What passes for “music” today has, for the most part, no heart, no soul and not even a tune that you can hum.
While I love the old r’n’r of the ‘50’s, ‘60’s and ‘70’s, I have switched to Texas Country. The Texas music scene is filled with great artists who have shunned the Nashville sound. Max Stalling, Hayes Carll, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Guy Clark....the list is long and the music is great....helps if you like steel guitars, though.
If I listen to new country music, it's usually Aussies, e.g. Kasey Chambers, Catherine Britt, Ashleigh Dallas, etc...
The Doc Marshalls is another great country/americana band from Nashville.
Max Stalling. Thanks, another discovery.
Complaining about “the music today” is one of signs of growing old. Your parents compained, now you do. It’s always been like it. My Fakebook “friends”, all post links to some bands of yesteryear, most of those links quite pedestrian, thank you, that is to say showing the same old, same old, by the same old, same old, no discoveries, no hidden gems. Nostalgia. I don’t miss nostalgia, sorry.
In the meantime, there is plenty of great music out there, and it is relatively easy to find via the Internet. As a reviewer in the WSJ wrote a few weeks ago, the two genres of popular music in great shape today are Americana and electronic. I can’t say anything about the latter, but as far as the former, I cannot keep up with the artists I have discovered in the past year, there are so many.
Check out this up and coming diva: http://brookeannibale.com/Final/watch.html