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.
Country music is country music, and the best definition of what country music is, is that you know it when you hear it. It’s self-evident. But the genre has birthed many subgenres, many stylistic movements over the years, and at times has seen a splintering and Balkanization.
Sam Hunt was scheduled to headline the Boots & Hearts Music Festival Friday, August 5th in Burl’s Creek, Ontario in Canada, but he will no longer be attending after he announced he is not being allowed into the country. Jake Owen has instead been tapped as the Friday night headliner.
It’s a cool program the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion has put together, with local bands opening for big-named acts all summer. But apparently when the team for Maren Morris caught wind that there would be a local act playing on the Hazy Little Stage, they cited a “no local openers” clause.
Ever since Billboard tweaked their formula for how songs are slotted on the Hot Country Songs chart in 2012, it has given rise to heavyweight tracks that sit atop the chart for weeks and weeks on end. All the more reason that the current song to get stuck at #1.
Who could have predicted that the hottest new things in country music would be pudgy songwriter dudes with mononyms. No, this isn’t HARDY. He’s the dorky-looking one with the glasses. This is ERNEST. Their rise is almost as improbable as the other hot trend…
In a story Saving Country Music was painstakingly attempting to avoid, Sam Hunt’s wife Hannah Fowler filed for divorce on Friday, February 18th, claiming infidelity from the “country” star—specifically “guilty of inappropriate marital conduct” and “guilt of adultery.”
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.
Many independent country music fans and Americana nerds will never admit to it, but the simple fact is that mainstream country music has been on a painfully slow, but palpable improvement track since about 2015 when Bro-Country hit its peak.
If you’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to catch the Turnpike Troubadours on their reunion tour and got locked out of the first round of shows due to the crazy run on tickets, the opportunities to see them live just got a lot more lucrative.
My Lord is this is bad. But it’s one of these instances where it’s so terrible, it’s actually hilarious. I heard about this monstrosity, cued it up on the music streaming service of choice, and started laughing so hard milk shot out of my nose. And I wasn’t even drinking milk at the time.
That’s right, Saving Country Music is brushing off this old feature, and featuring another name from the modern era of country music badasses in Cody Jinks after his recent run over the last few years has made him one of the most formidable names in independent country.
You know how this drill works. Make sure your tray tables are in their full upright position, make sure all electronic devices are set to airplane mode, and don’t believe a pop country star when they say they’re going back to their roots until you actually hear it.
Ha! This is great. So at some point during the last installment of Mile 0 Fest in Key West, FL in early 2020, a bunch of independent country artists primarily from the Texas scene took the time to read bad reviews of their music. It’s like a mean Tweets segment featuring some of your favorite artists.
Pop country star Sam Hunt has now been indicted on drunk driving charges by a Davidson County Grand Jury. Police initiated a traffic stop where they observed Sam Hunt had bloodshot eyes, and two empty beer cans near him.
Due to COVID-19, and then the protests and riots, the Saving Country Music snark machine has been pretty much powered down and collecting dust for the better part of 2020. But there has been as few instances of country music malfeasance so egregious, it would be unconscionable to not address.
Five years ago today—on November 4th, 2015—the biggest event and paradigm shift in country music occurred most certainly in the last 10 years, likely in the last quarter century, and possibly one of the biggest moments in the totality of country music history.
Due to COVID-19, and then the protests and riots after the George Floyd killing, the Saving Country Music snark machine has been pretty much powered down and collecting dust for the better part of 2020. But there has been as few instances of country music malfeasance so egregious, it would be unconscionable to not address them.
Cody Jinks rarely casts stones, and isn’t inclined to spout off against pop country unless the situation is really called for. That happened to be the case when he made a recent visit to the dentist, and was exposed to the Sam Hunt song “Hard To Forget,” though he didn’t know the song or artist at the time.
Beyond making a really bad amalgam of derivative and formulaic rap pop by ripping off the styles of Drake and trap beat artists to only then turn around and sell it as country to the gullible masses, Sam Hunt is also superlative at turning hip-hop, pop, and indie rock writers into certified country music experts.
If true country music is dead, then Sam Hunt’s DNA is all over the crime scene. As the man who single-handedly eroded more barriers between popular music genres than anyone else in the modern era, it is he who you can point the ugly finger of blame towards for the fact that most all modern music sounds the same.
Haha. Okay… So this is how Sam Hunt is making his music, “… more traditional in terms of the genre … that’s definitely where the songs are leaning at this point,” like he promised us he was doing last summer? By filching a piece of a sacred Webb Pierce classic and misappropriating it for a derivative drum-looped pop song?
Look, we all make mistakes, and Sam Hunt is no criminal, unless the offense is high crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated against the institution of country music. But he did screw up, and big time when he went driving down the wrong side of a principal highway in Nashville early in the morning on November 21st.
One sign that mainstream country music continues to improve is the decrease in “country” songs that were worthy of rants in 2019 compared to previous years. However there were a few exceptions in 2019, and songs worthy of taking out back to the woodshed. Our full-throated opposition to these monstrosities misappropriated as “country.”