What happened to country music?

M

mike_mck2

Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
301
Country music has somehow become a parody of itself.
Some of the stuff I have been hearing lately is just, well, pathetic.

Nonsense lyrics strung together just so long as they rhyme, that completely silly Faith Hill tune with the jerky cadence that is like some 6th grader...
Pretty much all of it has just become like some crazy parody of itself, and the singers are way on out there as well with the videos.

It's probably what killed Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash....
 
Country music sucks in general. :p
 
Mike, i'm on your side. I remember when you could actually hear cowboy songs and Appalachian music on the radio in New York City. That's a long time ago, and a lot of country generally has degenerated into a variety of "pop".

I know this has to be especially bad news to a Texan! :grumpy:

Try AccuRadio's country selections. They're getting ready to upgrade even further. I'm looking forward to it.
 
The only "country" music I could ever stand was old stuff that more accurately could be described as "Folk" music, maybe bluegrass and stuff like some Johnny Cash. All this So-called "Country" these days is just the bastard offspring of rock and roll, and poorly done at that. Just a bunch of crappy pop music to sell to the morons who cant tell the difference between music and fecal matter. If you cant sing, or write good songs, or play your instruments well- you can still have a future in country music- it is like welfare for all the crappy musicians or something. :thumbdn:
 
I can't tell the difference between the artists or their music, haven't been able to for years and years. It's all about money, charts, image, blah, blah, blah. They all look and sound damn near the same. I mean, at least back in the 70's and early 80's you still had Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Barbara Mandrel, Don Williams, Willie and Waylon and the boys, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire, Ronnie Milsap, Dottie West, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Charlie Pride, Tammy Wynette, Eddie Rabbit, even Alabama was really good, etc, etc, etc. Now granted, they weren't Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys or Hank Williams Sr. or anything, but for the radio they were nice to listen to. You could tell who they were, they were all different.

Todays country ..... fugetaboutit.

Mike
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
The only "country" music I could ever stand was old stuff that more accurately could be described as "Folk" music, maybe bluegrass and stuff like some Johnny Cash. All this So-called "Country" these days is just the bastard offspring of rock and roll, and poorly done at that. Just a bunch of crappy pop music to sell to the morons who cant tell the difference between music and fecal matter. If you cant sing, or write good songs, or play your instruments well- you can still have a future in country music- it is like welfare for all the crappy musicians or something. :thumbdn:
Click to expand...

I think this story, filed by the Associated Press yesterday, sums up the current state of country music..

"..The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

"They took everything - all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album."..
http://story.news.ask.com/article/20050918/D8CMCJIO2.html
 
mike_mck2 said:
Country music has somehow become a parody of itself.
Some of the stuff I have been hearing lately is just, well, pathetic.

Nonsense lyrics strung together just so long as they rhyme, that completely silly Faith Hill tune with the jerky cadence that is like some 6th grader...
Pretty much all of it has just become like some crazy parody of itself, and the singers are way on out there as well with the videos.

It's probably what killed Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash....
Click to expand...
Listen to some Guy Clark and you'll feel better. Try his album, "Dublin Blues".
 
I listen to just about everything, but I can't stand country music since the late 80's....all it is it disco music all over again...line dancing???!??? Same exact moves they used in the disco's of the 70's...
that said, I still love Willie, Hank Jr, Cash, Merle Haggard...the "classics" :)
 
The Eagles is about as Country as I can stand, although I do like Johnny Cash.

But even as a long-distance observer, it's obvious how country music has deteriorated. It's morphed into an assembly-line process with no real artists or musicians. Nashville has an army of songwriters churning out crap by the truckload. The most popular singers get first dibs from the truckload, and everyone else has to fight over the scraps.

Even top-40 / soft-rock / hip-hop is less systematically boring than that.

-Bob
 
I heard quite a while ago that Garth Brooks was a wanna be R&R star before he became A CW star. I think this might illustrate what is systematically wrong with CW music anymore. It's just a style, really with no real substance or heart. People have mentioned Hank Williams, Don Williams, Johnny Cash, Waylon and Willie, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twittie, etc. I think those folks were just much closer to the "real deal" (wasn't there a song called 'real deal'?) than all the fakes out there today. There might be a few real dealers out there now, but I'll bet they're few and far between.
 
It used to really suck. Now it sucks even worse :D

With my apologies to some of the true old time outlaws.
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
The only "country" music I could ever stand was old stuff that more accurately could be described as "Folk" music, maybe bluegrass and stuff like some Johnny Cash. All this So-called "Country" these days is just the bastard offspring of rock and roll, and poorly done at that. Just a bunch of crappy pop music to sell to the morons who cant tell the difference between music and fecal matter. If you cant sing, or write good songs, or play your instruments well- you can still have a future in country music- it is like welfare for all the crappy musicians or something. :thumbdn:
Click to expand...


Real country music has degenerated to rockabilly nonsense . In the '30's we listened to the Opry on a battery radio. Batteries came from Sears & had multi-jacks for different voltage needs within the set . Not cheap so the radio got Nashville on Saturday night and then was turned to XERF,Vicauna Mexico for more. FCC regulated station wattage and XERF was a pirate station putting out 50,000 watts & could be heard coast to coast.
The music was simple,usually had a message & was well played. Gospel & cowboy music was includer & such artists as The Sons of the pioneers were my favorites. We have a new High definition T/V set with 188 channels & get to listen to bluegrass while eating. There are 4 or 5 cowboy movie channels too & Gene & Tex & Roy do their bit in them.

Alan [ miss it ] Alan
 
I admit there's some bad country music out there. But it's still almost all I listen to.

My favourite right now is Toby Keiths Honkytonk University.
Especially the song called "As good as I once was". Love it!

But ofcourse there some real bad crap out there too. And ofcourse I hardly consider Faith Hill to be real country! Not even Lee Ann Rymes.
That's not country.

Toby is country, Brooks and Dunn is country.

Tim McGraw has some marginally good country songs, but I stopped listening to him after he supported this nonsense:
Rap and country mixture. It's as bad as it sounds, trust me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Troy

Nearly blew my ear drums when I first heard that nonsense.
Not to mention Tim's collaboration song with the rapper Nelly.

That's not country.
 
Hank,Johnny Cash,Merle,Waylon and Willie.I'm forgettin' many but country needs to get back to individuality,and if anybody thinks the above mentioned weren't about individuality then plug in your Ipods and Rap,(read Crap),your brains out.Consider John Hiatt,along with Woodie Guthrie and Dylan,John is among the best America has offered and they don't even know whether to categorize him as Folk,Pop or Country.Still waiting for his Grammy.Dallas Moore is an artist I saw recently in Cincinnati.This cat has got roots country down.My little 2 cent rant. :p
 
I listen to a lot of people who might be classified as "alternative country". Tom Russell, Dave Alvin, James McMurtry, Guy Clark, Robert Earl Keen, and so forth.
Intelligent songs without the overdone productions typical of the Nashville scene.
 
Here's what I'm listening to most of the time I am online...
www.khyi.com go there and click the "listen now" thingie. A mixture of Alt-country and the good ol' traditional stuff.


edited to add since I saw mwerner's post... other good ones are Ray Wylie Hubbard, Fred Eaglesmith, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Lyle Lovett, Alejandro Escovedo, Jimmy LaFave, Townes VanZant, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Guy Clark, Delbert McClinton and I'm sure others that I cannot think of at the moment. All these guys are "difficult" to label or pigeon-hole into any kind of category. All are excellent IMHO.
 
Yam and leatherbird pretty much sum up my opinion also.

There was a lot of great country music being made, up until the mid 1980s. I haven't been able to listen to the garbage being spewed out of top 40 country radio stations for many years.

Fortunately, there is about 50 years worth of stuff to listen to before that. Every Saturday night that I'm home, I flip the radio back and forth between GAC Classic Country Weekend and American Routes, which plays many types of music, including country.
 
I hate this mess that they call country music today. My sisters friend told me that she loves to dance to it, shes good looking and is a lot of fun, thats why I put up with the music, at least when I'm out with her.

As for real country, how about Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Hank Williams, y'know what? Forget them. Give me mountain bluegrass anytime.
 
No matter what anyone says i still like Dolly Parton's music. Her Ultimate album is full of all her great tunes (she's also a great songwriter). It's still country and not the country-pop music that they have now. I am proud of owning that album as i am of owning my Pantera albums.
 
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