Apart from the lack of diplomacy in the delivery, the message hits the nail on the head about music sales.
Blake may just “Dixie Chick” himself right into the poor house. I know he’s trying to be “cool” for the idiots that watch the Voice but urban youth don’t buy country no matter how “progressive” it is. You’d think his grandpa would have taught him that you dance with the one that brung you.
A singer who shoots his mouth off and insults people. Yeah, that sounds a lot more like modern popular music signers than old-school country singers.
How come the other thread with 37 replies and the priceless Ray Price quote has been pulled as a duplicate?
He is supposed to be part of the world’s largest rodeo, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which my wife is a member.
I just contacted them to ask them to drop this guy from their pool. he has not place he can escape from people who love country music like me and the many thousands more out there.
Huh? There is agreement here with a vulgar know-nothing pop singer pretending to play country, because it sells?
Listen to Americana instead, y’all. Carrie Rodriguez has a new album out, John the Conqueror group is begging people on Facebook to buy their records, ‘coz they’re poor and have to keep their day jobs, there are new Bellamy Brothers’ Jesse and Noah, and I can list a dozen other Americana artists better than these Nashville pretty faces.
Much of what I hear on FM “Country” stations today is a lot more Pop than country, and not because it’s “new”, either. There is a lot of really good country music out there, recorded in the past few years. But almost none of it is on the radio because it doesn’t come from Nashville, is not formulaic, and thus can’t easily be marketed with ads for trucks, beer and fast food.
My paternal grandfather liked Spike Jones & the City Slickers, and my maternal grandfather liked The Beverly Hill Billies (the singing group, not the TV show)--and I like them, too. I've never heard of Blake Shelton, but I doubt that he could hold a candle to those groups.
Great comments at the link. Look up the one with these phrases: “Real country music is like a great pizza, it will out sell a crappy pizza every time” “that boy sucks like a homo in heat!”
Who can tell the difference between what passes for country music now days & pop music?
If he had just called them old farts, there wouldn’t be a problem.
Being a white, male, middle-aged, Christian Republican, I am getting used to the “old fart” label.
I grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry broadcast and watching the likes of Porter Waggoner and “Hee Haw”, so I guess those have defined my tastes. Country music has evolved, but I don’t see “evolve” as meaning progressing or improving. I would like to listen to contemporary country performers, but I find a lot of their music to lack any real creativity or soul. It sounds to me like bad, and sometimes whiny and annoying, rock and roll. I try to listen to the local station, but always wind up switching after a few songs.
I’m entitled to my opinion, and so is Blake Shelton. He is no doubt correct about what sells. He just won’t be seling any of it to me. For an old fart, I buy a lot of music and am glad that the kinds I like are available. I’m also glad that when I am on the road at night, I can hear WSM.
I’m older, I do buy country music cds and Blake Shelton will not be on my buy list. Rude and crude don’t cut it for me.
Blake is one angry Indian.
Anyone know of any good “classic country” stations that stream live on the web?
When we’re in WV, we listen to Big Buck 101.5 (whose spots sound like they’re saying “Big Butt 101.5” half the time, LOL), but I can’t tune them in here in NE Ohio and can’t seem to get their streaming to work.
I may be a old fart according to this Shelton kid (whom I’ve never knowingly hoid), and I cannot get enough of new music for which I search on bandcamp.com, noisetrade.com and a couple other sites. But I’ve been around long enough to recognize the real thing from the mass produced manufactured and over produced candy (which also shows up on these portals). I’ve got so many Likes and “friends” on Fakebook among these artists now, that few have heard that I have trouble keeping up. Nashville has long longed for a guaranteed method of producing hits, sort of a Brill Building, Motown, or better yet, the late Cameo/Parkway factory, and lucky mediocrities like this Shelton have alw3ays been happy to serve, kiss ass and suck, putting out 4 singles and two albums filled with filler each year, while artists like Waylon in the early 70s would take a walk, and succeed despite the corporate MBA run factory.
Great recent albums: Red Wanting Blue, John the Conqueror, new single from Nicki Bluhm, Jesse & Noah. You only gain by boycotting Nashville.
Recalling a couple bars in small towns in Wyoming where with that yap, you’d be lucky to make it to the door.
Country music, or at least what came out of Nashville, would occasionally return to the roots from the commercial phase that we are again seeing, and as I noticed in the past that return would coincide with another comeback by the great John Anderson (no, not the loser who would be POTUS!), who himself started out as alt-country, before even the term was invented, with his first recordings on a decidedly not country label Warner Bros. But that return hasn’t happened for a while, and neither has a John Anderson comeback.
Nobody wants to listen to their grandpa’s music. And I don’t care how many of these old farts around Nashville going, “My God, that ain’t country!” Well that’s because you don’t buy records anymore, jackass. The kids do, and they don’t want to buy the music you were buying.
A bit of a stretch from the title of the story as usual.