And, you're welcome to it, my man.
I’d rather be a Okie from Muskogee
IIRC, Shania Twain started the pop trend in country.
I dunno. Hank Williams is an old country star and he cant sing for crap and they never correct him. I just like his style.
Damn its about time, the current country music sucks. Its all about image not the music. Oh well the stupid sheeple buy it up just like they bought into Obama.
The musician's union has a motto stating that “live music” is the best, and yet there is never a peep out of them about people lip-synching. That's why I quit the union long ago and made better money after that. The Union, “Musician's Protective Union”, is a joke. I always said, yeah but, who is protecting us from the union.
Technology is a boon and a curse. It’s cool because it lets you hear stuff you ‘probly wouldn’t have found without it. It’s a curse ‘cause if that awesome new band you found ever makes it there’s a good chance they are going to start sucking.
I reckon lot of that super clean “loud” sound has to do with how folks listen to music anymore. Ear-buds or whatever you call ‘em instead of a good stereo, and always doing something else while listening to music.
Freegards
The "new" country music may not have the twang of yesteryear, or the ex-wives, dead dogs and such, but at least it's not like the alternative which is filth and garbage.
Oh, and yes, the gals in today's country music are definite hotties :)
My only "modern" favorites are George Straight and Emmylou Harris.
Any of the younger ones are just Reno lounge singers with mullets.
Hasn’t it been obvious for years that the mainstream Nashville music biz is more interested in image than music? AM country radio is snooze-inducing.
Merle Haggard’s helped define an era but his time is past. The time of real peckerwood country music is passing, all that “my wife done left me, but I still got my huntin’ dog, got me a case of Budweiser an’ a TV to watch NASCAR on.” The people want poppified country and hot chicks!
“There are no surprises”
Such as finding out the Okie from Muskogee has turned into a flaming lib? You can keep those surprises.
Garth Brooks is one of them. The guy sounds fine in studio, but he can't carry a tune in a bucket live on stage.
Haggard didn’t ‘slam’ anything - he brought a legitimate criticism.
Fans of country music don’t like to be stereotyped - except when they gleefully embrace songs celebrating those stereotypes.
Not all country falls into the trap described by Haggard - but radio-ready ‘Hot New Country’ certainly does. Unfortunately its undemanding fan base virtually guarantees the production of more pap.
The breakover point for production techniques vs. musicianship and original ideas has been reached. Reverb, compression, and other studio tricks including the Harmonizer aka the poor vocalist’s savior have been done to death. Rock musicians have been tuning down from concert pitch (usually one half-step) for years in order to get a more growly, aggressive sound especially from the guitars and lately I’ve noticed a huge percentage of songs on country radio that are tuned UP one-half step in order to make a song sound brighter.
Even undeniable talents such as Brad Paisley have no choice but to play the game and have the Nashville sheen applied to their songs. Unfortunately this makes it difficult even for a trained ear to distinguish between Paisley and a three-chord formulaic hack like Toby Keith.
Unusual instrumentation and ‘mistakes’ are what give any recorded performance its individuality and memorableness - which is why you can remember all of the odd sounds coming from Sgt. Pepper or the White Album while all the songs/albums Boston recorded tend to run together in one’s mind (despite that I’m a huge Boston fan).
Like so many others Haggard is simply pointing out that country has gone bubblegum. Pop music is still largely wandering in the hip-hop wilderness and you really can’t fault starlets who want to emphasize vocals instead of drum loops and samples for turning to country. The Nashville ‘machine’ has become reliably, even frighteningly efficient at churning out their brand of candyfloss.
The rest of us will have to rely on Austin City Limits and the occasional bright spark like Dwight Yoakam or the Derailers.
My church choirmaster is an Adjunct Professor of Music at Roosevelt University in Chicago. He's also very involved as a performer (keyboards) in musical productions in Chicago. He has had numerous occasions to compare and contrast what some well-known musicians put into their microphones as opposed to what gets put onto tape. He says "I'll never trust recorded music again."
I wouldn’t single out Carrie Underwood, because the girl can sing and has some decent songs. BUT I agree with Merle. Since country is nearly the only genre that’s making money, they are cranking out crappy songs as fast as they can make them.
Over the weekend, someone had country radio on in the car and it was painful to listen. The songs weren’t just a little on the bad side, they had two big ol’ feet in crap town. I’m not a hardcore country purist who thinks that every that isn’t George Strait sucks. I like newer people, but the last 3-4 years the quality has gone way down hill.
Really, when you are thinking, “Dear God, what is this monstrosity??” and then the DJ says it was Alan Jackson, there is a problem.
Who is this “Carrie Underwood” that he speaks of? I need visual evidence stat! :)
Spoken by a man who knows what he’s talking about.
There used to be a talk show host in Chicago who years ago had been a country DJ in Del Rio, TX, I believe. He called the country music of Merle Haggard, George Jones, etc, “soul music for white people.” In addition to Haggard’s critique of today’s country, I think that what a lot of it is missing is that “soul.”
Get your wife back get your dog back and you quit drinking.