Seriously, just enjoy the music. Plenty of country bros and one hot mommas do - this is not a big deal.
The search for "authenticity" is the last refuge of the poser, especially on texags - the dank dungeon of the keyboard jockey, peering around and up the stairs toward the light of the kitchen from the basement, hands dripping in buffalo sauce, meekly preparing to ask gramdmammy when the next snack time is.
quote:Wow, so artists will have to write their own music to succeed now? This is horrible.
Historically, country artists have not written most of their material. I've pointed this out many times.
Perhaps it's time for that to change. Rock seems to get along just fine with bands writing their own material, I don't see why that's such a bad thing for country unless you're seriously suggesting that the genre cannot survive on its own. If that's the case then country deserves to die and it really de-legitimizes the genre as a whole.
This is one of the primary reasons why I almost exclusively listen to hard rock and metal now. It's the only place where I can be almost 100% certain that the musicians are writing their own songs and preparing their own music. This doesn't mean I don't like other genres of music, but they have all become so commercialized, routine, and stale that I can't take any of it seriously as music outside of one or two artists like Chris Stapleton.
My current favorite phone-in genre is "mumble rap" because they have moved beyond even needed songwriters, they just use autotune and noises along with a beat to make a song out of literally zero actual words. The amazing thing is that people eat this **** up, they listen to it and make it popular. If you think country is dead, rap is 6 feet underground already.
quote:Wow, so artists will have to write their own music to succeed now? This is horrible.
Historically, country artists have not written most of their material. I've pointed this out many times.
Perhaps it's time for that to change. Rock seems to get along just fine with bands writing their own material, I don't see why that's such a bad thing for country unless you're seriously suggesting that the genre cannot survive on its own. If that's the case then country deserves to die and it really de-legitimizes the genre as a whole.
This is one of the primary reasons why I almost exclusively listen to hard rock and metal now. It's the only place where I can be almost 100% certain that the musicians are writing their own songs and preparing their own music. This doesn't mean I don't like other genres of music, but they have all become so commercialized, routine, and stale that I can't take any of it seriously as music outside of one or two artists like Chris Stapleton.
My current favorite phone-in genre is "mumble rap" because they have moved beyond even needed songwriters, they just use autotune and noises along with a beat to make a song out of literally zero actual words. The amazing thing is that people eat this **** up, they listen to it and make it popular. If you think country is dead, rap is 6 feet underground already.
That's a pretty narrow view. So basically Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye and many, many other artists have no value, or aren't as 'legit', because they didn't write all, or most, of their own material.
I'm absolutely not suggesting the genre can't survive on it's own, but it IS a different genre and everything about it is done differently than rock. Albums are released more often, for example. You rarely see country artists going 3 years between projects. Maybe they should, who's to say. But I can also tell you that many, many MANY rock acts have professional writers that co-write a portion (or all) of their projects with them.
It's also weakens your position when, by virtually everyone's standards, country music was much better 20 or so years ago....when the artists were writing very little of their material. And oh, by the way, Chris Stapleton didn't write all of the songs on Traveler..."Tennessee Whiskey" was written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove. "Was It 26" was written by Don Sampson. And of the songs that Stapleton DID write, he wrote only 2 by himself. The others he co-wrote, with professional songwriters like Lee Miller, Danny Green, Jerry Salley, and Jimmy Stewart, as well as a few others. Chris is a tremendous songwriter, but even he recognizes the value of the professionals who do it every day.
You mentioned that you're a rock/metal fan. I listen to some of that as well, I'm sure much more superficially than you. But one thing I've always found fascinating is this. I'm always curious as to why rock/metal/rap/etc. fans feel compelled to crap all over other genres, country in particular. There's plenty of music I don't care for - including a lot of country, where I make my living - but I don't make a habit, for example, of commenting on threads about rap music just to point out everything I think is wrong with it. It honestly would never occur to me to do that. I've brought this same point up several times before, and usually I get some response like "well that's because country sucks, man". That's incredibly juvenile, and is really a non-answer. I'm one of the harshest critics of the current state of country music, but since I make my living writing it, I comment on the threads about it to offer inside perspective.
None of that last paragraph is directed at you personally, just random thoughts.
quote:That's a pretty narrow view. So basically Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye and many, many other artists have no value, or aren't as 'legit', because they didn't write all, or most, of their own material.
In comparison to people like Bob Dylan or Prince and other artists who wrote their own stuff, no they aren't as legit. Playing or singing something someone else wrote isn't really that difficult as you're basically just acting out a part. These people were certainly good at what they did, but they are not and never really were true musicians.
quote:I'm absolutely not suggesting the genre can't survive on it's own, but it IS a different genre and everything about it is done differently than rock. Albums are released more often, for example. You rarely see country artists going 3 years between projects. Maybe they should, who's to say. But I can also tell you that many, many MANY rock acts have professional writers that co-write a portion (or all) of their projects with them.
And I am suggesting that they should wait 3 years between albums. It massively improves the quality and it would actually allow true talent to rise to the top like it does with hard rock and metal. Bands who phone it in are always called out and panned.
There are plenty of talented country musicians that could do this and would be able to make albums with nothing but solid music that would do very well. I very much agree with the only putting out an album every few years method of making music.
As for rock bands not writing their own stuff? Sure that happens, but it's usually quite clear who is and isn't using songwriters because the bands that do use them always sound generic and tend to have a more poppy type sound. Also, I specifically mentioned hard rock/metal where that kind of stuff is much more rare because it's tough to fake it and fans are ruthless. Regular rock that isn't hard rock or metal has been mostly folded into pop music, so it's not surprising that it is happening.
quote:It's also weakens your position when, by virtually everyone's standards, country music was much better 20 or so years ago....when the artists were writing very little of their material. And oh, by the way, Chris Stapleton didn't write all of the songs on Traveler..."Tennessee Whiskey" was written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove. "Was It 26" was written by Don Sampson. And of the songs that Stapleton DID write, he wrote only 2 by himself. The others he co-wrote, with professional songwriters like Lee Miller, Danny Green, Jerry Salley, and Jimmy Stewart, as well as a few others. Chris is a tremendous songwriter, but even he recognizes the value of the professionals who do it every day.
Okay so he didn't write most of his own music, the reality is that he CAN do it and is a talented songwriter but the nature of the genre forces him to do otherwise. Honestly I'm rather disappointed to learn that even he is subject to the same **** everyone else does.
quote:You mentioned that you're a rock/metal fan. I listen to some of that as well, I'm sure much more superficially than you. But one thing I've always found fascinating is this. I'm always curious as to why rock/metal/rap/etc. fans feel compelled to crap all over other genres, country in particular. There's plenty of music I don't care for - including a lot of country, where I make my living - but I don't make a habit, for example, of commenting on threads about rap music just to point out everything I think is wrong with it. It honestly would never occur to me to do that. I've brought this same point up several times before, and usually I get some response like "well that's because country sucks, man". That's incredibly juvenile, and is really a non-answer. I'm one of the harshest critics of the current state of country music, but since I make my living writing it, I comment on the threads about it to offer inside perspective.
None of that last paragraph is directed at you personally, just random thoughts.
I've never really been able to respect any band or artists that rarely or never writes their own stuff because you're not really a musician at that point. You're just playing a cover or making a recording of something someone else created. You may sound and look good doing it, but it's the equivalent of someone playing sheet music with an instrument or an actor reading lines. Those that are better at selling it do better than those that don't. This is why someone like Ben Affleck is a far more talented than other actors: he writes, directs, and acts in stuff he is involved with a lot.
If country artists never have written their stuff widescale then it's no wonder the genre is dying. They have zero tradition of bands or musicians writing their own material, so now that radio is dying, the entire genre is pissing in the wind wondering what's going on. They need to develop the 3 year or more cycle between albums like rock bands do where they take their time to write their own material. At this point it's the only way to save the genre and keep it legit without it being completely subsumed by pop and/or hiphop like it has been moving towards in the past 10 years.
I'm not going to waste either of our time by responding to all your points, you have your opinion and I disagree with most of it. By all means, listen to the music that you like and believe in your heart to be truly artistic, I support that. I just don't see why you feel compelled to diss and comment on genres that you don't like or listen to.
The reality of the state of country music though is that even with all these lame songs and the departure from true 'country' roots of decent songwriting, album sales are thriving (Jason aldean for example was at the top of the billboard charts this week, beating all the drakes and adeles). As much as folks want things to change, this model of quick album turnarounds and vapid products o don't think are going anywhere.
This is just my layman's perspective, I welcome any correction from rb or others more knowlegable on the subject of this inaccurate.
quote:The reality of the state of country music though is that even with all these lame songs and the departure from true 'country' roots of decent songwriting, album sales are thriving (Jason aldean for example was at the top of the billboard charts this week, beating all the drakes and adeles). As much as folks want things to change, this model of quick album turnarounds and vapid products o don't think are going anywhere.
This is just my layman's perspective, I welcome any correction from rb or others more knowlegable on the subject of this inaccurate.
Yeah, pretty accurate. That's not specific to country music, either. The advent of the MP3 pretty much was the death knell for true "albums". Now what you see is a collection of songs deemed "potential radio singles" by the powers that be. A lot of times my favorites songs on records were just album cuts and were never singles, because they were well written, outside of the box, great songs. There's no incentive to record that type of song anymore because people, for the most part, buy/stream the radio hits and ignore the rest.
quote:The reality of the state of country music though is that even with all these lame songs and the departure from true 'country' roots of decent songwriting, album sales are thriving (Jason aldean for example was at the top of the billboard charts this week, beating all the drakes and adeles). As much as folks want things to change, this model of quick album turnarounds and vapid products o don't think are going anywhere.
This is just my layman's perspective, I welcome any correction from rb or others more knowlegable on the subject of this inaccurate.
people will still buy traditional country if it's good. Aaron Watson's last album went straight to #1 on itunes when it came out.
quote:The reality of the state of country music though is that even with all these lame songs and the departure from true 'country' roots of decent songwriting, album sales are thriving (Jason aldean for example was at the top of the billboard charts this week, beating all the drakes and adeles). As much as folks want things to change, this model of quick album turnarounds and vapid products o don't think are going anywhere.
This is just my layman's perspective, I welcome any correction from rb or others more knowlegable on the subject of this inaccurate.
That doesn't mean we can't make fun of it or despondent over it. And you make it sound as if we didn't know it makes money.
Oh I didn't mean for it to come across that way, I was lamenting the fact that as much as we'd all like there to be some big change in the direction country is going, it's only getting worse it seems like.
Kacey Musgraves and Chris Stapleton had huge crowds at ACL today. And earlier this week Marin Morris and Aubrie Sellers killed it. Country music might be on life support, but it ain't dead
Bradley Walker - The Toolbox - a few friends of mine playing with him on this one, Carl Jackson on acoustic guitar and vocals, Tammy King on mandolin, and Robby Turner on dobro.
Guy would've had a deal with a major years ago, except he's wheelchair bound. There's quite a few videos of him floating around.
Holy *****...so country writers literally don't even try to rhyme these days huh?
It won't be long before theses country artists go the route of rappers and start making up words and cutting words shorts in a pathetic attempt to rhyme.
Holy *****...so country writers literally don't even try to rhyme these days huh?
It won't be long before theses country artists go the route of rappers and start making up words and cutting words shorts in a pathetic attempt to rhyme.
Girl in them painted on jeans you're looking so chill Climb up in my 4X4, and we'll be so trill
Did anyone mention that Aggieland's own Granger Smith has pretty much disowned the Texas country scene? He recently toured with FLGA Line and now he's doing shows opening for Luke Bryan...
Has anyone heard the song that's been playing nonstop on Gameday and ESPN during college football games this season? Band called Waterloo Revival, the song is Backwood Bump.
It's as bro country as it gets... and full disclosure. I'm buddies with those guys. I liked their music better before they got to Nashville, but hey, I wish them nothing but success.
It has been interesting to see the makeover and transformation they've gotten since signing with one of the big labels there. Basically everything we complain about in this thread.
was thinking the other day. Most of the classic country stations while i was in college advertised that they played the best of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Now its the 70's, 80s and 90s. Soon it will be the 80s, 90s and 00s. Eventually, we will hear nothing but luke bryan, rascal flatts, FL-GA Line and all that other crap on the "classic" stations.
I've been working with a couple of young writer/artists from TX, and I keep cautioning them to not get sucked in to the machine. The problem is, it's much harder and takes much longer to get your career off the ground if you aren't willing to play ball, which effectively means letting them take creative control. The "it can happen for you right now" pitch is hard to turn down.
Most of the people working at record labels these days don't have a creative background. They aren't record producers, songwriters, singers, musicians, etc. (with some exceptions). Most of them are people who went to either Belmont U. or MTSU and majored in the music business programs, got an internship at a label, and then failed upwards into a job.
Quite a bit different than when I came to town, and people like Jerry Kennedy, Fred Foster, Jerry Bradley, Harold Shedd, etc. were running labels.
You know, I hate what country music has become, and I love to point to Jason Isbell and the like as guys who are standing up against the tide of bro-country...but, if a major label told me I'd make a few million (at the least) to overlook my artistic integrity and sing bro country stuff (or worse, that the only way I could be successful was to do that)....more than likely I'd be a selling out mofo.
Wow. I hit play just to hear how terrible it was and kept scrolling to read the rest of the thread. Had to scroll back up and "rewind" to make sure I had actually hear "Lay a blanket in the beets" as a country song lyric. Little did I know I didn't have to rewind because it was right there in the chorus and got repeated 4 more times.
Has anyone heard the song that's been playing nonstop on Gameday and ESPN during college football games this season? Band called Waterloo Revival, the song is Backwood Bump.
It's as bro country as it gets... and full disclosure. I'm buddies with those guys. I liked their music better before they got to Nashville, but hey, I wish them nothing but success.
It has been interesting to see the makeover and transformation they've gotten since signing with one of the big labels there. Basically everything we complain about in this thread.
Lol I drummed for them for a year. I agree with everything you said.
You know, I hate what country music has become, and I love to point to Jason Isbell and the like as guys who are standing up against the tide of bro-country...but, if a major label told me I'd make a few million (at the least) to overlook my artistic integrity and sing bro country stuff (or worse, that the only way I could be successful was to do that)....more than likely I'd be a selling out mofo.
But, all that aside, **** Luke Bryan.
I don't begrudge anyone for making a living. I just hope that it isn't put forth as artistic or put on the same pedestal as genuine artists.
I mean, there is a place in the world for mcdonalds hamburgers. But when advertising and hype machine start trying to convince me that McDonald's makes the best hamburgers in the world, that's when it becomes about just $.
You know, I hate what country music has become, and I love to point to Jason Isbell and the like as guys who are standing up against the tide of bro-country...but, if a major label told me I'd make a few million (at the least) to overlook my artistic integrity and sing bro country stuff (or worse, that the only way I could be successful was to do that)....more than likely I'd be a selling out mofo.
But, all that aside, **** Luke Bryan.
I don't begrudge anyone for making a living. I just hope that it isn't put forth as artistic or put on the same pedestal as genuine artists.
I mean, there is a place in the world for mcdonalds hamburgers. But when advertising and hype machine start trying to convince me that McDonald's makes the best hamburgers in the world, that's when it becomes about just $.
Agree. Don't make bro-country at the expense of genuine talent. But unfortunately, how many execs/stockholders in any industry care about quality of product when compared to the bottom line?
Maybe rbtexan has answered this before somewhere in this long thread, but it would seem to me that $ and quality are not mutually exclusive. Sturgill and Isbell both debuted at #1, right? Stapleton has done very well. I do think, for the most part, people will like quality music.
So with where country music is, what is the egg and what is the chicken? Have the execs followed the dumbing down of the consumer or is it the other way around? Did the industry see a way to make better margins by cutting out the artistic element and making it more manufactured and thus more repeatable. Then we will spend lots of $ to convince the consumer that this is what is good.
Has anyone heard the song that's been playing nonstop on Gameday and ESPN during college football games this season? Band called Waterloo Revival, the song is Backwood Bump.
It's as bro country as it gets... and full disclosure. I'm buddies with those guys. I liked their music better before they got to Nashville, but hey, I wish them nothing but success.
It has been interesting to see the makeover and transformation they've gotten since signing with one of the big labels there. Basically everything we complain about in this thread.
Lol I drummed for them for a year. I agree with everything you said.
That's cool... I'm sure I saw you play a ton in Austin. I went to all of their shows. Everyone in the band is a really talented musician.
Yeah it is what it is... Those guys are awesome dudes, so obviously I'm rooting for them. The music has become cheesy as hell, but they look like they're pretty happy and their lives seem badass now. I'm sure I'd have done the same thing.
Still funny to see George spiking his hair and wearing chains and wrist cuffs though.
Has anyone heard the song that's been playing nonstop on Gameday and ESPN during college football games this season? Band called Waterloo Revival, the song is Backwood Bump.
It's as bro country as it gets... and full disclosure. I'm buddies with those guys. I liked their music better before they got to Nashville, but hey, I wish them nothing but success.
It has been interesting to see the makeover and transformation they've gotten since signing with one of the big labels there. Basically everything we complain about in this thread.
Lol I drummed for them for a year. I agree with everything you said.
That's cool... I'm sure I saw you play a ton in Austin. I went to all of their shows. Everyone in the band is a really talented musician.
Yeah it is what it is... Those guys are awesome dudes, so obviously I'm rooting for them. The music has become cheesy as hell, but they look like they're pretty happy and their lives seem badass now. I'm sure I'd have done the same thing.
Still funny to see George spiking his hair and wearing chains and wrist cuffs though.
so, this is funny to me.
I'm sure George is a great guy, and again, I don't begrudge folks for making a living. I wouldn't normally wear the dress clothes I have to wear for work everyday either, but what about country music means a dude has to spike his hair and wear chains and wrist cuffs?
someone mentioned on the radio once that most old people listen to the radio for free, or buy very little music. The vast majority of music purchases are made by teenage-college aged girls. Country music is being marketed towards them. People complain about bro country being sexist, but teenage girls don't care b/c they are hot.
I would go as step further and say that h@rny soccer moms buy into bro country as well.
