Country interloper Kane Brown just released his second record called Experiment, and since most of music media has devolved into nothing more than a promotional arm of the mainstream industry, the album’s arrival has been dutifully met with a host of fawning puff pieces filled with over-hyped tripe.
It’s now been two months since purely pop star Bebe Rexha eclipsed the all-time record on the 70-year-old Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for consecutive weeks at #1, and there is still no end in sight for the song’s reign. 43 weeks now the song has remained in the top spot, with challengers coming and going with no real threat.
Kane Brown and Luke Combs couldn’t be more different. But they are both a new style of country star who made their ascent into mainstream stardom 100% during the streaming era, and due to the streaming era specifically. Last week, both artists announced their own arena tours.
Now that the 2018 CMA Awards nominations have been announced, the people who care about the awards can pour over the lists and find things to complain about, while the people who complain about the awards can pour over the lists while professing to not care. This is the way of things, and what happens every year.
What has happened to American country music? How did we get here? What diabolically bad state of disrepair has befallen the country genre where someone would even be forced to interface with a song like Kane Brown’s “Weekend” as a country music fan or critic?
In the interest of equal time and giving everyone a forum to voice their grievances, Saving Country Music has decided to post the six messages received from angry Kane Brown fans via the site’s Facebook page here. These aren’t fake, and these aren’t a selection of the messages. These are all the messages presented in order.
The future of mainstream country music looks and sounds like Kane Brown—meaning bad neck tattoos and a monotone delivery of terrible songs. The only question left is what the future of mainstream country looks like if artists like Kane Brown are leading it.
It’s easy to pawn off the fault for the inappropriate moment on Kane Brown, but Kane is surprisingly saying he wasn’t on board with the moment either, and it was the ACM choreographers and producers who insisted on it. “It was super awkward. Lauren was like, ‘Might as well go ahead and grab his butt too!'”
The “Memaw” reference is yet another jab Kane Brown has made towards more traditional country listeners for their age—something he’s done numerous times in his career. He also admits the real motivation behind his recent remix with pop star Camila Cabello on the song “Never Be The Same.”
“I truly believe ‘Meant To Be’ paved the way for other artists to jump into country. This is the most fulfilling thing to me more then #1,” Bebe Rexha said on Twitter. “I want more pop artists to do country collaborations, and I bet that will happen a lot more in the next five to six months. I want to pave the way.”
Kane Brown will be appearing on a new remix of pop star Camila Cabello’s current single “Never Be The Same” according to information coming down the music wires. What has some observers from the country realm interested (or concerned) is if it will be the latest pop/country collaboration to be released to country radio.
Blackberry Smoke is once again #1 in country, at least when you consider pure album sales. Their most recent album Find A Light released on April 6th sold more cohesive records last week than any other country release according to the Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart. They also charted in Rock and Americana.
The effrontery of whomever is really responsible for compiling these five songs together and presenting it as an expression of Randy’s tastes or desires is appalling. This is ridiculous, and everyone involved in the perpetration of this ruse must think we are all incredibly gullible, and should be called out publicly.
Let’s face it. For a host of reasons, it’s pretty rare to see African Americans making country and roots music. But when they do, more often that not, they’re doing it the right way, pushing the music forward creatively while fiercely helping to preserving the past, becoming part of the solution instead of prolonging the problem.
We were so swept up in praising ourselves for all the gains made in the independent realm of country music in 2017, it wasn’t until here in the dwindling moments of the year that we realized just what a dreadful era 2017 posed in the mainstream.
Friends and neighbors, I know you would rather spend your time reading about something a bit more positive in nature than the rabid attitudinal protestations of some twisted up music critic spouting off about this grotesque specimen of audio diarrhea, and during what is supposed to be a festive season no less….
This week the country music world was shocked when a pop star named Bebe Rexha and her song “Meant To Be” featuring Florida Georgia Line debuted at the very top spot of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. But looking deeper into the numbers, something didn’t seem to add up.
Sam Hunt’s historic, and likely insurmountable reign at the top of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart with his terrible, non-country song “Body Like A Backroad” has finally ended, but only after forever besmirching country music’s history books, and relinquishing the spot to another decidedly non-country “country” performer and song.
Ultimately it’s not the voice, but the image that has earned Kane Brown whatever following he’s cobbled together. He’s got the whole bad boy thing going for him, where your 14-year-old thinks he looks just dangerous enough for you to disapprove of. And oh he sings too, so he’s the perfect male sexpot for bored suburban youth. Beyond that, it’s a mess of disparate influences.
Country music is not just a commodity or even a form artistic expression. It is an integral part of people’s lives and has been the foundation for their cultural identities for generations. It’s what binds them to their homes and ancestry, and is interwoven into the very fabric of who they are as people.
Usually such a list is only reserved for the worst songs at the halfway pole of a given year, but 2016 has been especially lush with heartbreakily bad efforts, including from some artists who tend to be on the right side of the good music/ bad music divide. So before we really take the gloves off, let’s reflect back on 2016 biggest disappointments in the album category.
For a “view” to register on a YouTube video, a user must watch at least 30 seconds. But on Facebook, the video only has to be viewed for 3 seconds. The user doesn’t even have to be paying attention to the video. The sound doesn’t even have to be enabled. And due to Facebook’s auto-play feature, it’s more likely three seconds will rattle off before the user even pays attention to it compared to a YouTube video.
…Back to the argument Blake Shelton had with Adam Levine on The Voice as America watched on, and they both battled to be picked as the judge for Adam Wakefield, Blake Shelton said some things about country that needed to be heard, and were quite surprising coming from Blake. Usually the banter between judges is quite lighthearted on the show. But in this case, it got fairly heated.
Purported country music “viral star” Kane Brown is now a major label artist. And if you thought your acid reflux got a workout when you watched Luke Bryan and Sam Hunt up on stage claiming to be country singers, Kane Brown is guaranteed to kick it up yet another notch. The lesson of Kane Brown is that you can cheat to get ahead, and you don’t have to pay any dues or prove yourself in the marketplace.