Rules!
Still like Austin country, Nashville country is too corporate astroturf now.
Posted on 05/20/2014 8:58:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I’ve complained about the state of modern mainstream country music for a long time now. And clearly, I’m not alone. Singer-songwriter Collin Raye, one of the top country artists throughout the ’90s, recently took to Fox News to air his grievances at the state of country music today.
As a platinum-selling country music artist and, more importantly, a lifelong fan of the genre, I’d like to send out this heartfelt plea to the gatekeepers of the industry:
Enough already.
I’d like to think that I am expressing what nearly every artist, musician and songwriter (with perhaps a few exceptions) is thinking when I contend that the Bro’ Country phenomenon must cease.
It has had its run for better or worse and it’s time for Nashville to get back to producing, and more importantly promoting, good singers singing real songs. It’s time for country music to find its identity again before it is lost forever.
[...]
Disposable, forgettable music has been the order of the day for quite a while now and it’s time for that to stop.
Our beautiful, time-honored genre, has devolved from lines like, “I’d trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday … holding Bobby’s body next to mine,” and “a canvas covered cabin, in a crowded labor camp stand out in this memory I revive. Cause my Daddy raised a family there with two hard working hands….and tried to feed my Momma’s hungry eyes,” down to “Can I get a Yee Haw?”
And the aforementioned Truck! “Come on slide them jeans on up in my truck! Let’s get down and dirty in muh truck, doggone it I just get off riding in muh truck, I love ya honey, but not as much as muh truck!” Oh and we can’t leave out the beautiful prose about partying in a field or pasture.
He goes on to lay the blame at the feet of the label honchos rather than at the artists or songwriters. “They have the power and ability to make a commitment to make records that keep the legacy of country music alive, and reclaim a great genre’s identity.”
Raye has a point. Here’s Exhibit A: “Cruise,” by Florida-Georgia Line, which spent an astounding 21 weeks at #1 on Billboards Hot Country Songs chart.
Modern country music has become so formulaic that some wags devised a web-based Bro Country Song Inspiration Generator. For the most part, the poetry and beauty that have been hallmarks of the genre for so long are missing from mainstream country today, with a handful of exceptions, such as Zac Brown Band, The Band Perry, and Miranda Lambert.
The real Nashville could take a cue or two from the fictional Nashville. Most of the songs on the hit ABC series fit the mold of the country songwriting tradition - heartfelt and often poetic. And, though actors who just happen to sing populate the cast (with some of the best Southern accents in the business, I might add), these folks know how to interpret a song well.
Take Sam Palladio, who plays up-and-coming songwriter Gunnar Scott. The British actor/singer wraps his amazing voice around “It Ain’t Yours To Throw Away,” a beautiful tune co-written (in real life) by the great Pam Tillis:
In another clip from a concert special, members of the cast perform “A Life That’s Good,” which has become an unofficial anthem for the show, along with the songwriters:
Collin Raye has a point. If industry executives treated their talent as artists rather than as commodities and their music as art rather than as products, country music would improve. The next Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton are out there for discovery, but they’re taking a backseat to the “Bro Country” movement. I’m afraid one day we’ll look back at these last couple of years as a low point in country music.
I vaguely remember late night AM radio, we didn’t get anything lower on the dial due to Cuban stations interfering (I’m in NC). The ones I recall were WLS Chicago, WOWO Fort Wayne, Indiana and there was a big one in New York but can’t recall the call letters. This is from my early childhood, by the time I entered my teens, FM had taken over for most music stations.
WWL,New Orleans, WBAP, Dallas, KVOO, Tulsa, talking of late night radio, all of these played all night country music, they billed themselves as Trucker’s radio. I loved WWL always having on every hour “a song of inspiration”. It was great.
http://www.virtualtruckroute.com/radio_personalities.html
There is still some of this. One show even went local but it’s ads, some talk radio and some music.
ping
But the new country is not the historical country, by my reckoning, I prefer the old days (that's the name of one of my songs (I Prefer the Old Days).
It’s really nice to hear someone mention Steve Young’s name. In my opinion one of the best songwriters & pickers who’ve ever held a pen or picked up a guitar. Steve was probably best known for his songwriting...’Seven Bridges Road’, Lonesome Ornery & Mean’ and too many other great songs to mention. Country lore has it that Waylon once said “ if Steve Young got any better, he might just have to kill him” All in jest of course... If you really want to hear some vintage Young, check out ‘My Oklahoma’, or his absolute chilling cover of ‘The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down”. If you truly love country music, it’s not too likely you’ll be disappointed.
Now you’re talking.
It’s always one thing or another, in the ‘80s, I think a lot of people were critical of country for being too “sexually suggestive”, does anyone remember that?
There was that song “Love is just a sin away” and other songs like Conway Twitty’s “Baby’s got her bluejeans on” and maybe Barbara Mandrell singing “Sleeping Single in a double bed”. So it goes.
Make that “Heaven’s just a sin away”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL49I1CBHmc
Rules!
Still like Austin country, Nashville country is too corporate astroturf now.
Dale Watson is as close to real country as they come. Love his music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2B85PyZr0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sduE-NDCFI
I really like his "Over the Rainbow" where he makes the guitar sound like a harp with the harmonics. He's a true legend and I'm so lucky to have heard him and listened to his conversations with fans. A nice guy.
Andy McKee and Calum Graham are also two that you might want to listen to if you like Tommy Emmanuel. They do some really neat arrangements of songs on the Candyrat label.
Yeah, you are right about Garth. Some of the others I can see, but even though Reba is very good I never did like her music. Sorry bout that, but the only recent one I like is Josh Turner.
Good country, IMHO is “three chords and the truth, it deals with honest raw emotion. There's always been crap country; I mean all due respect to Chet Atkins, but it's with him that the commercial crap started..
Pandora can be great for discovering new bands - put in a few you like and see what similar artists are out there.
There's a LOT of good music being made now, but we ain't going to hear any of it on the radio. Even here in Northern California, there are great songwriters who drink deeply from the well of Hank and Merle; I think both of us have realized that it's a different game if your going to play professionally, but I think there were people who regarded everything after the Carter family as being downhill.
Bakersfield Sound, no better... and those guys wrote their own tunes for the most part, Tommy Collins, one of their leaders, same with Dwight Yoakam, even HW Jr. writes his own music, some of those songs aren’t that great, his ‘60s/’70s Cajun Baby is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edvHv34NRRY
Didn’t know he got in an auto accident hurting his face. A young Bocephus.
“Stand by Your Man” became “You can Hear Me on the Radio” and “Tell the grave digger that he better dig two”.
In the grocery stores (and cable tv) I refer to it as the illusion of choice.
They may stock the brand I want of condiment or shampoo, but they may not have the (basic grade) product I want. And the majority of the cable channels are pwned by a few monopolistic companies (Disney, NBC, Viacom, etc). True choice is not on display there.
Same with radio, if it isn't Clear Channel, then it's probably (Viacom) Infinity Broadcasting.
And to carry on your point, yeah, everything is niche marketed now/fragmented/balkanized, that it has become a tower of babel/babble. Whether that is in music or even in "credible" news reporting. You know what not to trust, but where do you turn FOR something?
Yes, other than Coldplay, I don’t see any “new” group that has a chance to reach a Sgt. pepper-like level. They have some truly brilliant lyrics.
“You can’t see nudity on the radio...” < /National Lampoon Radio Hour >
Scene from the movie Lizstomania...
While not everyone (even of the same side of the "generation gap") liked the same artists, there USED to be stations that played ALL of the contemporary hits of the day (and programs like Ed Sullivan's that booked the contemporary hit artists of the day, regardless of Ed's support for their music).
There is no more "something for everyone".
But radio already started to fragment sharply at the introduction of rock and roll into the music charts. There is the famous clip of the DJ smashing a stack of 78s making a pledge to never again play rock music on his station. He claims in the clip that the top charts used to be a good indicator of music but "no more". There have been several such schisms.
Even "classic rock" (the album oriented rock AOR format) stations of old "broke" with adding any more artists (and eventually even adding new recordings by the canon artists) when MTV ushered in a lot of new wave, new romantic, etc. bands into the charts. I recall one such station playing the Go Go's on their station (Our Lipped Are Sealed?) on a smash or trash segment and asking if listeners thought they wanted things like this added to the rotation.
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