The State of (Country) Music

[Yves]

We don't get bombarded with too much of this stuff here in Quebec. In fact, I never heard of any of the songs/artists in that mash up. Country music has its fans here, but not enough for us to have a country music radio station in Montreal.

[rcarlberg]

Country music has its fans here, but not enough for us to have a country music radio station in Montreal.

That does it, I'm moving to Quebec.

[Yves]

We do have country music in the rural areas, including French Canadian country music which they specifically call "Western". It's not utopia!

[Enid]

Modern Country blends a Rock style of guitar playing found mostly within Rock music of the 70's. For example, during a verse...a guitarist will often be playing a distorted guitar. One that matches up to the backing guitar sound in Humble Pie, Juicy Lucy or early Fleetwood Mac. Some of the licks are more Blues based than Country. In the 60's, ...you could have been arrested for making your guitar sound like that in Country. Now it's basically more of a Rock format inclined to attract the attention of a new mentality formed in the Country music fans. Many people in the clubs who are fans of Rock music are now attracted to "Modern Country" because It crosses over into their world of Rock music. All of these "sing-a-longs" with beer in hand to songs like "Wagon Wheel" come across during live transmission as more of a Rock n' Roll affair. "Gunpowder and Led" interests the women in the club because it's all about shooting your husband. Frank Zappa warned us about the lyrics in Country music being more impressionable to people when the main focus of Tippy trippy Gore was to bring justice to Heavy Metal porn. Everything seems contrived as if to say..."It doesn't matter if you act a certain way in a specific decade, but in a different one it would...but it means nothing anyway because the industry will make a choice on their own and place money and power behind it. Remember...when T. Gore addressed Heavy Metal artists before the senate committee ...she was rubbing shoulders with the record executives. Ho ho...I can't stand myself..

[JJ88]

That does it, I'm moving to Quebec.

You should try the UK- save for the BBC DJ Bob Harris who has long championed it, it's more or less country-free here. (Taylor Swift excepted because she's 'gone pop' now!)

I think in Ireland there's a certain country audience...witness that 'country and Irish' hybrid.

[Yves]

It's a truly "American" sound. I deal with many Americans from all over and the further south I call, the higher the chance that I'll hear country music when placed on hold. It's not nearly as annoying as modern day pop of the dance variety, but as demonstrated in the OP, it's very monochromatic, and not very original. Some people like it, but I get bored before I hear one entire song. A few verses in and you can almost guess the lyrics:

A guy has been caught cheating and must make a hasty retreat in his pick-up truck

A guy and his buddies are going to NASCAR, in his pick up truck

Many people are partying and drinking under the stars, in the back of a pick up truck

A guy reminisces about losing his virginity, in the back of his pick up truck

A guy gets kicked out of his house and must live in the back of his pick up truck....

[trurl]

I think the modern pop-rock-generic country sound started with Shania and her husband Mutt Lange. He just took Pour Some Sugar On Me and added a fiddle and his hot wife and voila. New formula- get an metrosexual guy with tats, add some crunchy guitar (but not too much!), a real country instrument but in the background (fiddle, banjo- probably looped) and auto-tune the shit out of it. Done. But all those boom-boom-BAP We Will Rock You clap-along choruses; they're Mutt.

[Dave (in MA)]

The southern rock of 40 years ago seems to have more in common with actual country music than the stuff that passes for country these days.

[No Pride]

^
Yeah, all that's left of what used to be considered country music is the pedal steel guitars, the twangy vocals, the lyrics and the cowboy hats (and as you say, a banjo and/or fiddle here and there). Aside from that, it more closely resembles corporate rock from the late '70s/early '80s. I still like it better than sequenced "producer pop," but not by a wide margin.

[Dave (in MA)]

http://www.metrolyrics.com/this-is-h...rgia-line.html

Purple drank at the roadhouse.

[headcrash]

I like most music, and can find something to enjoy is almost every kind, but contemporary country music is the devil. Here's part of the reason: http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/376145...have-in-common

[rcarlberg]

That's the same story that started this thread. NPR picked it up a couple days late.

[Zeuhlmate]

Chris Whitley is probably the only country artist I like - but then again, most countrylovers probably hates it.



And well, Hellecasters are also worth listening to, really great musicians !

[No Pride]

Hellecasters are also worth listening to, really great musicians !

Indubitably! But theirs is really a genre-crossing music and country is only about a quarter of it.

[Dave (in MA)]

Birdy mentioned The Deep Dark Woods a few days back...

[trurl]

The little Taylor thing was fun. When she makes a UTub video we'll post it.

[progholio]

That explains some of the gomer-ebonics in the lyrics.

"Gomer-ebonics" - priceless, sums that awful shit up to a T, can i quote you on that?

[Dave (in MA)]

Knock yourself out.

[Dana5140]

I like old-time country, like Willie and Waylon and George Jones and earlier than that- Johnny Cash is country and he is the voice of God, y'know? But the new country is pop music played by faceless corporate pretty boys and is entirely product. I could not tell any modern country person apart from another.

[Jerjo]

Spread plenty of blame on former marketing major Garth Brooks as well. His sound was extremely calculated for success (George Strait lite with rock flourishes) and his stage show was pretty much a rock show with redneck trappings. Once he sold a jillion albums, every label pushed every artist they had into the GB cookie cutter to maximize profit, minimize risk. It's marketed to suburban moms and daughters now, to dads whose taste in rock was always a little suspect in their formative years and now just want something safely rowdy, and of course, toothless slack-jawed morons.

There's still real country out there but it's on the edges. The soulless industry likes to bathe itself in false authenticity now and then but this is the way they want it: bland, formulaic product that can be controlled.

[rcarlberg]

But the new country is pop music played by faceless corporate pretty boys and is entirely product. I could not tell any modern country person apart from another.

Or entirely-interchangeable Barbie dolls with fluffy hair and pouty lips. I SWEAR the "music industry" [sic] chooses their stars from a collection of head shot photos and sez, "Hell, they don't need to SING -- that's what compooters are fur."