Modern country music is the scourge of music. It's even worse than studio gangster rap suburban white kids listen to, much in the same way dogs will occassionally eat their own ********. It's all sappy and cliche, and it bears absolutely zero resemblance to old country music. They should hold a country music festival in Nashville with every 'artist' based out of there invited and then set Nashville ablaze. DIE, NASHVILLE! You ruined what guys like Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Willie Nelson created. They were rebels, they sang about shooting and drugs and the blues, not **************** 3rd person stories about someone with a lot of problems, sappy stories about childhood sweethearts, and anything else that is just a veiled attempt to make the listener sad. Their idea of rebellion wasn't about drinking ********ing margaritas. I mean, "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem." Who the **** wrote that and thought it was witty? Howie Mandell? The same guy who designs those 'Jimi Henchicks" shirts with a chicken with a headband on them? "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy?" I'll save my ears and punch you in the neck, you chaw talking asshat. "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way." Wtf? Yeah, cause we're all gun toting rednecks who just want to bag us a few o' them sand **************. If that's your idea of the American way you should have your citizenship revoked and be deported to Turkey with a pound of heroin secretly stashed in your bags before you go through the airport. "Live Like You Were Dying?" Other songs include, "Live Fast, Die Young", "Party Till You Drop", "A Redneck Party Don't Stop", "Playing to the Lowest Common Denominator" and "I Can't Believe People Buy This ********". "I Go Back". Holy ********. I mean, just holy ********. It's like he wanted to see how many cliches he could fit into a song. "No, no, no...think of movies about high school...let's see, uhm, girls....yeah, uhm, hanging out on the 50 yard line, hmmm...the smell of a gym floor...BRILLIANT!"
So what happened to country music? Kenny Rogers and Barbara Mandrell. In the 80s, it became "twangy pop music produced in Nashville." Not many authentic country acts. Who remembers Earl Thomas Conley? But we can all sing The Gambler. I think the biggest problem with country music is that the songwriting became impersonal and pandering. I remember watching Faith Hill in an interview talking about how she had tried to imagine that she was this dowdy housewife with a troubled marriage to sing one of her songs. It's Bruce Springsteen syndrome. That's a funny idea. That's why alt-country and Loretta Lynn-Jack White collaborations are so great.
I'll save the actual country music fans from having to mention that you're talking about one particular period of the genre, and that period wasn't its creation point. There was a lot of stuff that came before all those figures you mention; for that matter "country" music - not meaning bluegrass, Western, rockabilly and all the other variants - has typically had a conservative, anodyne quality about it.
Except that the Boss feels actual empathy and is singing songs he wrote himself, not what his producer handed him that morning. While I don't want to dis alt-country, by and large it's coming from college-educated people who are no more like a "dowdy housewife with a troubled marriage" than Faith Hill is. Alt-country is full of affectation, too; it's just that the songs and lyrics are stronger. Loretta Lynn, on the other hand, is completely without affectation. The real question is when country actually died. Except for the old-schoolers who had been at it for years, it's certainly been dead for as long as I've been alive. Sure, Toby Keith is terrible, but is he really any worse than Ronnie Milsap or Eddie Rabbit? On a different note, I'd like to point out something I realized several months ago: the lyrics to Garth Brooks's "Friends in Low Places" owe more to Broadway than to country. It's a dumb, terrible song, but the rhymes are clever in a showtune kind of way.
There's still good country music out there...although not much in the mainstream. You've just gotta look.
By no means am I an expert/music snob on country music, but I have been listening to the mainstream stuff since the early 90s. I think what country music has been experiencing for the 10-15 years or so is the influence of mainstream pop and rock music. Go to a Big & Rich or Rascal Flatts concert and you'd swear that you were at a rock concert with all the lights and lasers and "stuff" on stage. Nowadays it's not uncommon to turn on a Top 40 station and hear crossover hits by Keith Urban and Faith Hill being played in the rotation along with Britney and Coldplay. Is this good or bad? Guess it depends on what sounds good to your ears. I like it and so do a crapload of other folks out there. Chalk it up to a combo of what fans want to hear and what record companies want you to hear. As far as alt-country, traditional, bluegrass, etc....I like that stuff too and it's definately out there if you want it, but the music I listen to is really based on what I hear on the radio and see on CMT. We have an AM traditional country station here (which I'm actually listening to now), but man is some of that stuff just not my thing. It's all about the ear candy.
Johnny, I'm visiting you and June at your gravesite next week. Can you please pop out of there, kick 3/4 of the asses in Nashville, and remind them that being an "outlaw" doesn't mean being a bully who takes the side of the people with all the power?
Hey, Ictar, this CD is unfortunately a one-off souvenir from Rob Zombie's latest movie, "The Devil's Rejects", but it's some of the coolest old-school David Allan Coe-style country I've heard in eons. It's certainly not that "Young Country" pop crap that's polluting the airwaves. I didn't even know this CD existed until I saw it in a mom'n'pop CD store a few weeks ago. Came out pretty much under the radar. The band Banjo & Sullivan is fake (they're in the first third or so of the movie), and the real artist is some guy named Jesse Dayton, who I'll be keeping an eye on in the future. 1. Dick Soup 2. I Don't Give a Truck 3. Honeymoon Song 4. I'm At Home Getting Hammered (While She's Out Getting Nailed) * 5. Killer on the Lam 6. I'm Trying to Quit, But I Just Quit Trying 7. She Didn't Like Me (But She Loved My Money) 8. Roy's Ramble 9. Lord, Don't Let Me Die in a Cheap Motel ** 10. Free Bird * also on The Devil's Rejects soundtrack ** tee-hee Here's a review from the Austin Chronicle: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-09-02/music_phases5.html Quality stuff, and a good, good time. Goes great with booze.
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Of course he's good, that's why he's a star. Faith Hill can sing with the best of them and is as hot as the hinges of Hades. They all have boat loads of charisma. The pap they put out is just pop music with pedal steel. Just like late 70's country was Disco with lyrics about working man's blues. Pop music of any kind is about making money first. There's nothing wrong with that you just have to be willing to search for the stuff that matters. Lucinda is amazing. Car Wheels could be my favorite album of all time.
I would agree somewhat that alt-rock has some level of affectation in the music, in the sense that they aren't a bunch of country boys. But most of the songs seem, lyrically speaking, very personal. And musically, I'm not sure that alt-country doesn't have its own authenticity based in a mixture of country and "punk," the way CW, blues, etc., fused into rock and roll. Everything I've heard on Loretta Lynn's album kicks all sorts .... Good post btw. The real question is when country actually died. Except for the old-schoolers who had been at it for years, it's certainly been dead for as long as I've been alive. Sure, Toby Keith is terrible, but is he really any worse than Ronnie Milsap or Eddie Rabbit? On a different note, I'd like to point out something I realized several months ago: the lyrics to Garth Brooks's "Friends in Low Places" owe more to Broadway than to country. It's a dumb, terrible song, but the rhymes are clever in a showtune kind of way.[/QUOTE]
I have. He's talented. Good voice, and the singles are catchy and sound good on the radio. But "talented" does not equal "good". The dude from Maroon 5 is talented. Everything about Keith's career has been completely calculated. He tries to portray himself as this rebellious bad boy who stands up for the average guy, but the man has never expressed an anti-establishment sentiment in a single song. Between the (obviously calculated) flag-waving, the Peter Jennings thing, the Dixie Chicks thing, and the wretched "Taliban Song", the man isn't an "outlaw" - he's a bully. He takes no chances and beats up on people who think differently from him. Compare that with Cash - who risked his career repeatedly by standing up for Native Americans and against the Vietnam War when it was completely unpopular to do so.
Hilarious, great rant..neighbor at work listens to the "country" station so unforunatly I'm familiar with all this crap. You forgot about the "She Thinks My Tractors Sexy" song.
Here is the bottom line folks: If you can find a full-size billboard in your area with a huge picture of _____________ musician on it: THEY SUCK. PERIOD.
I think that's a gross oversimplification of his music, and the average guy's not anti-establishment anyway. If country music were about being anti-establsihment, they wouldn't have needed to invent folk music.