Great stuff, rb. Thanks for sharing your experiences on here!

http://www.rollingstone.com/country/features/jason-aldean-on-defiant-new-album-i-dont-like-labeling-w438602

So, I may be pilling on and this may be a cheapshot, but doesn't seem like the more this guy tries to make himself out to be a rebel and an 'outsider' he looks even more dewshy and 'bro country'.

That whole thing makes just want to punch him in the mouth.

The success of Jason Aldean is for me maybe the most inexplicable in all of country music.

Is his music unique or compelling? Certainly not, but most of them these days aren't.

So he must be some kind of pretty boy heartthrob type?
On the contrary, he has a very punchable face.

Well, at least he has a great voice right?
Uh...nope.

Ok, but Steve Earle and Bob Dylan are ugly and not great singers. But they're popular because they're great songwriters. So he must get a lot of credit for writing these songs, is that?
Go listen to "Burnin' It Down". That is a terrible song. Then realize it took 4 guys to write that one, and none of them were Jason Aldean.

I worked with a guy about 12 years ago, from Georgia, who said he was from the same town and knew Aldean. This was right when Aldean was releasing his first popular song (don't ask me what it was because I can't stand any of his ****). I believe him simply because at that point Aldean was not big name and this guy gave no reason not to believe him.

He didn't act like it was a big deal and kinda just said it in passing, but what he said was that Aldean was a rich kid who never worked hard in the fields nor did "country" stuff like he sings about, and that he had always been a phony and a dewsh. Reading his Wikipedia page, it pretty much backs up that story. Aldean went to a private school and was groomed by his parents from when he was a kid to be a country superstar.

So, I think its simply a case of someone whose "reality" isn't reality for 99% of the population. His reality has been grooming and performances and fawning and sycophants. So he probably honestly doesn't know that his life isn't real, its simply an "act". I put him in the same category as Taylor Swift and Justin Beiber and others who were basically raised to be "acts", so once they're grown they take that whole world of the entertainment industry as reality and serious and simply can't comprehend when people outside of it point out the ridiculousness of it.

When Aldean tries to stick up for the average southerner/middle American "country" person because he thinks that's who people are making fun of when they degrade modern country music, I believe he's being earnest. He simply can't comprehend people are making fun of HIM and his fake, plastic, unoriginal, bereft of true meaning version of country music.

That article is damn near unreadable.

Asking for forgiveness in advance for the lengthy post that follows. It's a Facebook post written by a friend of mine, and copied here in its entirety with his blessing, that's a really heartbreaking read about the state of my profession. Regie Hamm is the songwriter who posted it.

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WHY I'M RETIRING FROM PROSITUTION
It was originally called "*****s." I fought with my management and label over that title for months. Finally, I gave in to calling it "Victim Of Desire." It is on my American Dreams CD and it's based on a true story
I used to make records at a recording studio called the Velvet Elvis, on 5th avenue. It was in what we call, "the pleasure district." In other words, there were strip clubs and ***** houses all around it. In fact, the house RIGHT next door was a "private dancer" club. That means every dance provided by the "dancers" was a "private" dance (I promise no more "quotations"). Draw your on conclusions as to what transactions might've taken place in those private rooms.
We used to work all hours of the night down there. And we got to know some of the girls who worked at the club. They would come out on the stoop in the summer, turn up loud music, and dance for passers by hoping to attract clients. A couple of them were really sweet and really nice to us. They would wave and say hi on their way into work. You'd think they were going to work a shift at a bank well in stilettos and mini skirts. But all of them were damaged. And I often wished I could go over there and pay them all to just go home. But I couldn't.
One night, while taking a break from making yet another Contemporary Christian radio hit, something dawned on me. What those girls were doing and what I was doing wasn't that different: we were all providing 3 minutes of pleasure for money.
You see, you start out doing it for free and it gets you noticed. Then you THINK it's getting you love. Then, you get good at it and people marvel and that makes you feel special. You get so good at it you can transport them somewhere and take their mind off their troubles for a little while. And THAT, they will pay for.
So you start selling it. And if you're really good and keep your head together and pay attention to your business moves and learn to play the right angles you can turn it into a career and a pretty darn good living. Then, you begin telling yourself the lie. The lie that it can last forever and that people will always want it from you and that you are as attractive and exciting as you were when you were young.
But then, one day, you age out. It's not that you're repulsive to people they're still fond of you. But they weren't in this for love. They were in it for pleasure and excitement; for something new and different. And you're just not that anymore.
There's a line in my song, *****s, that says, "they'll put you on the stroll let you sell your soul but you'll never get enough." And when I wrote it, I didn't know how true it was. Your soul will never bring in enough money.
My current songwriting contract ends on July 1st, 2017. I plan on honoring it right up until the last day of it. I'm going to write songs and I'm going to try to get them recorded and in the market place. But when my contract is up, I am walking away from songwriting as a profession. There are many reasons for this. But the main reason is there is simply no profession to be had anymore.
My goal, the past few years, has been to work as hard as I can and write enough hit songs that would generate enough money for me to sell my catalog in a few years and set up a trust for my special needs daughter. My hope is that it would be enough for her to live on for the rest of her life. There was a time when that was possible. Don't get me wrong there is no music business universe where that would've been simple. But it was at least possible.
My plan was a gamble to be sure. I've always said the music business was hard even when it was easy. Having a hit song as a songwriter is like finding a unicorn in a field of Fabrege eggs. It is rarified air. But I've been up in that air 23 times and I know it's possible. It's also the only thing I know how to do that could've generated the kind of money I would need to set up my daughter for life.
But, if I may quote another of my songs, the world as I knew it ain't there no more. The truth is there is no amount of work or time I can put in that will get me to my goal. I have to look at the entire landscape and see it for what it is.
The first thing is this: I don't write the kinds of songs people record anymore. This is something that happens to all of us songwriters eventually, whether the business model works or not. And I'm face to face with that reality right now. But the second this is there simply is no business model left for a songwriter.
If the information me and my fellow Ghost Town Troubadours uncovered on our tour holds true, no one will be listening to radio in five years. Everything will be streaming based. At the current rates, I would have to write about 7 "Can't Stop The Feeling"s a year just to stay above water as a human being much less build any kind of wealth. And that is literally, physically impossible to do.
I have written number one songs in 3 different decades, on multiple formats. I've been on millions of records. I've won awards and contests. I've seen my songs on the big and small screens. One of my songs was heard by half a billion people at one time. I've been compared to the likes of Randy Newman and Jimmy Webb. I wrote the only song in history to crash the iTunes server.
I've earned millions of dollars in my chosen profession. And I have had an amazing life and an amazing career. I am thankful every day for it. I've never once taken any of it for granted. My children live in a nice house and go to great schools. And I owe all of it to songs and songwriting and a market and a system that allows screw-up college dropouts like me to achieve things we wouldn't be able to achieve in any other time or place in history.
But even with all I've done in this business, my current value on the street, in the songwriting world, is 18 thousand dollars per year. And there is just no way for my family (or really ANY family) to live on that. And the problem is, no matter WHO the songwriter is, he or she will be worth THAT or less before too much longer. It isn't because people don't want to buy music. It isn't because my publishers aren't wonderful, amazing people. It's simply because there is a system in place now, that has devalued what I do to the point of extinction.
Is this life or death? Not really. But it does mean something for a Chinese orphan, who cannot talk or care for herself and who was brought to the land of opportunity for a better life. So far she's had that better life. What it will be in ten years is anybody's guess, at this point.
At 50, I'm not sure what else I can do with my life. Especially with that big, damn 27-year gap on my resume that reads, "worked as a professional songwriter."
I will always write songs for me. And I might even make the occasional record. But a co-writer of mine brought up writing something for Tim McGraw the other day and I couldn't get excited about it. Unless Tim guaranteed our song would be a single on the radio, we couldn't figure out what the upside would be for us. If it's not going to be on the radio, where do we get paid for it?
Everyone will just stream it and that means literally nothing for a songwriter. So, if Tim McGraw wants to record one of my songs, I would be more than honored for him to do so. I'd actually love to meet him and talk to him. He and I were born on the same day, in the same year. And I'd like to find out where I went wrong but I digress. We are simply entering a world where it probably won't mean anything financially to write songs for anyone. So, that song that might've gotten written for Tim McGraw won't get written at least by me.
I made peace with being a ***** a long time ago. I'll sing for you I'll play for you I'll write for you. But it will cost you. That's prostitution sort of. We all know what kind of girls we are, we're just discussing the price.
You go from doing it for the love to doing it for the money. That's the nature of commerce. Love don't pay the bills. But once you take it from me without a negotiation well that's called rape. And nobody deserves that. Not even those girls dancing on the stoop of that sex club, on a summer night.

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Interesting read, thanks rb

rb,
After reading your posts, now my question is, who IS writing songs now (and going forward)? If the new way doesn't pay enough to survive on, how can ANY songs get written?

My only thought is the record companies have taken over that. They've given up on making money off the songwriting credits and are relying simply on touring, etc. So they now just have a stable of writers that they pay a certain salary too and the same little stable of writers will write the songs for every artist signed to that label. Or maybe I'm completely wrong and missing something.

My other question is, are other genres going this way? I can see Pop being like this...most of those songs sound the same and follow trends in the genre. But what about Rock? It seems more than any other genre I hear about rock bands that are trying their best to stay independent because they want to write their own stuff and not be slaves to a record label. Again, maybe I'm wrong though.

Thanks in advance, and thanks for your insight.

You pretty much nailed it.

Rock bands/fans won't feel it nearly as much, because they write most of their own material anyway (in general). Rap/urban probably won't take a huge hit, because they rip off....oops I mean sample...a lot of what they use anyway. Even pop will probably be ok to some degree, although you'll see far fewer groundbreaking acts and much more fluff.

Country music will cease to exist as we know it, if it hasn't already. I think the format might entirely go away at some point because it's becoming so urbanized and so many other genres' influences permeate the music now.
There will be no more "He Stopped Loving Her Today", "Live Like You Were Dying", "The Chair" type songs....the writers capable of that depth will be long gone.

I truly don't have words to adequately express what I feel when I see what I'm seeing on a day to day basis (being on the BOD of the Songwriter's Association almost makes it worse because I HAVE to look at it). It's almost like watching a family member waste away slowly from a terminal illness. You know the end is coming and that it's inevitable, you're just hoping for one more day.

This makes me sad.

The lack of meaningful songs on the radio (and on albums in general) make me mad too. I want to feel something, not just hum along.

It might not be on the radio, but aren't those song writers still out there? We'll get timeless songs, the problem is that we'll have to dig for them.

Wow, so artists will have to write their own music to succeed now? This is horrible.

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Wow, so artists will have to write their own music to succeed now? This is horrible.

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That's what is so amazing to me about this whole 'brocountry' thing; I almost want to give their terrible songwriting a pass because they're just dumb rednecks...then I realize they're not even writing the songs they're singing (for the most part). It's amazing that it takes a team of old (EDIT: YOUNG) Nashville dudes to craft some of this drivel.

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Wow, so artists will have to write their own music to succeed now? This is horrible.

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Historically, country artists have not written most of their material. I've pointed this out many times.

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It might not be on the radio, but aren't those song writers still out there? We'll get timeless songs, the problem is that we'll have to dig for them.

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Short answer? No, they won't be out there, and you won't get the timeless songs.

Bobby Braddock, Hugh Prestwood, Harlan Howard, Hank Cochran, Dean Dillon, etc. etc. etc. - there is no more opportunity for pure songwriters anymore....people who aren't so much interested in performing, but who write songs for others.

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Wow, so artists will have to write their own music to succeed now? This is horrible.

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That's what is so amazing to me about this whole 'brocountry' thing; I almost want to give their terrible songwriting a pass because they're just dumb rednecks...then I realize they're not even writing the songs they're singing (for the most part). It's amazing that it takes a team of old Nashville dudes to craft some of this drivel.

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Misguided and factually incorrect. Virtually all artists are now "writing" their own material....most of the crap is coming from the young crowd of writers, not "old Nashville dudes".

When I came to town, music publishing companies had real song pluggers...employees whose job it was to take the songs we wrote and get them recorded. The really good ones were brutally honest....they would tell you if a song was a piece of sh*t, right to your face. It made you work harder and write better.

The current song plugger is a glorified appointment setter for songwriters. There are no more opportunities to get "outside" songs recorded. Also, almost all the "writers" getting signed to publishing deals are young 'uns with artist potential. None of the current pluggers want to stick their neck out and tell one of these kids their songs suck, only to see them get a record deal a few months later and have to eat crow.

One other thing I'll point out. Since 2000, the number of professional songwriters in this country has declined 85%....not 8.5, 85. Ask yourself if you think the songwriting has gotten better in the last 16 years, and you'll answer any questions you have as to the value of professional, non-performing songwriters.

I stand corrected. The songs still suck.

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I stand corrected. The songs still suck.

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You're absolutely right, they suck hard.

I have heard a couple of explanations just as RBT has put it. I had a roommate in college that later went on to Nashville and played with a very significant artist during the mid to late 2000's. When he first went there, he intended on playing right away but landed as a songwriter with a major label to make ends meet. He quickly gave it up, because they wanted him to sit in a cubicle all day and crank out at least 20 songs a day. I'm not sure if that's an accurate number but I can guess that he at least meant that there was no real thought put into a song because of the high frequency of output for song writing. Anyway, being a native Texan and growing up listening to traditional country and bluegrass and having many friends in the Texas Music/Red Dirt music scene, he was disgusted by it and found his first playing gig.

Then a few years ago, I heard a national music station DJ on one of the Sunday morning countdowns mock the new Bro Country. He explained how Mashville writes these songs today. He said that researchers compile data on words that are trending the most in social media, etc. and use those words to write hooks. For example, words such as, big trucks, tailgates, tractors, beer, mud, cut off jeans, pickups, etc. Then he played a mash up of recent songs containing these words. It was unbelievable how many songs with these hook words where used over and over again throughout many artists. To top it off, all the licks where pretty much the same so as he blended the same word or group of words from the 40 different songs, it all sounded like one big song and it never really missed a beat so to say.

It's really sad I think that most people eat this crap up and don't really understand hat they are essentially listening to the same garbage song over and over as they are played by different artists only changing the "filler lines" that are set between the hooks.

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http://www.rollingstone.com/country/features/jason-aldean-on-defiant-new-album-i-dont-like-labeling-w438602

So, I may be pilling on and this may be a cheapshot, but doesn't seem like the more this guy tries to make himself out to be a rebel and an 'outsider' he looks even more dewshy and 'bro country'.

That whole thing makes just want to punch him in the mouth.

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This guy has 17 number one hits. Wow...17.

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He quickly gave it up, because they wanted him to sit in a cubicle all day and crank out at least 20 songs a day. I'm not sure if that's an accurate number but I can guess that he at least meant that there was no real thought put into a song because of the high frequency of output for song writing.

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Completely inaccurate number - as long as I've been in town, the typical quota of songs that have to be written is between 12-18 a year. Now that has to be a 100% song, so if you co-write everything with two other people, you have to triple that number. But 20 songs a day is an absurd exaggeration.

Pretty much everything else he said is spot on though.

http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/see-jon-pardis-grooving-performance-of-dirt-on-my-boots-w440735

So this shows up on my Rolling Stone twitter feed. At the risk of this thread getting overly repetitive and stale, I just had to post this and make the point as it relates to writing.

I did not look at writing credits but just by the sound of this, I doubt this tool wrote that. And it's just getting comical how the old cliches of dirty boots and mud on my truck can be repackaged over and over again.

It was somehow written by three people, all of whom are very successful songwriters: Rhett Akins, Jesse Frasure, and Ashley Gorley. It is a bad song, sung by a guy with a bad voice and zero charisma. I predict it will chart very well.

Ashley Gorley has to be the luckiest SOB in Nashville. I saw him at a gig when i visitied NYC and it was almost worse than hearing luke bryan and cole swindell themselves.

Yeah I know Ashley. He's actually a really nice guy, but I agree....incredibly lucky. That's usually the case, though. Even back in the day when great songs were being recorded, talent would only take you so far....luck and timing had to kick in or it just didn't happen. I haven't had nearly the success of some writers who I KNOW I'm better than....conversely, I've had a lot more success than some writers who are head and shoulders better than me. It's just funny the way the breaks go.

A fundamental problem here is that a lot of bros don't truly understand how best to bro-out, or even down. They are posers. They think that bandwagon jumping - say, toward Maren Mortis, or Sturgill Simpson, or someone else "authentic" - provides them with musical cred, and the ability to status signal.

This is very wrong. Just get a little mud on the tires, be sure that tailgate is down, ice the cooler some more, slap your girl lookin' fine in dem denim booty shorts, crack open the beer, and shout troubles away.

This really isn't that complicated, and all the posing about "authenticity" is a pathetic distraction from simply enjoying the music, and the craftsmanship of the songs.

There is an element of truth in Redstones sarcasm , but I wouldn't refer to the search for authenticity and originality as pathetic. I'm a punk rocker and there has always been criticism of posers in the punk rock following.

Shawdawg

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http://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/see-jon-pardis-grooving-performance-of-dirt-on-my-boots-w440735

So this shows up on my Rolling Stone twitter feed. At the risk of this thread getting overly repetitive and stale, I just had to post this and make the point as it relates to writing.

I did not look at writing credits but just by the sound of this, I doubt this tool wrote that. And it's just getting comical how the old cliches of dirty boots and mud on my truck can be repackaged over and over again.

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Is this a parody?

Country music is the world's biggest troll job. Next to Donald Trump that is.