Posted on 05/16/2014 8:01:45 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
As a platinum-selling country music artist and, more importantly, a lifelong fan of the genre, Id like to send out this heartfelt plea to the gatekeepers of the industry:
Enough already.
Id 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 its time for Nashville to get back to producing, and more importantly promoting, good singers singing real songs. Its time for country music to find its identity again before it is lost forever.
~snip~
But as someone who grew up loving and being forever affected by the true greats of country music, I simply have to offer up this plea to the Nashville country music industry to reclaim the identity and poetic greatness that once was our format. The well-written poetic word of the country song has disappeared.
~snip~
Willie Nelson once wrote in his early song, "Shotgun Willie," that you cant make a record if you aint got nothing to say. Apparently, thats not the case anymore.
Disposable, forgettable music has been the order of the day for quite a while now and its time for that to stop.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You know why they raise such a rukus when the do mate? All that yowling?
*Sandpaper tongues*
and you and he are absolutely right...if I hear another young "country" stud SCREAMING out how he's going to do you "right" ....well, lets just say I've had enough..
I listen to an AM station now that playes soft country from the 60's on up....
Brooks and Dunn...George Strait....Allan...etc...not to even mention Patsy adn Patty Loveless....
and now look at the same cookie cutter so called country artist we have.....pathetic...
“Blake Shelton is absolutely positively the WORST country music has to offer.”
“Chew it, chew it, chew it, spit.” Agreed. Real poet that guy.
Now Patsy Cline, there was some class!
I like both Country and Western (apologies to the Blues Brothers).
The last “current” musician I enjoyed was Alan Jackson.
I vote with my wallet and listen to Sirius XM 56 for true classics. Forget broadcast radio!
Taylor Swift already did that. The song is called “Back to December.”
I might just make my way there
As Willie says, “It don’t matter whose in Austin, Bob Wills is still the king”.
I play in three bands. One is all country, one does some country and one is rockabilly. I’m exposed to a LOT of country music and my take on this is that it’s not that there is no good country any more. Rather, there is so much of it that there is plenty of “pop crap” that is labelled country because somebody threw a fiddle or steel guitar in it somewhere - and the good stuff gets lost because it is often just not as “flashy”.
Meanwhile, I really like some of Miranda Lambert’s stuff and this girl lives near me (at least her dad does). Though you’ve probably never heard of her, she writes some great lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8TvrQX7ps
Her dad, who is down the street from me, is one of the guys arguing in the video.
And this song. This is good stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGDCY1AaYDI
http://www.reverbnation.com/hannahellis
But the thing is, you gotta strike the right nerve and get the right promotion or nobody ever hears you.
My country band in Seattle a few years ago opened for a couple of guys that I’d never heard of. We got to enjoy the back stage buffet and sit in the bus and talk with them a while. The comical thing is that because I had not moved to KY yet, their drawl cracked me up. They sounded just like what you would think these singers would sound like. It was very real and they both had a strong “awe shucks” personality type. They seemed like sincerely nice guys.
But what I noticed was that they were being marketed like new cars. Some “power from the top” had christened them the next big stars. I didn’t see anything special, but they were, in fact pretty good and seemed comfortable in their own skin on stage.
And now pretty much everyone has heard of Eric Church and Luke Bryan.
But Hannah’s songs are some of the best I’ve heard, musically and lyrically speaking. It’s a real shame people like her don’t get the same attention. But sometimes they do. The name of the game is perseverence and, frankly, the future of Country has not been written yet, for people like her or for country music in general.
Been dead for at least 30 years, by my reckoning.
Thanks for the reply and info!!
I agree that it is the music gatekeepers that are turning our music into schlock and often ignoring true talent in order to mass produce something that will sell to the lowest common denominator market. I was hoping that when music could be purchased by the song on the Internet and not forcing buyers to purchase whole albums of mostly junk that things would change. However, large producers like Sony have fought this digital revolution and still keep a strangle hold on the music industry. Even Internet radio like Pandora, where you can customize exactly what you want for content, is under assault by the large record companies and their shills in Congress who want to extract ever higher royalties so as to kill this nascent industry.
I do see that Internet music sources are holding on and many of us now tune into Pandora on our car radios instead of the local top 40 hits and buy our music online getting exactly what we want. However the music industry promoters will still be turning out the schlock as long as there are people who will buy it and don't really care about the content. I have to wonder if 50 years from now how many of today's "hits" will still find an audience or will be relegated to elevator music.
It does seem like both followed a similar pattern:
Great videos in the beginning, then a decline in both the music and the resultant video.
I was a real C&W fan even being a city slicker during the late 80s and 90s. Seemed to coincide with the decline of pop “music” (ie, emergence of rap and “dance”) Then, as noted several times above, the Hollywoodization.
I haven’t listened to Country in ages, and I regret its decline but that is consistent with the “entertainment” industry as a whole. All show and pizzazz and little substance. Kids today especially are missing out.
I’ve enjoyed Old Crow Medicine Show for years. Carolina Chocolate Drops, I wouldn’t qualify as country. They’re local to, it’s bluegrass that they’re playing. Not too many black folks get into bluegrass, but these guys do a fine job of it.
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Cornbread And Butterbeans
I was a fan of Country & Western music. Country music became Rockabilly and Western music died with Bob Nolan.
Michael Martin Murphy? Wildfire? God Save us.
"We've got both kinds. Country AND Western!"
As it is yes. It’s all WWF and watered down sex. Fake or exaggerated southern accents...tight jeans that show everything...Not so much the lyrics, but nothing outstanding. Just waiting for RAP country to make it into the mainstream. There won’t be enough tombstones to go around.
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