Country music has sure changed from 1985 to now - Billboard country album charts from Nov. 1985, now

If you're going to be into country enough to make purist pronouncements about how awful the genre is today, at least aim higher with your critique of the genre than "I heard some artist on the radio in a shop with a friend, not sure exactly who, but they were really bad." I'm sure there are some actual country music fans who take the purist stance, but, in so many of these threads, it seems like it's the most casual, drive-by listeners who are the most upset about "the state of country today," even though I have a very hard time picturing them sitting at home listening to the "real stuff" and spinning their prized Ferlin Husky and Conway Twitty LPs. I certainly never see any discussion on this forum of old-timey country like that from all the self-proclaimed country purists who abound here.

But, as I said above, declaring that all modern country is bad based on some anonymous country artist whom you heard on the radio who sounds like Nickelback is as ridiculous as declaring that all modern rock music is bad based on Nickelback. It's very easy to pick the worst of the worst from any genre (even when you can't name them, as you can't) and tar the whole genre with that brush.

 

This makes perfectly good sense to me. I can't argue with this. I guess I'm too far gone, restricting myself to listening to Eddie Stubbs for less than one hour per night. The local station that I hear at work doesn't seem to give much time (if any) to an artist such as Kacey Musgraves. Were that to change, I'm sure I'd change my mind too.

 

Do CDs count?

I'm sitting here spinning my Ernest Tubb Bear Family CDs while typing this on my iPad. Before that it was Tommy Collins.

 

well excuse me if I didn't investigate the names of the artists who made music I couldn't stand. I am sure if you really want to know, I'd go on the website of the station and find out what songs they were spinning at 6:30-7 pm on the Friday before last, but I honestly don't care enough.

Anyways, without getting too political, I have never been *that* big of a country fan, I like some of Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton's music and a few others, and have always loved Reba McEntire in all her endeavors... but the way the entire community treated kd lang in the 80s and The Dixie Chicks a decade ago was a sign that its not a community I'd ever truly align myself with being a gay male who leans slightly more to the left on the political spectrum, as country is one genre where it's still acceptable to be anti-gay in (see: Hank Jr, Brad Paisley, John Rich, etc...). But still, I'll take "Classic country" from the 70s and early 80s over the new Kid Rock/Nickelback influenced stuff any day because I don't even like those artists when it comes to rock music.

Plus, my boyfriend IS a fan of old-school country (and yes, he even has Hank Jr in his collection despite the hateful things he's said because he likes the music) and he even believes the stuff passing as "folk rock" today is more country than what country is playing. Avett Brothers to him are far closer to country sounding than Taylor Swift.

 

I like this Country and Western music!

 

Not surprised at all to hear this: as I noted above, it so often seems to be the listeners who are the least invested in the genre who are the most adamant in their purist pronouncements about how it should sound.

I have no beef with you not liking Taylor's music, but, if you're gonna judge "the country community" as anti-gay and base your opinion of the genre on that, you might want to reconsider your opinion about Taylor's position on that issue:



That's Taylor participating in a PSA against anti-gay violence in honor of Lawrence King, who was attacked and killed for being gay; here's her official statement on his death:

http://www.seventeen.com/college/advice/mission-taylor-swift

You also might want to check out Taylor's "Mean" video for another example of her speaking out against anti-gay bullying. Or listen to Kacey Musgraves' "Follow Your Arrow," which was recently praised by Ellen DeGeneres as a pro-marriage equality song. Or, you could just continue to write off "the country community" as anti-gay.

 

Musgraves is getting a huge push from the country industry, and "Merry Go Round" went Top 10 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. Her music is succeeding in the country mainstream. Again, it so often seems to me like the less someone is exposed to current country radio, or to CMT and GAC, the less likely they are aware of the good that is out there in the mainstream, and then that leads to a vicious cycle of tuning out new country radio altogether, becoming more convinced than ever that all new country sucks, and repeat on an infinite loop. It's basically the same attitude that is so prevalent towards modern rock on this forum, really. Once you've shut yourself off from keeping up with the music, it's easy to miss a great new artist like Fleet Foxes or Beach House, and, in turn, to convince yourself that the last good rock album came out in 1991/1977/1969/whenever.

 

You are absolutely right about this, and it's compounded by the fact that I listen to a much wider variety of music now than when I listened actively to Country radio. This station that I hear (or try not to hear) at work seems to overly repeat the "She thinks my tractor's sexy" and "Red solo cup" types of songs. It's easy to see where I wouldn't get a good opinion of what's going on now by hearing that, especially when they sound like rock tunes from the '70s.

 

There is still some good talent out there. Like Teea Goens here, covering Bill Anderson.
Flawless voice....

 

This is great - I love this! I've got Bill's original recording - now there was another distinctive voice!

 

Country artists had to evolve to appeal to the mainstream if they wanted to make any money.

 

I know the reason for this is the cash, but still it is interesting to see how times change.

 

Given that "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" is now nearly 15 years old, it's about as relevant to current country as the Stone Temple Pilots are to current rock music.

 

But that doesn't stop that irritating station from playing it ad nauseum.

 

And frankly I don't hear much progress being made in the last 15 years.

 

Well I know there's some pro-gay country artists, Dolly and Reba come to mind. My main issue was more the Dixie Chicks which was pretty much a "we don't support any artist who doesn't agree with us politically" and I happen to be part of which has a different stand than them on there. My issue with Taylor isn't that I think she's a homophobic bigot, but because I'm just not a big fan of today's pop female stars ala Carly Rae Jepsen/Katy Perry, which is pretty much what Taylor's latest album falls into.

Hank Jr. said some really disgusting things about gay people a few months ago and saw no sort of backlash from it from the country community, the only backlash came from left people who didn't necessarily make up his fanbase to start with so no harm no foul. John Rich has also spewed some disgusting things that would've gotten him blacklisted an an intolerant a-hole if he was in any other genre of music. Plus kd lang was basically chased away from country music when it became obvious to country listeners that she wasn't a "tomboy" as originally thought but a butch lesbian, and then she spoke her mouth on political issues and said she was a vegetarian... she had to reinvent herself as an alternative-rock artist to survive after the way the country community treated her (same with how Natalie Maines is now a "rock artist" because that's a market who can accept her more today than country will). Plus didn't Carrie Underwood receive hate tweets for supporting same sex marriage? I didn't say ALL country fans/artists are homophobic, but the mentality is more accepted than it is in other genres of music.

If I was going to support artists simply because they support the LGBT community, I'd be a Gaga fan. I can't stand her and many gay people were the first to note about how blatantly she was pandering the gay community knowing the money is there. Hell, Adam Levine from Maroon 5 is explicitly supportive of gay rights because of his brother... doesn't make me like his music.

Still doesn't take away the horrible way the general country community treated The Dixie Chicks ten years ago. That had NOTHING to do with gay issues but still rubbed me the wrong way because they did not deserve to be hung out to dry like they were, even ten years on they've yet to be "forgiven". The Dixie Chicks backlash was what soured me to mainstream country more than anything else because that's when I knew that I wouldn't fit in with those sort of people.

 

Garth Brooks ruined everything.

 

Do you think Amy Grant has gone from Christian to Country?

 

Unfortunately the very same thing happened to country music that happened to rock music.
The industry grasped onto all of the stereotypes of the styles and pushed them hard, in the process making both styles a self parody.

Most "modern" country is mostly bad pop music with whiney contrived vocals. Guys born in cities northern cities singing in fake southern drawals is rather unconvincing.

 

The change is mostly chart, radio play, not necessarily what people like or listen to, I sure don't listen to what the charts call country.

 

Your stereotyping of country artists and the country audience is just as ignorant and backwards as if I said "because Gay Person X said Y, the entire gay community believes Y." The latest musician to make headlines with anti-gay comments has been Michelle Shocked: does that mean that the alternative rock community is anti-gay? No, it means that Michelle Shocked is anti-gay.

You're the one who brought up the notion that you could never really like country because "the country community" is somehow anti-gay, but then, when confronted with the reality that the biggest star in the country community, Taylor Swift, is openly supportive of gay rights, you backpedal and say her views on gay rights don't matter to you. Carrie Underwood expresses her support for gay marriage, but because some people allegedly tweeted negative responses to that, that somehow invalidates Carrie Underwood's stance? There's a huge chunk of the population that doesn't support gay marriage, which is why the issue is controversial to begin with, so I'm sure there are plenty of people on Twitter who are going to disagree with any celebrity who takes a pro-gay marriage stance, but it takes some real rhetorical sleight of hand to use that reality to invalidate Underwood's public support of gay marriage. This is not to mention all of the other country artists such as Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks, and Kacey Musgraves, who have openly embraced their gay fans. But you can go on ignoring or dismissing the country artists who support gay rights, and hold the entire country community accountable for whatever it is that Hank Jr., who has never exactly been the sharpest tool in the shed, said that offended you (and if he did make homophobic comments, I join you in condemning those comments). But, please, spare me painting "the country community" with the homophobic brush, and then back-pedaling when your own ignorance and stereotyping and painting with your own broad brush is refuted.

The Dixie Chicks controversy is a whole separate issue, but, first of all, the fact that Natalie Maines, one of the biggest stars in country at the time, made the comments about our former President that she made shows by itself that "the country community" doesn't have one monolithic conservative view of the world. Secondly, I was at a concert in Atlanta in 2004, where Michael Stipe of R.E.M. made some comments about then-President Bush that were very similar to Maines's comments, and he was viciously booed by at least half of the crowd. It was the most intense "political" moment I've ever seen at a concert. But does Stipe getting booed mean that "the rock community" is backwards and reactionary? No, it means that individual people in the R.E.M. audience didn't agree with what Stipe had to say. The country has been highly polarized in recent years, and the rock community is no more immune to that polarization than the country community is.

 

I just want to name names about who the "Nickelback" sounding country star is and that would be Jason Aldean. He has that same processed "crunch" guitar sound - so prominent in Nickelback and Creed - on many of his songs. To me, this guitar tone is like being stabbed in the ear with an icepick.

That said, I have nothing against most modern Country, but I am not a fan of Jason Aldean.

 

+1 on that. Really impressed with her.

 

I do believe there is a line that can be drawn, let's call it Pre-Garth and Post-Garth. Country music always had branches that leaned toward pop (but usually kept its central core), but it always self-corrected (i.e. Bakersfield, Outlaw Movement, Neo-Traditionalists). Here are the big problems since Garth as I see them.

1. Traditional sounding country does not receive radio play. Traditional country artists have basically went underground with few appearing on mainstream country radio (Jamie Johnson and Dixie Chicks 1st 3 albums excepted). Worse yet, they ran off the greats. All of the stars (Waylon, Cash, Jones, Haggard, Willie, etc.) complained that they could not get major label record deals after Garth, and they would not put their songs on country radio. And that was true with few exceptions.

2. Much of the music has become like an assembly line. They record on several tracks. They perfect each note digitally, and you will notice a majority of mainstream country sounds VERY similar in sound. And that sound is indeed a whitewashed rock n' roll sound with a token country instrument thrown in.

3. So many of the lyrics have become self-parody. I know She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy is 15 years old, but it seemed to set the template for so many songs we see today. Lyrics about "cut-offs, mud on truck tires, tailgates, tractors" etc., which cater to the lowest common denominator.

4. Driver 8 has taught me that there is quality stuff still out there, but you have to sift through the above music to find it, which is difficult to do. I try to track down material Driver 8 recommends, but it is a fraction of mainstream country. I am going to guess that mainstream country that has the following is MAYBE 5%: 1. Quality country instrumentation w/unique or innovative sounds that do not have this "sameness" I mentioned above 2. Artist with a unique voice (always a hallmark of country) 3. Serious or clever lyrics

I think if Hank Williams was unknown and showed up with his songs and voice up until Garth Brooks, he would have been given a contract and been a star. From the 1920s through 1990 Hank could have hit big. After Garth, Hank Williams would have been rejected in Nashville, and be unheard of by most on some Americana label. That is tragically sad, but true.

 

This transition is precisely what I was talking about in post #94. But I wouldn't know whether or not the catastrophe was Garth Brooks.