not. Rap and Hip Hop music is, what Rock Music used to be in the 70s. Today’s pop music basically consists out of Hip-Hop and you hear that in all 50 states of the US (maybe Ed Sheeran can become the Randy Travis of pop music and turn some of it around, although songs like Shape of You are not the most extraordinary in terms of lyrics either). Even Latin Music has been invaded by Hip-Hop and made Reggaeton the dominant style!
The dictionary may still define a handwritten letter a means of personal communication and a horse carriage a means of personal transportation. And while anyone is free to still use it, the majority will have simply moved on with the time. That’s the way of life. Shall be blame them?
All we can do, is be supportive of what is to our liking. Yes, bro-country has thrown down the highest considered quality of country music, the story lyric and we need to be critical of that. If this is all, that life is about for those guys, then they are missing out on a lot. Life is more than the often quoted daisy dukes on pick up trucks next to rivers underneath the moonlight. But again, wasn’t country music at a time also considered to be limited to crying in your beer about loosing your women etc. All the topics that David Allan Coe mentioned, that a good country song had to have (Mama, train, pick ups(!), rain).
Sam Hunt in that regard is also a product of our time. Kinda like Elvis, who came to Nashville to become a country music singer. But while back then he got kicked out, because the powers to be in Nashville decided he was no good (and thereby almost sealed the demise of country music), todays industry did not make that mistake again. Yes, in terms of country music before the internet and before the advent of hip hop, it cannot be considered as country music. But just like Willie and Waylon and Elvis and many others before him, who stood out, he wanted to do something he felt comfortable with and he stood by it. But I don’t want to get too much into that discussion.
And after all calling music crap or stupid or simply bad, is always a subjective statement. As a matter of fact it says more about the one uttering this, than about the subject at which it is directed. Rolling Stone called “La La Land” the best movie of 2016. Does this mean, it really is the best for everyone? “Tony Erdman” comes in at No. 18. Is it worse, just because someone says, it is not as good as the Number-1 movie? Maybe it still has to do with personal preferences, interests, likes and dislikes … !?
Kevin Smith
July 31, 2017 @ 5:57 pm
Oh its a fact that Sam Hunt is bad. Awful really. Downright beyond redemption…musically speaking. And he aint no Elvis! Elvis actually possessed discernible talent! Those first recordings Elvis did for Sam Phillips at 706 Union Ave were the start of an entire genre of music. Music that would take over the free world no less! Make no mistake. He wasn’t called The King for no reason. Later on he made some dreck musically but only after he had already established a catalog of greatness. Sam Hunt will never be the King of anything except maybe mediocrity! Hunt wouldn’t be fit to carry Elvis’s guitar case.
Anyhow, your POV is similar to Blake Shelton’s. Gotta move on with the times. Nobody but old farts care about the old stuff. Music has to evolve to appeal to youth. yada, yada,,,bing bong. We’ve heard it all here on this site and many of us just laugh and then sigh and then vent to each other. Seriously, though there are far better alternatives out there for people to listen to dude! Cody Jinks anyone? Dale Watson anyone? Mo Pitney? Stapleton? Anyhow, I get your point and lots of folks in radio agree with you. I don’t though. And a lot of folks who are regulars here also don’t agree. But that’s the beauty of this big ole world, something for everybody. Cheers!
Greg Green
August 2, 2017 @ 8:56 pm
Sam Hunt would have to improve considerably to be the king of mediocrity. That’s still a distant dream for him.
Whiskey_Pete
July 31, 2017 @ 2:25 pm
I kinda want a steak burrito supreme or zesty steak melt right about now.
albert
July 31, 2017 @ 3:31 pm
How bout a consideration of these factors in this discourse :
1. THE USE OF AUTOTUNE….because there’s a dearth of actual vocal talent monopolizing the charts
2. THE LACK OF NARRATIVE ….songs of substance and diverse themes ..or that at least say something different than the last one… are rare and getting more so
3. LACK OF INSTRUMENTALISTS ( a variety of instruments featured in solo sections of a song OR and actual instrumental song ( Floyd Kramer , Chet , Duane Eddy ,’ Duelin Banjos’ ,session fiddle players ,steel and harmonica guys and guitar pickers alike etc.. )
4. THE LACK OF PROFESSIONAL SONGWRITERS . The figure tossed around is that there’s 80% fewer songwriters who make a living on music row than there once were.Look no further for why the songs are shit . Songs used to have to compete with a lot of pitches from a lot of writers who were not necessarily the artist but experienced , knowledgeable professional songwriters …masters of the craft and as creative and fresh as the day is long . Competition is good for any business . Now we get shit like ….well ..I don’t have to tell YOU folks ..
I could go on . To my mind , there is no defense for the crap cranked out by ‘ country ‘ radio when I factor in the above as being integral ingredients and traditional earmarks of the genre that are evaporating before our very ears !
Greg Green
August 2, 2017 @ 9:01 pm
Something that occurred to me recently was how short songs had to be in the 50s, 60s, and 70s to get radio play. That forced songwriters to be clear and concise and make every word contribute to the point of the song. It also forced the musicians to come up with a quick and catchy riff and get to it quickly. Back then the notes and words mattered more. Now there isn’t the pressure to be concise and impactful, and it shows in the lazy music and lyrics.
Ulysses McCaskill
July 31, 2017 @ 3:36 pm
Fair points Trigger. However, the only difference between now and then is that back then they made good music, and today the music is just plain awful. Willie earned the right to do whatever the hell he wanted later in his career. Let me know when Blake Shelton or some other hack puts out a transcendental album like Red-Headed Stranger.
mattdangerously
July 31, 2017 @ 3:47 pm
“You do a commercial, you’re off the artistic roll call forever. And that goes for everyone…except Willie Nelson. 24 million dollar tax bill, Willie was a little looser than the rest of us. I just avert my eyes when he sings about tacos, ya know what I mean?”–Bill Hicks
Erik North
July 31, 2017 @ 4:59 pm
As I’ve said numerous times before, country music has grappled with this pop music influence thing since Elvis and his contemporaries (including, I may add, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash) redrew the boundaries of the American musical vernacular in the mid-1950s. The advent of rock and roll really presented a deep existential crisis for country music that it had to cope with if it was to survive. Not only did it survive, but it thrived and truly evolved, even if their first response to rock and roll, the pop-oriented Nashville Sound, was too much of a concession for some, at least for the moment.
The same thing happened in the late 1960s, when young artists took what they had learned from that era’s folk music revival, resurrecting traditional country styles like bluegrass, and integrating rock and roll influences. These folks, who by the way were reviled in Nashville at the time by practically everybody except for Johnny Cash because their hair was too long and because they weren’t “patriotic” (?!), still hold a big sway over a lot of today’s artists, most notably the womenfolk (do the names Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris ring any bells?)
For me, the problem with country music today is the notion that rap, hip-hop, and bombastic Southern arena rock production, combined with whatever misogyny or sexism there might be, has somehow been equated by half-assed nitwits who practice it as country music somehow “evolving”. I won’t name the culprits; they are the Usual Suspects, and, anyway, why name morons?! But country music never really has had THIS problem before in its existence.
When do I think it started? Well, in my opinion, I think it may have been with the Muzik Mafia, headed by Big & Rich, back in 2004. Pretty much those chuckleheads were the original Bromeisters, and integrators of rap, hip-hop, and loud arena rock production into country music. Though the Muzik Mafia (and I include Gretchen Wilson in this too, folks; she rode that success with “Redneck Woman”) was a fad that lasted only a couple of years, it was always simmering below the surface; and then, it exploded again, in a much more toxic form, as Bro-Country in 2012 and 2013.
We can say that country music has had problems in the past, because it is more than true. It survived those problems with very little, if any, damage to the genre’s integrity. But as a fan of 1970s rock who appreciates country, nobody can tell me that integrating rap, hip-hop, and 110-decibel arena rock guitars into country music isn’t bad for the genre, because it is; it is, in fact, destructive. It is one of the greatest brainwashing schemes of music history to say that it isn’t.
Tezca
August 1, 2017 @ 7:24 am
Honestly in an objective way, and this is speaking from someone that don’t mind listening to Big and Rich and admits to having Big and Rich songs on Spotify(and albums too lol), you have a point. They’ve been doing the Bro Country thing before Bro Country had a name. At least they have verifying melodies imo at least.
Greg Green
August 2, 2017 @ 9:22 pm
I saw Rich on an episode of Country Family Reunion. He knows his old country real well, especially Johnny Horton and Roger Miller. Odd that he went the route he did.
John Smith
July 31, 2017 @ 5:36 pm
I’d argue that the influences of ‘non-country’ elements in record production are still annoying in their earlier phases.
While you are making a case for ‘who was in it first’, I don’t think it is a pass for shitty use of disco beats or 80’s gated drum reverb or line-in, no-amp guitar tones in the classic records of yore.
One of the best albums that illustrates this by referencing itself is ‘Naked Willie’ where Nelson stripped off the Chet crap from the production.
Of course our heroes have made foolish decisions about production and proceeded to deviate, but a complete alienation and deviation from the fabric of country music and falsely claiming it is dressed up legitimately, as we are seeing now, is not properly addressed by a Devil’s Advocate mentality.
Lazydawg
July 31, 2017 @ 6:32 pm
I think there is a misconception here. It isn’t country music that is bad. It is the radio format. It is top 40 country / pop music. It is intended for the masses who aren’t particularly serious music fans. There are so many alternatives for this format for anyone interested.
C
July 31, 2017 @ 6:51 pm
I think that because there has been people to critisize country music so vehemently in every generation of country music, it has allowed the music to evolve healthily and stay country at the core. The fact that Waylon Jennings was critised for being not country enough is very interesting looking back at today. It might not have influenced his music too much but who really knows. I appreciate that even he had to answer to critics. Artists may have sold out here and there but the country element has stayed there partly I assume because they did not want to face too much backlash. Now there is literally nobody involved with country radio that gives two shits to listen to critisism or give their own. Everyone in the industry is just patting themselves on each others back while they watch the dumpster fire they created and happen to call country music burn.
TheKillerRocksOn
July 31, 2017 @ 9:22 pm
Garth is the seed to all that is shitty about modern day country. Period!
Ginger
July 31, 2017 @ 9:36 pm
Engage them you must, Trigger. Willie Nelson’s guitar that was going to be auctioned… Waylon Jennings and Trump understood each other. Marla Maples has a super hot body. His American wife was all American, a Georgia Peach from a very rural village. Trump has something in common with country songwriters the women are Russian or American and they all have hard bodies, it could be the only reason to live. No flabby ladies and we wouldn’t have so many country songwriter LGBTQQQ (you can drop the last Q here, please thank you), I think manners are important, so are cleaning under your nails and washing your hands and maybe you should definitely work out too. At least hard bodies signifies grown up bodies preferred by Mr. Jennings. I’m afraid to read Conway Twitty’s lyrics. I’m starting to see things in black and white and Trump should take our precious national forests and turn them into a nature reserve for which once you enter you can never return, you are sterilized you are left to run. Release the prisoners and the crazies, anything goes, no weapons. We get their skins when they die to honor the skinheads, released into nature, American lives. We make hats and wear them ceremoniously for generations in order never to forget who gave up their lives unbreeding them, dying naturally in nature, watching them close, like nature shows – wild human shows. Construction teams and stadiums, Las Vegas reality shows anything goes. I was inspired, Country music is the United States we are trying to get rid of the bad guys we haven’t stopped learning, we’ve learned that prison doesn’t work and it’s disgusting. Wouldn’t they rather be in the forest. We could drop food from above, it’s technology. We said bring us your poor, hungry masses, they sent their insane and they’ve been breeding. The asylums and institution didn’t work I’m guessing no one wanted to work there, and they weren’t getting anywhere. They are on the streets their minds aren’t right. Their up is the regular down, etc. They would enjoy nature – for one generation or how many before it’s been bred out… if it ever is. For the violent ones there could be real gladiator games no weapons, that’s for the real violent ones – only if they choose. You could all mix around. If you decide to live there, you are sterilized. Anything goes you can choose. I just think we should be wearing jet packs by now, but so much crime has happened using cars, it doesn’t take a smart person to drive one, they just do all kinds of weird things in them and with them. The jet pack will have to be incredibly difficult to drive and you’d have to have a clean record until 35 or something. Anyway I wonder if Jamey Johnson is a social justice warrior, and would rather live in nature. No jet packs in nature. There would still have to be rules protecting us from them, but the meek is to inherit the earth anyway. Technology allows for less fighting and drones can be reproduced over and over.
Bertox
August 1, 2017 @ 4:37 am
I’m not sure if I want to go with the jet pack or the human skin outerwear. That’s a tough choice
Ginger
August 1, 2017 @ 6:51 am
You don’t have to choose. In my world, you get both. Jet packs and the outerwear made from human skin. Think of it like wearing a mink coat or cap. They could say “I’m not a waste, you’re bidding on me and sponsoring me for my skin.” If you were a badass, wouldn’t you rather know someone, somewhere is wearing your skin for the next 500 years? The inside tag could have the biography of the bad guy. The clothing will last generations and reminds us of who had to go before we could move with technology’s super advances. They die of natural causes, inside the national park, outside of a prison, we get their skin. It’s a part of human history mass graves. But they weren’t murdered, they just died like they would fending for themselves in the world behind the nature preserve’s electronic forcefield. Problem with bro country solved. Stadiums can be built inside for their listening. The population improves. Everybody wins!
Lazydawg
August 1, 2017 @ 5:54 am
Wait, what?
Mike Honcho
August 1, 2017 @ 6:32 am
I want to party with you, Ginger.
Ginger
August 1, 2017 @ 6:56 am
That’s sweet, Mikey. I bet you’d make the perfect party partner.
JohnS
August 1, 2017 @ 1:10 am
I freaken heard David Allan Coe sing with autotune when I just saw him in Sacramento. His opening acts sang covers of bro country songs including Luke Bryan’s Country Girl (Shake It For Me) and Justin Moore’s Lettin’ The Night Roll. I don’t know what to think. The local bro country cover band was the only band with a merch stand. I know it might not have everything to do with what you’re talking about, but part of it just makes me think, if this is country, then it might as well be the Sacramento equivalent to a white person making their own spin on Mexican cuisine (the main singer in that band looked hispanic btw). All jokes set aside, it seemed very much like something David Allan Coe would do or be a part of for some reason. Still thought the 30 to 40 minutes he sang were pretty badass. Just wanted to share that little bit of insight so my mind could process it some more.
JohnS
August 1, 2017 @ 1:15 am
Maybe I figure, well DAC can still seem considered one of country’s all time badass superstars like the ways Waylon and Willie do/have done even with all of those shenanigans in mind. As George Strait sang recently “Getting kicked outta country didn’t hurt a thing” I believe.
big poppa
August 1, 2017 @ 3:33 am
I was actually thinkin this has been a year full of some great songs with a more traditional sound. From Keith Urban sounding like Billy Joe Royal on Blue ain’t your color to swearing I heard T. Graham Brown when I heard Drake White singing Makin me look good again. The new guy Luke Combs has some great songs. And I can’t believe I’m saying this But Little Big Town and Better Man is to me about as good as it’s ever been. I kinda look at it like comparing Hank Williams Sr to Hank Williams Jr. Their both great. But you won’t find much in common outside their name. Music evolves. That’s a fact.
Stringbuzz
August 1, 2017 @ 7:19 am
It is getting old talking about how bad pop country is these days..
Personally, there is so much awesome music that has come out the last couple years, that I can’t keep up listening to all of it.
Too bad what’s on the radio is always the focus and what we want to bytch about.
I get it, but done with it.
I am thankful for the internet.
CountryKnight
August 1, 2017 @ 9:07 am
I agree with most of this article except for the endorsement section. I disagree heavily that an artist is selling out by prompting a burrito or pizza or any other material.
Trigger
August 1, 2017 @ 9:38 am
Again, I am not necessarily making these arguments. I am saying these are arguments being made against modern country, and in the interest of being fair, I’m offering a little context.
CountryKnight
August 1, 2017 @ 2:05 pm
OK then.
If so, shame on those people. Who cares if Blake Shelton is selling Pizza Hut? That is just being petty.
A. Michael Uhlmann
August 1, 2017 @ 11:34 am
Stultification, lack of singing chops, lack of creativity – that sums it up for me.
Where is someone that can sing like Lefty or George? Where are the writers with word plays that leave something to our imagination, or whole story songs? Where are the musicians who give us intros or chorus hooks that are remarkable? It has become gentrified mediocrity pushing music fast food down your ears. It is what America is today, engorging in a quick fix instead of actually enjoying a “New York Minute And Take My Texas Time Doing It.”
Go see Sam Hunt in concert and all “fans” are staring into their cell phones, go see a real traditional act and all us geezers are dancin’ to it and have a swell time. Are some songs parlaying too much partying (check – “Green Snakes On The Ceiling), too misogynistic (check – “All The Girls Get Prettier Around Closing Time”), cheating (check – “Back Street Affair”) – are we capable of surviving all that abuse – double check. Fuck PC and all that bullshit about positivity in songs. Has nothing to do with real life and I really don’t want to see my country music sound like Prozac.
Big Texas Mike
August 3, 2017 @ 6:03 pm
Awesome article. I can relate — I was just sitting to a pile of sunflower seeds and pondering the synth drum beat vs old analog, tape, people music and the bumper stickers I see that the old boomers say that drum machines have no soul; yeah they have on soul but the pensioners have no soul either if they’re brushing their teeth with colgate.
Big Texas Mike
August 3, 2017 @ 6:09 pm
Oh, but I also think you have to earn your “license” to use synth stuff, like you gotta’ have an bred trait to not be a douchbag in life and be of the essence. the best I think even more psychedelic would be cowpunk ala Dwight Yoakam,; the total king of neotraditional country — and there’s been a break in the chain, the torch ain’t been passed, and there’s a lapse for 20+ years with no one to come along. It’s the chemical,s diet, injections, and injunctions, the NWO dumbing down and devil culling.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
That native lotus blossom’s got all y’alls chilren and your future lines:
INT. PALACE BANQUET HALL – PHAIAKIA –– DAY
So, after some ~…
ODYSSEUS
…My men were mutinous, fools, on stores of wine. I might have made it safely home, that time, but we were blown inland—
We see the ship blown in inland waterways.
EXT. PRIMITIVE ISLAND – DAY
ODYSSEUS (V.O.)
We landed there to take on water. Then I sent out two men for provisions…
WE SEE an unkempt tribe of people regaling themselves and distributing their cult drug of choice in paraphernalia, etuis, and drug carriers–
ODYSSEUS (Cont’d) (V.O.)
Nature’s children they called them selves. They told us to lay down our fight and return to the land.
SCOFFS—
ODYSSEUS (Cont’d) (V.O.)
Plenty of time for the land in the grave!
Those who took part never cared to report, nor return: they longed to stay forever, browsing on that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland.
Odysseus confiscating and throwing away baggies of his men’s stuff, and dragging the worst addicted of them along, then tying these fiends down in the bilge of his ship for transit.
FADE TO:
EXT. KYKLOPES LAND – DAY
Their ships are now at a land-locked cove…
ODYSSEUS (Cont’d)(V.O.)
In the next land what we found were hearty giants of men, brutes, clods of the earth—
EXT. SERBIAN COASTAL RANGE – AND CANYON RIM – DAY
WE SEE native free-ranging livestock drovers.
Lush, well-watered meads along the shore, vines in profusion, prairie. Unplanted and untilled, a wilderness, pasture goats alone, in the hundreds.
In the canyon rim above Odysseus’ men ROAST goat for breakfast. They gaze at SMOKE BILLOWING below. They decide to explore…
They arrive at the bottom, and behold a yawning cavern above SPRING WATER, screened with laurel, and many RAMS and GOATS about inside a sheepfold—made from slabs of stone earthfast between tall trunks of pine and rugged towering oak trees.
ODYSSEUS Cont’d) (V.O.)
Primitive louts. They held no town meetings, nor did they seem to have any legal system, only the rough justice dealt from their homes–
RP
August 7, 2017 @ 7:02 pm
“Country” radio is and has always been infused with pop songs. But now, for the first time that I know of, there is a way for people to hear ‘alt’ country, i.e. Red Dirt country. The Roger Creagers, Pat Greens, Aaron Watsons, Sunny Sweeneys, etc. of the world can make a living singing ‘real country music’ and with the internet I can find their music and buy it! And there are some good Red Dirt stations that play these and other great country artists. So, while mainstream radio has been taken over by the Scott Borchetta’s, at least we have actual options that were not available to anyone before about 10 years ago.
(I didn’t read all 90 prior responses, so if this was already stated, I apologize for repeating)
Charlie
August 8, 2017 @ 9:13 am
The Sign of the End Times of Country Music will be when everybody stops bitching about it. That will prove the ‘love of the greater number growing cold’. Matthew 24:12