The appeal of New Country music?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Johnny Action, Sep 9, 2019.

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  1. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    bleeechhh to almost all of them. Especially Isbell. Seriously formulaic, in my opinion.. Kacey's alright. I'm more into-tolerant of people who I suppose COULD be associated with throwback, Cody Jinks, for example.

    Stapleton is worshipped as such, a throwback, but his concert really turned me off. Live, this guy is an amateur wanna lead guitar player. Its hilarious and sort of sad. He did a ten minute "jam" with just his bass player and drummer and played more or less the 4 or 5 licks he knows, over and over. What a snoozefest.

    The crowd went wild anyway. I will give him one thing - his songs can be alright and he knows how to communicate. The women at this show knew every single word to every song. That was impressive. Last gig, we did one, Think I'll Get Stoned, or something like that, a four chord wonder, and yeah, the women knew every word.

    Still, his "instrumental" abilities seemed even worse, in contrast to the previous band - Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives.

    Holy cow. Woe to anybody who has to follow that.
     
  2. dubious title

    dubious title Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ontario
    I assume the part of the thread you find interesting is the part where people express their aversion, not the majority of posts discussing music, the purpose of this forum. Do you also think that the provocatively titled story in the Pacific Standard is worthy of being described as "academic inquiry"? The op started a thread with spectacularly political overtones, then claims there was no intention to stir the pot or "start a race war". The linked article is tangential to the discussion and almost seems like a "hook" to fire up a thread. Most here respect the very simple rule that we don't post political stuff here. Thank goodness for that. By design politics increasingly is finding it's way into absolutely every corner of life.

    The Bros that create the music discussed in the thread can't because of recent edicts discuss or write about anything outside their own sphere, so they're limited to writing about their own kind and their experiences, and when they do they "glorify" it. I've never understood or related to the objectification of women in any art form, heavy metal, rap or country music, but the objectification of sexuality and sexualized imagery is celebrated in many other facts of society, so let's put those under the microscope while we're at it. Not that it matters one bit, but I really don't like or relate to manufactured, slick contemporary country music, it's the politics that I'm responding to.

    You can always find people with a strong aversion to those who don't fall in line with the orthodoxy. In current times they make for excellent social media witch hunters.
     
  3. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    He was previously a member of the SteelDrivers.
     
  4. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    But the audience is responding to what the music sounds like, overall, the whole package. They may not be able to name the musicians--I can't, either, in most cases, because I just don't pay attention to credits any longer when I'm listening casually, but they're responding to the work of all of those session cats and songwriters, etc.

    Also, not that recording quickly is any sort of inherent problem or indicates inferiority.
     
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  5. NaturalD

    NaturalD The King of Pop

    Location:
    Boston, Mass., USA
    It's interesting because as you say, this is a music forum, and the original linked article addressed music. Lots of reactions to the article and to the OP are going way beyond that area.
     
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  6. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    Trisha Yearwood, during her demo days, was so good at putting down a great vocal fast that she’d leave her car double parked!
     
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  7. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    This is one of those threads on this board that make me wonder where everyone went to who said they listen to the widest possible variety of music in threads asking about that. Everyone's falling over each other in those threads to have broader tastes than everyone else, but then we get these threads where the vast majority of folks rag on some (sub)genre or other.
     
  8. crookedbill

    crookedbill Forum Resident

    "I like everything except 'country'" is about the most common opinion on music I've heard in conversation during the course of my life. With the rare instance of somebody adding "well, I like the good 'old' stuff like Johnny Cash."
     
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  9. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Well, and hip-hop . . . and then if you press them you can often get them to disparage bubblegum/teen pop, noise (if they're familiar with it), lowercase (which they're probably not going to be familiar with), grindcore, maybe death/black metal, free improv, and a couple other things.

    But in the thread in question, most folks weren't claiming any exceptions.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2019
  10. I've never had any particular interest in country, but what I've heard that I have liked (generally) has been a smattering of Johnny Cash, and a few other pre-80's artists -- some Willie Nelson here and there maybe. Hard pressed to even remember any other specific names, to be honest.

    While I do strongly dislike pop-country, I'm not entirely put off by "non-pop"-country.

    I've been meaning to pick up some Sturgill Simpson for a year or two now. His appearances on SNL, and several late night talk shows all blew me away totally. ESPECIALLY his crazy, CRAZY almost "free-jazz"-inflected (infected?) horn section. GOD DAMN was that some of the wildest stuff I've heard on broadcast TV in the last 20 years. HO. LY. CRAP. At work now, or I'd try and find some clips to post.

    Sturgill's lead-trumpeter sounded about as out there as Lester Bowie at times, or Sun Ra's main lead trumpeter (since the mid-70s) Michael Ray (who also has played with Cool and the Gang for decades too, of all things).

    That stuff had me on the edge of my seat (I'm sure I saw Sturgill on SNL, maybe The Tonight Show and/or Colbert, and definitely on Seth Meyers) -- and I replayed those performances 3x-4x times IMMEDIATELY off the DVR, the second they were over. My wife was around as we saw/heard all those performances together for the first time, and she can tell you that I rarely get all that excited about music off the TV, if ever.

    Man, if Sturgill wants to do a live album with that crazy horn section of his, I'd go in on a Kickstarter to get that funded. That said, I don't think(?) he has horns (or that much in the way or horns) on any of his studio albums (to date), so I still haven't bought anything by him -- but I'll get around to it, one of these days.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2019
  11. dubious title

    dubious title Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ontario
    Thanks for the non confrontational and reasonable response to my post. The language used in the linked article is decidedly charged and is meant to fire up discussion, the fact that a great majority of the discussion has been about the music is a testament to the good nature of most here.
     
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  12. crookedbill

    crookedbill Forum Resident

    Sturgill Simpson's SNL performance a couple years ago was the best live band performance I've ever seen on that show. Still get chills re-watching on YouTube. I've seen him live three times too, once opening for Willie Nelson. Great performer. Great artist. His forthcoming album won't be country though, more like Eliminator era ZZ Top with a lot of distorted guitars and synthesizers.
     
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  13. Evethingandnothing

    Evethingandnothing Forum Resident

    Location:
    Devon
    Fairly common knowledge (or it ought to be) that the Lap Steel Guitar, which later developed into the Pedal Steel Guitar, that staple of country music, was directly taken from Hawaiian music. Indeed, the original acoustic lap steel guitars were called Hawaiian guitars.

    It is the assimilation of Blues, Jazz and other forms of music that made Country music distinct from the Folk music that preceded it.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2019
  14. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA

    is this the one where he played Long White Line?

    that was great - I had to learn that guitar, quite a challenge, in F# no less. My poor aching wrist!
     
  15. crookedbill

    crookedbill Forum Resident

    This one. . .

     
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  16. Duke Fame

    Duke Fame Sold out the Enormodome

    Location:
    Tampa, FL
    Wonder if they did a similar article on rap? Dobut it.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2019
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  17. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA

    I was responding to Zen, who suggested that the modern country fans he knows, "They never seem to be into the musicianship side of things". There might be several explanations for this, however, I've seen this over and over as well. So I gave what I thought were some possible reasons.

    And one of those reasons is Nashville's push of singers as artists, first and foremost, and not bands as much. In bands, from what I've seen, often the audience, or many of them, are aware of the musicians and can name them. In country? No. Because the musicians are faceless and Nashville pushes the singer only.

    I was in a forum devoted to country awhile back and the morning after the CMA awards, I signed on to see who won, etc, as I didnt watch the show.
    Nobody mentioned who won instrumentalist of the year, so I asked the group. NOBODY KNEW. Instead I got comments like, tee hee, I went to the bathroom. (thats a quote, I'll never forget that one). Like I said. For some reason, and you MIGHT be able to point the finger at Nashville itself - the modern country audience often seems to not give two hoots in hell who did anything on the music except the singer. Its weird when you think about it - best players on earth - audience couldnt care less.

    to your other point - Recording that quick is probably yes, a sign of experience and professionalism. On the other hand, its curious how someone could contribute so little to a work of art and then get top billing. which was my point. If indeed that story even happened. But hey, thats show biz now. Maybe its always been that way.
     
  18. Sturgill's surprise appearance with Chris Stapleton on SNL also caught my ear, as did Stapleton -- who I later caught a few other places (Austin City Limits, I think, and some other late night talk shows probably). Again, me likey. No where near what I'm normally drawn to, but clearly there's some definite substance there (both Sturgill and Stapleton). And NONE of that 'bro country' vibe, thank god.
     
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  19. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    They did.


    From https://psmag.com/news/pop-music-lyrics-are-as-violent-as-those-in-hip-hop:

    Their most striking finding: The best-selling pop songs almost uniformly contain violent imagery. Amazingly, 99.5 percent of the pop hits they analyzed (198 in total) referred to violent acts. That's slightly higher than the 94.7 percent of hip-hop numbers to feature such language, and far greater than the percentage of any other genre.

    "One wonders why pop music is not as maligned as hip-hop/rap for its communication of violence," the researchers write. "It may be that the cultural styling and historic roots of the hip-hop/rap genre elicit more scrutiny than the purportedly lighter 'bubblegum' lyrics of pop music."

    For most of the negative qualities the researchers examined, however, hip-hop stands out. The genre "contains more profanity, misogyny, and references to stereotypical sex roles than lyrics found in pop, R&B, country, alternative, Latin, jazz, and rock music," they report. Rap and hip-hop songs were also the most likely to "contain themes that show women as submissive."
     
  20. THAT'S the one. God dilly damn, that's what I'm talkin' about!

    And then Sturgill's Seth Meyers appearance(s?) [later, I think] were one or maybe 2(?) songs, that I saw (on broadcast) when Seth was down here in DC doing a show in a much bigger theater, and Sturgill and his horns blew the lid off the place then too (a MUCH bigger horn section too, iirc, maybe 6-8 horns? -- maybe a dozen, even -- and maybe some strings too?? -- can't remember). Not quite as "out/free" as this SNL clip -- but my reaction was really similar, to which my wife can attest.

    Bottle that s***, and I'll buy a couple cases of it, thank you very much. It don't get much more real than that -- and to hear THAT kinda "real" on a late night variety/talk/comedy show -- when the hell does THAT ever happen in this world?
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2019
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  21. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA

    damn.

    I'm just gonna go drink some green tea and get out my Cat Stevens albums.
     
  22. Duke Fame

    Duke Fame Sold out the Enormodome

    Location:
    Tampa, FL
    Not even close. The article not only makes zero mention of rap "glorifying blackness" it actually defends rap lyrics as being less violent than mainstream pop. But country music is sexist and racist. Got it. Of course looking into who the heck Pacific Standard even is leads one to this "© 2019 The Social Justice Foundation" which pretty much says it all.
     
  23. crookedbill

    crookedbill Forum Resident

    Yet, many don't seem to categorize these artists as "country" much less "new country", rather "Americana" (especially in Sturgill's case). There's some loaded/coded value judgement going on there, as if to say "there is no way this is 'country', it doesn't sound like what they play on the radio!"

    No kidding. What they play on the radio is "pop" country (which everybody seems to be calling "new" country in this thread). There are a lot of other sub-genres in country music people are either ignorant about, or would rather ignore. . . . honky-tonk, outlaw, western swing, red dirt, etc. with additional variations based on region of origin like the Appalachian states, Texas, Oklahoma, Nashville, Bakersfield, even parts of Canada.
     
  24. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    The quote literally says that hip hop is the worst for misogyny, more so than pop , country, or any other genre. Your assumption that this publication wouldn’t point out that rap is guilty of this was wrong, because you didn’t bother to check. Apparently, quoting their copyright name is somehow proving a point, despite the content of the site completely invalidating your erroneous assumption.
     
  25. dubious title

    dubious title Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ontario
    Would be interested in knowing what 198 (no doubt randomly selected) lighter bubblegum pop songs led this this startling conclusion. One does wonder. "The best-selling pop songs almost uniformly contain violent imagery" - does this ring true to anyone here?!
     
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