this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Shitty patriot country music has always been a thing and there are still tons of Outlaw country artists right now. This is literally just like those "rap in the 90s vs rap today" memes that ignore the fact that trap has been a thing since the 90s and old school hip hop is having a Renaissance right now
old school hip hop is having a Renaissance right now
Wait, it is? Where?
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TBF, country music hasn't been country music for a quite a while now
it's bro country now
It really is, now that you mention it.
What do they drink now? Since their precious Bud Light gave way to WOKENESS.
Typically other beers that happen to be owned by AB-InBev. That or Coors.
Coors was among the first companies to extend benefits to same-sex partners and was named the Corporation of the Year by the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, despite being a right wing company in general.
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There's lots of good old fashioned country out there. You just gotta leave the mainstream behind. You'll find men in touch with their emotions. You'll find women who won't settle down. You'll find fine American classics. You'll find new classics waiting to be known. And Mckain Lakey!
The country music community may be problematic, but country music itself is wonderful. And many country musicians are fantastic, unexpected people. If you want country like it used to be, dive into Melissa Carper's catalogue. She's the master of the brand new old time song.
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Do yourself a favor and listen to the Americana genre. All the blues and western inspired folk, without the bootlicking!
Heard a lot of this growing up like Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, but also Canadians like Lightfoot and Stan Rogers. Lately I've enjoyed some of the IWWs compilations of workers' songs, Utah Philips etc. Phil Ochs is up there too.
My mother's from an assimilated Mennonite background and it was one of the non-Christian genres that was permissible to her parents, because of the pacifist and civil rights sentiments in a lot of that music at the time. Also it lacked the sex and drugs themes which rock had. "I Aint Marching Anymore" and "Where have all the flowers gone?" I remember hearing quite often.
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An absoluteky outstanding song by Cash btw. If you haven't checked it out, I suggest you do so. Even if you have zero interest in Country do yourself a favour.
I know this is obvious, but Cash's beliefs are endlessly fascinating. The same man who recorded "Ragged Old Flag" also wrote "Man in Black" and covered "Out Among the Stars." The latter is a song about a kid who commits suicide by cop because he doesn't feel like his life matters.
His cover of NiN's "hurt" is so good Trent Reznor sees it as the best version.
All of Johnny's covers are fantastic. His cover of Tom Petty's Won't Back Down with Tom singing backup vocals, for example.
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I can't put into words how much I despise modern stadium country. It's like the opposite of art. I grew up in the south around people who could only stomach country music like that. Everything else to them was too weird, or not white enough.
The closest analogy to country music are the movies fascists made, like the ones Hans Steinhoff and Goebbels directed. Completely banal plots and lack of artistic value. The only reason they were made as to communicate fascist rhetoric and fulfill a quota of cultural markers.
That's all modern country music is. It's the music of boring middle class white people who feel uneasy if their specific cultural touchstones aren't constantly reinforced. There have to be trucks, land ownership, high school football, generic American jingoism, glorification of alcoholism.
The most common thread in this shit music is that anything outside of a middle class conservative white lifestyle is to be mistrusted. The girl from a small town who goes off to college in a big city, but realizes her home was truly out in the sticks. The song about how country values make a person more virtuous or fun. "Don't go over that hill, don't go looking for anything further." It could possibly be a sweet sentiment if it weren't for the target audience: comfortable white shitheads who drive a $80,000 Ford truck in the suburbs.
At least with propaganda it's the ruling class messaging the citizenry. In this case, at least for the most part seems self-inflicted and without purpose. People just gravitate to whatever fits their identity.
That’s all modern country music is. It’s the music of boring middle class white people who feel uneasy if their specific cultural touchstones aren’t constantly reinforced. There have to be trucks, land ownership, high school football, generic American jingoism, glorification of alcoholism.
Well written.
Oh no, absolutely not is country music self inflicted. Modern country music is part of the same propaganda network as everything else in capitalism. The whole Nashville and Georgia country scenes have been connected at the hip with conservative money since at least the 1970s where Nixon had a country campaign song. Then there was Reagan showing up at the Grand Ole Opry. It's a useful vehicle to spread and satiate the thirst for white supremacy.
There's also Clear Channel Radio (currently iHeartRadio) which is run by ideological conservatives.
Also there's some kind of money floating around to suddenly promote the odd country song or two, like that Rich Men in Richmond song, or that stupid Jason Aldean guy. Every now and then you'll see a random headline like "country star fights back against woke-ness in new song." And that's the propaganda.
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I believe that mainstream country turned to shit in the 80s, not sure why. My theory is that it's down to the money men in Nashville turning out an increasingly phony product for commercial reasons, but I don't actually know enough about that aspect of the business to have an informed opinion.
Fortunately there's always been legit musicians turning out excellent alt-country or Americana, or whatever we want to call it. Also a lot of the older country musicians never completely sold out either.
Late 80s early 90s. When they started making 80s pop music with slide guitar and a twangy vocal and calling it country.
The final nail in the coffin was when country music radio refused to play Johnny Cash's Unchained album.
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Twenty hours in and it's up to me to remind people that Dolly Parton is the full package?
- She's got tunes, OK 'I Will Always Love You' is a bit cloying but the rumour is that she also wrote Jolene the same day
- She supports other women. When porn star Julia Parton was around and telling people that she was Dolly's cousin, Dolly's public response was something like, 'She ain't my cousin but I can't condemn what she does... it's not like I ever tried to hide my breasts. Good luck to her.'
- She produced Buffy The Vampire Slayer through her production company Sanddollar. She kept a low profile publicly but behind the scenes was very supportive of the show because it provided good role models for young women.
- She funds the Dolly Parton Imagination library which mails free books to kids under five.
9 to 5 is also a socialist anthem!
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No shirt No shoes No jews..... You didn't hear that
It shocked me the first time I met a real anti-Semite, in real life, in Tennessee. I've worked in a lot of places all over the world and I've seen plenty of racism. No one else topped that guy in Tennessee. Other places racism was mostly contained to 'they stay over there and we stay over here.' Tons of problems but living together but apart was possible. That doesn't speak to every experience obviously. That old guy in Tennessee wanted another Holocaust, plain and simple. Anywhere else he'd get the shit kicked out of him, there it was tolerated.
Had someone try to sell me on the merits of the Ku Klux Klan while working at a factory in Tennessee, I was a staunch Libertarian at the time so i guess he thought i might bite, he told me how they helped the community out and kept people safe.... the guy was dead fucking serious, and when I asked him about them being racist he just changed the subject... Still feels like a fever dream...
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That's a scarecrow!
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I unfortunately see a lot of white guy with a heavy (and fake) country accent does a "redneck" version of a popular rap or hip hop track and seeing other white people say "Now that's how it should be done!"
Modern "country" is a plague and I hate it. Its the only genre I can't listen to.
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Is almost the same thing with Brazilian sertanejo. Was once about the bucolic reality in the rural side of the country, now is about bragging about being rich, going to pointless parties and drinking a lot of alcoholic drinks, f-cking everyone...
And listened to by the same people who complain about rap music doing the same thing (in their eyes, anyway).
Plenty of good modern country music out there, you just have to look for it. Tyler Childers and Colter Wall are some famous ones that spring to mind, but there's many others.
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I wanted to do a "to be fair here, Cash had songs with stupid lyrics, too", but all I can think of is "Ring of fire" and that one is just a harmless metaphor about love.
I'd argue that Ring of Fire is a metaphor about forbidden love that you know is damning you but the feelings are too powerful to resist.
Rather than a harmless metaphor, I find it an incredibly powerful metaphor about the pain and suffering caused by helplessly loving the "wrong" person.
Plus, there's an opportunity to make STD jokes.
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I loved ‘a boy named Sue’ but it was ‘the Man comes around’ that sold me. Heard it first during the OP of “Day of the Dead” remake, and there is no other song that comes close to fitting with this opening
I think Orville Peck might be my gateway drug into country. I don't imagine there's too many gay cowboys out there, but surely there's other stuff I'll like.
You clearly weren't there when the mountain broke its back
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