On Wednesday, August 31st, 2022, Florida Georgia Line played its final show as a duo at the Minnesota State Fair. “This is our last official concert as Florida Georgia Line… let’s see what we got left in the tank,” Tyler Hubbard said at the start of the performance, goading the crowd. It’s been a long, slow, painful death.
The only thing worse than the music of Florida Georgia Line is how their demise has been this slow and plodding drama that’s been unfolding over a couple of years now. Just stick a fork in it already fellas, and maybe resurrect it 20 years from now in Vegas as a nostalgia act.
This extensive “Mix It Up With Florida Georgia Line” exhibit that the Hall of Fame recently opened on February 6th really is an unfortunate, and frankly shortsighted move by the museum, overlooking the widely-polarizing nature of the Bro-Country duo.
Though fans will have to wait until January to see the exhibit themselves, Saving Country Music has been granted an EXCLUSIVE sneak preview of many of the pieces of memorabilia that will be on display celebrating the duo’s decade in service to Bo-Country.
It’s not what Florida Georgia Line said. It’s what they didn’t say, and what they felt compelled to answer when really nobody was asking any questions. Now many are wondering about the future of one of country music’s most popular and vilified duos.
It was just a bit under two weeks ago when breakup rumors surrounding the Bro-Country duo Florida Georgia Line were all the rage of the country music internet. So what is the duo doing to help mend fences? They’re making a musical.
An Instagram post from Brian Kelley nearly resulted in the greatest fears of Florida Georgia Line fans coming to fruition, and the greatest hopes for many actual country music fans who are often furious at the musical output of the Bro-Country duo.
The 2020 CMA Awards will transpire on Wednesday, November 11th (make sure to follow along with Saving Country Music’s LIVE blog), and this year it will be a tribute heavy affair. Tributes, remembrances, and the marking of anniversaries will be a big part of the presentation.
Morgan Wallen, Chase Rice, Brian Kelley and others were wrong to advocate for big shows. But when it comes to the claims of these artists of hypocrisy, they’re completely right. Since the beginning of the pandemic there has been a glaring double standard in how social distancing is demanded, and excused.
The debate about what is country music and what isn’t is an eternal one. But a 1:53-long viral “song” that is really nothing more than an internet meme entitled “Old Town Road” by rapper “Lil Nas X” has rekindled the debate anew, with critical implications behind it.
When it comes to popular music, every generation has its goat. And no, we’re not talking about the hip social media acronym for the “Greatest of All Time.” We’re talking about the sacrificial kind—the one synonymous with an ornery horned land animal that eats your garden and shits everywhere.
That’s right, I’m going here. And no, it’s never cool to put your hands on another man’s shit, so don’t @ me because that’s not what I’m getting at. But the idea that somehow Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line and his wife Brittney are victims is ridiculous.
Well well well. The story of country upstart duo Maddie & Tae only continues to get more juicy and intriguing, and only continues to turn more and more towards a positive one for folks concerned about the lack of roots and female representation in the country genre.
Well well well. So Florida Georgia Line has decided to go on the offensive when it comes to the significant criticism the duo is fielding as the face and premier franchise of Bro-Country. The faltering of the trend has put the Big Machine cash cow on unsure footing it seems, and they’re out to do something about it. In an interview with Dan Rather that will air Tuesday evening (5-12) on AXS TV….
Monday night (12-15) was the inaugural airing of what is attempting to be country music’s 4th awards show called the American Country Countdown Awards, or ACCA’s, and the ratings couldn’t have been worse. A big media push prior to the awards couldn’t account for an overcrowded awards show space and a lackluster presentation, and the overnight ratings for the show were abysmal.
Professed Christians Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley, known collectively as the pop country mega duo Florida Georgia Line have more euphemistic language on their new album Anything Goes than a salty-mouthed locker room. If you’ve been wondering what the hell they actually mean, then here are some useful translations of Florida Georgia Line’s most sexually-charged lines.
Here’s to watching what you wish for. For a while we’ve been clamoring for these Bro-Country types to put a little story in their songs instead of simply listing off the stuff they see as they sit on their tailgate with their iPhone notepad pulled up trying to write a song. Unfortunately those results regularly turn out to be worse than the latter.
Have you ever been scanning through photos of your favorite (or least favorite) artists and thought, “Hot damn! That dude look just like this other dude!” From eery similarities like Sturgill Simpson and Javier Bardem’s creepy character from the movie No Country For Old Men, to Johny Paul White and Johnny Depp who I am pretty much convinced are the same exact person…
At this point, Florida Georgia Line has settled quite nicely into being the great American sedative of our generation. Just as producer Joey Moi did with Nickelback before them, this music affords a vacation from self-reflection or truly beneficial thought. This is the type of vacationary audio lubrication that keeps the engine of corporate America purring along just fine.
In an August 7th article in The Chicago Tribune, Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line was characterized as being “unhappy” about Maddie & Tae’s debut single “Girl In A Country Song”. Now, on-air personality Broadway of Country 92.5’s Electric Barnyard Show has interviewed Maddie & Tae, and asked them directly about Brian Kelley’s comments.
Thomas Rhett took time away from getting hammered with Jesus and writing idiotic checklist songs to talk with Cody Alan of CMT’s After Midnite recently, and not so surprisingly, Thomas had some dumb things to say regarding his take on Bro-Country. Rhett told an eager and servile Cody Alan, “I just have never actually used the term ‘bro country’….”
When The Chicago Tribune interviewed Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley earlier this week, his ability to laugh at himself, or Maddie & Tae’s “Girl In A Country Song” specifically, seemed quite elusive. Writer Allison Stewart characterized Maddie & Tae questions to Kelley as “…the only ones Kelley, in a recent phoner, doesn’t sound happy to answer.”
Because this song is from Florida Georgia Line is not the reason to hate it. It’s the exact reason to love it. Today, the 8th of July, 2014, is a victory for country music, and for the individuals and entities who wish to see a measure of balance restored back to the format—not based on taste, but on the theory of finding less divisive music that we can all enjoy together as country music fans.
Southern twang is back in a big way baby, as bro-country dominates the format, and female performers try and turn up the sass to compete. As opposed to trying to apologize for their Southern roots, today’s country artists can’t shut the hell up about them, regularly reinforcing all things country in laundry list form with elongated drawls. This has seen the rise of the Southern accent once again.