My life lands me in places where I regularly get stuck listening to country radio and more and more lately I want to bang my head on the wall and knock myself out so I can't hear it. OMG it seems every song has some shitty line of lyrics so bad I can't believe they left it in. Practically every melody is a cliche copy of 50 other bad songs.
I guess you would have to be a lot more specific about what you classify as "country". there certainly is some crap at one edge of it - but some - a lot of what could be called country - of it is great...
I mean even some CSNY songs could be classified as country.. and some of most talented guitar players out there could be classified as country...
Or Hank Williams? Or the Texas outlaws? Townes VanZandt? Emma Lou Harris? etc...
Country music's lack of musical creativity has been around for a long time. In the 1950s and 60s hundreds of country songs were enjoyed exclusively by country music fans who chose to not listen to other styles.
Each year a dozen or so country crossovers caught on with the much larger pop/rock audience. I don't recall that the crossover lyrics were necessarily better than standard country songs but the melodies and chords were original and catchy. That led to more interesting arrangements and performances. It didn't hurt to have a voice like Patsy Kline to catch peoples' interest.
I guess you would have to be a lot more specific about what you classify as "country". there certainly is some crap at one edge of it - but some - a lot of what could be called country - of it is great...
I mean even some CSNY songs could be classified as country.. and some of most talented guitar players out there could be classified as country...
Or Hank Williams? Or the Texas outlaws? Townes VanZandt? Emma Lou Harris? etc...
For me Hank and Johnny Cash and Willie are at the top, and of course Patsy Cline. Emmy Lou Harris is great too. Dolly is sometimes great and sometimes awful. I like Donna Fargo personally, and Freddie Hart, and Charley Rich, and the guy who sang Kiss An Angel Good Morning.
Registered: 08/28/01
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Originally Posted By: bear
I guess you would have to be a lot more specific about what you classify as "country".
Right about that! I have a much greater appreciation of old country music (the 50's through He Stopped Loving Her Today) than new country music. The new songs and the new singers mostly (but not always) sound like recycled old songs sung by 5th generation carbon copies -- or mimeograph copies that get paler with each generation.
Some consider Western Swing to be country. I don't. (Because in Western Swing you use jazz chords like 9ths, 13ths, and minor 7's and those are totally forbidden in "country" music) I love old Western Swing! I'm a huge fan of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and Milton Browne and His Musical Brownies.
There's country rock, there's Outlaw country, there's Bakersfield country, there's Alternative country, and so many other sub-genres. You could even say "Wichita Lineman" is a country song. It was sung by a rhinestone cowboy, you know? I applaud the diversity.
#1931419 - 09/27/2412:12 AMRe: What % of country songs do you reckon are absolute shit?
[Re: Alan]
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Well you know that country songs are different than western songs. Western songs are West coast.
For me Hank Williams. good Marty Robbins. good The byrds (country rock period)..good flying burrito brothers...ick poco good, Early eagles.. mor Country AND Western style music thru the 70s. Mostly good. I even like hee haw.
New gen country people...blech..
Garth Brooke's . mor
Blake shelton..yuck
There is one country song done during the 80s I use to love. I have no idea the name or the singer. but it rocked.
Registered: 08/28/01
Posts: 259
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Originally Posted By: mike gouthro
Country music's lack of musical creativity has been around for a long time.
It's hard to keep being creative when the genre only allows you to use the I-IV-V chords. The vast majority used D-G-A. Next most popular, G-C-D. Followed by C-F-G. If you do E-A-B, you start to veer in a rock direction (new country likes that -- but old country never learned to play that B chord. Instead you might hear a B7.)
In new country, you're allowed to have the occasional song with a minor chord in it. But rarely do you go beyond that.
The Keepers of the Gates of "What Is Country" don't realize that bringing in new sounds helps keep it fresh.
Garth Brooks set the country world on fire with that diminished chord in Friends In Low Places. Merle Haggard used it to perfection in I Always Get Lucky With You. But I don't believe I've come across any other country songs with a diminished chord.
The Country Music genre has two other restrictions that quickly tire me and make me want to listen to something else. There are only certain topics you're allowed to sing about! If you want to be successful at country you have to sing about stuff that promotes the image of you as a country singer.
And the instrumentation is so restrictive and dull. You get to have electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and a piano. It's rare these days to even hear a fiddle or a steel guitar. And that electric guitar? It had better have a twangy tone! (Though a little while ago, they did begin to let some distorted guitars creep in.) There are even unwritten rules about what kind of backing vocals are allowed.
After a half hour of listening to that restricted instrumentation, I need to hear a horn section or a sax or marimbas or a wild synth sound or a french horn or a clarinet. The Beatles featured many of those instruments. They weren't restricted by genre.
I will repeat what Bob Olsson told me...visiting on night at his house...that changed my understanding forever:
Country music isn't a genre of a music--with specific qualities, it's an audience FOR music. Generally speaking, and Bob's seen a lot of cycles of this ...you take what was popular in pop/rock music 20-25 years ago, and add a little twang-maybe a pedal steel.
#mindBlown
When was Hootie on the charts, ehm.
I think "I hate country music" is a position based on cultural identity belief in not being the market FOR country music. Because you're not old and closed off in your taste at all. Please--explain which Zep ballad is the best and which Beatles record is most overrated again...nothing says young and hip like those discussions.
but 90% garbage seems right and probably true on other pop music...you get a much higher % of good songs on the classic rock stations that you all exclusively listen to ( ) but thats llike a greatest hits album
Registered: 08/28/01
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Originally Posted By: jimmyrock
but 90% garbage seems right and probably true on other pop music...
You whacked me over the head and made me realize that even though I've been agreeing here that 90% of country is garbage, my feelings about contemporary pop music is that 99% is garbage.
It just seems to me, if you want to be successful in current pop, you have to give up all your musical pretentions and just put out clones of what's already out there. Success in that genre seems to demand you give up drums for some dinky sounding 808 loop, your vocals have to be ultra-processed til there's not an inch of life left in them, and by God you'd better not use real instruments like an acoustic guitar or a trombone. Meaningful lyrics have no place here.
I think it was Robert A. Heinlein who, having similar observations about the state of science fiction, said, "Ninety-five percent of EVERYTHING is garbage." Yet, looking back now at the pop/rock music from the mid-sixties till the early 70s (when radio began strictly defining the separate genres), I truly believe only about 50-60% was garbage! That's pretty good, considering! And 10% of the music from that era was pure magic, and still holds up well today! Isn't that astonishing?
I'm in full agreement with your above posts, Jimmy. And the links you've posted are to some of the very best "new country" artists. If anyone here cares to discover them...
I like Eric Church a lot when his country music veers off towards rock.
Registered: 08/28/01
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I love Riders of the Sky. I have about 5 of their albums. Woody, the fiddler, just slays me.
Too Slim, the bassist, looks EXACTLY like my old bass player who became an alcoholic and started screwing up all our gigs, leading to the demise of our otherwise awesome band.
If you want to say you dislike 90% of the country radio songs, that’s fair. I’m not a huge fan of much of it. But, they’re assembled/recorded very well and teams of writers have crafted most to fit the style that radio wants and apparently the listeners/concert goers. The themes are tired but there are a lot of great hooks and melody within those assembly-line records.
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"I love what you guys are trying to do up there" ...from an audience member at one of my gigs. Gear: Fender Medium pick
Intentionally not going back further than records I bought last year and have played the crap out of:
I feel like both of these will be "country" to many. Lori has won a number of Grammys for her songwriting for others who live SQUARELY in the Nashvegas Country Machine. Tim McGraw's "Humble and Kind" and Little Big Town's "Girl Crush" being two big ones that come to mind.
...at the same time, many might hear those and go "yeah--but that's not the country music I'M talking about...that more like folk rock but the singer has a twang". So right--what makes music "country music" for you? If it's the presence of instruments and melodic ideas YOU don't like...well, of course you "hate country music"...except you don't. You hate THAT stripe of what gets marketed as country music which becomes your total definition.
I liken it to...I don't know if this is the appropriate era for here...but, like if you think "hair metal" is your definition of rock...and saying "I hate rock music". Sure. Cool. You understand that Kiss and Poison and Bush and Papa Roach (four decades of crassly commercial rock?) don't make up all that is rock music, though, right? AL claims to be all ABOUT "rock" and yet likes nearly nothing I would even CALL rock music, which admittedly, needs a turn't up amp and arrangements based largely around loud guitars and drums to be "rock"...I've long questioned how much he loves "rock" when anything but Nirvana past 1975 is crappy...I think he likes the Stones and Zep.
Isbell is having Gretchen Peters, Matraca Berg, Kim Richey....I forget what other women writers from Nasvhille open his shows during his Ryman residency this year...so, I'm going to venture that I'm not alone in my love of them.
The themes are tired but there are a lot of great hooks and melody within those assembly-line records.
thast what im saying, liek "check you for ticks" aint a great theme or having to mention your truck but theres some 10% country songs that meet "my" definition of good
...you take what was popular in pop/rock music 20-25 years ago, and add a little twang-maybe a pedal steel.
) but thats llike a greatest hits album
