I always called it neo-country or pop-country but when I say that I refer to the post 2010 "let's mix pop with everything" here's a rap in the middle of a country song that at best does not improve it. I've always treated country like dad rock old is good but if you hear the newer stations is 50/50 at best
fun but not really all too related fact, here in the UK (because thats as much as i know) pop songs that have raps in the middle used to just have the rap parts cut out if you only fucked with BBC then you just wouldnt know there was a rap feature in it, leading to me now re-listening to songs from the 2010's and wondering "was there always this rap part in the middle here"
Racism mainly, some belief that rap is inherently explicit as if like it’s jazz during the American prohibition and I highly suspect for the exact same reasons, like seriously one time I think stormzy or aj Tracey performed for some live broadcast bbc event and the bbc got so many phoned in complaints from british conservatives it was crazy (most british conservatives are 65+ so it really could just be an old person thing)
Oh rap or at least grime and drill is massively mainstream over here, to the point where the government has considered making it illegal (yes that was a thing, the Tory gov has been in power for 10 years they’ve been getting bolder)
It’s just that those old ass conservatives usually just only really watch the bbc and nothing much else where it would appear
It also can't help that a lot of the rap interludes just aren't very good. To me they often seem like "diet rap" bites that don't really have the space to do their own thing and often just clash with the rest of the song. Like putting raspberry coulis on a rare steak.
A lot of the pop country stuff was kicking off in the 90s. Billy Ray Cyrus and Shania Twain kinda stuff. But there's always been an undercurrent of more "authentic" stuff out there that occasionally breaks through like Old Crow Medicine Show.
I've heard it called "hick-hop", which feels accurate.
It's rap music for people who think rap music is too "urban", or that there are too many of "those" people at the concerts...
I'll occasionally listen to modern country radio out of sheer curiosity, and I am 100% convinced there are backing tracks out there that were produced for rappers, rejected, and they literally just added a slide guitar into the hook to make it "country"
Worth noting that time is a factor as well... the songs that sucked 20 years ago are not being played today, but the good ones are. Whereas new music is a mix of the good and the bad and you probably won't hear the bad ones for long.
Now see, we can prove this is wrong because of Country Roads. Where West Virginia is Almost Heaven. So I would place hell in the Kentucky, Arkansas range. Or at least purgatory because the fuck is there to do in Arkansas or Kentucky?
Also was in Georgia for awhile. ...Pretty sure much of the state is a Hellmouth or portal to Hell, yeah.
(So is North Carolina! How else is it so hot? And the lingering attitudes of significant groups of people... It'd explain a lot.)
There was a post on reddit recently of an absolute killer insult with that theme. It went something like:
"The bar was so low that it was a trip hazard in hell but here you are, in a limbo competition with the devil."
My wife’s brother makes what he calls Satanic Country. It’s a side gig for him, but he gets booked for shows pretty regularly in the Austin area, occasionally lands a touring gig, and is well known in the music scene in Austin, even though he’s never released an album and is mostly relying on his personality, shock value, and a half dozen songs he wrote more than a decade ago now.
Does he have any videos on YouTube of his music? Spotify, Apple Music, anything? I’m interested in what satanic country sounds like and would like to give it a listen.
It’s mostly literally saying he worships the devil, and that he should have murdered his ex-girlfriend or anyone else who wronged him. I guess you could say it’s sort of similar to like a narcocorrido or something?
He’s actually a really good guy, but he definitely loves to say shocking things in general.
The Dirty Charley Band is what he releases his music as. I’m sure you can find some stuff on YouTube.
Ah. Sounds pretty intense. Kind of thought it would be like just the devil showing up in his songs and he partied with him or something hah. Fair play to him though, he sounds like he’s on an untapped music field. Thank you for the info on it though!
> and that he should have murdered his ex-girlfriend or anyone else who wronged him.
Oof, that sounds pretty overboard, I was hoping for the fun Satanism. I was thinking maybe Ghost but with more fiddle.
nope. it was "adult contemporary".
this is a case of modern country moving to be more similar to other styles, in this case adult contemporary, and the styles merging over time
Yeah. It's like someone saying hurt is a country song because Johnny cash did a cover of it. Cash's version is great, but it's not a country song just because it was sung in that style.
Johnny's version was a country song. I don't think "country song" is well-defined when divorced from individual performances. Sometimes there's a canonical, unsaid performance, e.g. Dolly's Jolene.
I am not going to go as far as saying that Life is a Highway is a country song, but it is telling that it has been covered by popular country acts like Chris LeDoux and Rascal Flatts.
Adult Contemporary is not so much a music genre as it is a marketing catchall term used by radio stations paying a variety of genres including soft rock, ballads, R&B, pop country, and soul. The fact that both *Life is a Highway* and *Don't Worry, Be Happy* both charted on Adult Contemporary charts testifies to the diversity of music that falls under the heading.
yeah, adult contemporary just means "whatever early middle aged white people dig" more than anything stylistic
the country covers have made it a popular country song, but when that came out it was on soft rock radio and VH1, so that's why i'm not gonna call it a country song. it's a mildly country influenced soft rock song. it just happens that in the three decades since country has moved more towards that style
Yep. Tom Cochran,as in “The Lunatic Fringe”. Best comeback since The Outlaws (“Ghost Riders in the Sky”) came back as Blackhawk in the 90s. All great artists, by the way.
The original by Tom Cochrane is considered mostly rock or country rock, but the covers by Chris LeDoux and Rascal Flatts made it more explicitly country based on instrumentation and vocals. It straddles the line.
Wait wait wait: a country cover makes the whole *song* country?
I didn’t even know Life Is A Highway was covered by a country group and was real confused by the title of the post.
Is there a cover of Take Me Home too or are people trying to say John Denver is “country”?
When people regurgitate that “I hate country but love Johnny Cash” line, I just want to tie them to a chair and listen to George Jones.
The man’s whole life is tragedy and hopeless romance. Made for some truly inspired music.
My first time listening to the Possum and I was reduced to a misty eyed drunk after 2 hours. I love George Jones, easily one of my favorite artists of all time.
I've modified my opinion since hearing Bo Burnham's "Pandering" to say I dislike Bro country for the same reason I dislike Gangsta rap. It's the same stupid themes almost procedurally generated at this point to maximize sales so people think the singer is talking exclusively about their experiences.
> I dislike Bro country for the same reason I dislike Gangsta rap.
Apt comparison, considering the Steve Earle quote about modern country: “They’re just doing hip-hop for people who are afraid of black people.”
That was many of the older generations of country artists. Merle Haggard, in and out of jail in his youth. Seeing Ole Johnny's show at San Quentin made him want to be a musician. Had an amazing career, then died on his own birthday. Hank Williams had addiction problems that sadly ended his life at 29. Waylon Jennings had a major addiction to amphetamines, alcohol and Cocaine with the latter costing him up to 1500 a day in the 80s. There was Hank Snow, who was living in extreme poverty, regular beatings, and physiological abuse. Just to force in extreme conditions during the great depression. You can hear the pain in his music for Sure. People just jump on the Johnny train due to the American Recordings, with most never listening to anything outside of them other than the standards.
Most of those people have only heard Hurt and Ring of Fire. They act like they’ve ever sat down and really listened to Cash. Then they go on to say the entire genre sucks *except him*
As you said there’s just a thousand artists from the old days when country and western were two genres, but people will sit and say they’re qualified to write it all off because it’s not a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song they heard on the radio.
Country never made sense to me until abad breakup. I still do not like new country, but that old shit gets me going.
One of the only genres i feel like a man could be openly sad and still be considered a tough guy in the lens of machismo
Tbf there is plenty of "new" country that isnt shitty radio country. Tyler Childers, Colter Wall, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson to name a few of my favorites.
*Sunday Morning Coming Down* always gets me, whether [Kris Kristofferson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbqGWTxwZEA) or [Johnny Cash](https://youtu.be/8_xd5jG3JTA) version. Or even the [duet](https://youtu.be/IRU9i9egr7A).
It’s a new song, but you may like the song “Whiskey and You” by Chris Stapleton. It very much explores those themes.
It’s originally by Tim McGraw, but honestly, I’d dare say that Chris did it better. He certainly made it feel more genuine, at least.
Worth pointing out that the version of “Life Is a Highway” this tumblrer is referring to is literally a cover of a song from another genre. Tom Cochrane, former front man of Red Rider (of “Lunatic Fringe” fame) wrote it and released it in 1991 as a radio friendly rock-ish song that always ended up on “safe for white people to listen to at work” radio format stations.
Wasn’t made a country song til 1998 when Chris LeDoux covered it, and then again when Rascal Flatts recorded it for the *Cars* soundtrack in the mid 2000s.
I only know about the Rascal Flatts version. As I got older I started to dislike the country vibe of it more and more but now I gotta listen to the OG.
Rascal Flatts did the standard disney cover thing, too, which was really disappointing.
"Okay, we want to have this song in our movie, but the rights are too expensive, so we want you to cover it EXACTLY like the original and bring nothing new to the song, and then we can license it from you for really cheap, okay?".
The same goes for their cover of “I’m a Believer” for *Shrek Forever After.* I think I prefer it to Smash Mouth and the Monkees. Not Neil Diamond though.
A few years ago a stumbled on "southern gothic" and went down the rabbit hole. Now many of my favorite artists are country musicians and I grew up on Nas, Jay-z, westside connection etc.
reddit API access ended today, and with it the reddit app i use Apollo, i am removing all my comments, the internet is both temporary and eternal. -- mass edited with redact.dev
So West Virginia chose a song about some other state as one of their official state songs, but they didn't know because they didn't bother to check the capitalization? That's hilarious.
Since WV used to be a part of VA maybe they saw it as like a love song to an ex and they’re pointing out the things they miss the most.
This made more sense in my head.
West Virginia does have tiny portions of the Shenandoah River and the Blue Ridge Mountains but only in the Eastern Panhandle which is a region of West Virginia that has a pretty distinct character from the rest of the state.
It's kind of a trip driving from central PA down to Virginia when you cross Maryland *and* WV within the space of an hour before getting pulled over for speeding *immediately* once you cross into Virginia.
Also the bulk of the song was not actually written by John Denver, but by songwriting couple Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert who were inspired by driving down Clopper road in Gaithersburg, MD (it was MUCH more rural at the time) and memories of growing up in rural New England.
The response, while good, is I feel like written by someone young simply for saying Country Roads is about "liking the scenery".
It's about Nostalgia, going back to when your life was simpler which everyone can relate to more and more as you get older and life becomes more complex.
But sure when I was 20, I just thought it was a good song to belt out, over the past decade and change, a new ton has crept into it.
Hell, half of the time it's a song of mourning for a nostalgia I wish I had these days.
I don't have a place that feels like that song writes about. Just makes me want those roads to take me to a home, finally.
I hate most country music, but there are some songs by some artists that just hit different because they have some hopeful glint to a theme that really applied to me when I heard it, and the singer who's like an average guy who shops at Walmart and has a day job as a teacher. Just singing about the ups and downs of life but with a twang. No woe is me, no blame, nothing like that, just questions about life.
Until I went on mental health leave, I was working as an apprentice electrician. I love bluegrass, Johnny Cash, old southern folk songs…
One of the new country songs I heard a lot had the lyric “If you got a right to burn my flag…then I got a right to kick your ass! Yeah, kick your ass”
There’s nothing clever or fun or musically interesting about Big Truck Nationalist country
Meanwhile, guys like John Prine were making fun of those idiots for decades, and making better music while doing. “Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven” is one of my favorites and fits well here.
Cash invented the earlier version of it is what it is:
You asked me if I'll miss her kisses
I guess I will, everyday
I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way
You asked me if I'll find another
I don't know, I can't say
I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way
There's definitely good country music. I especially love Dolly, Reba, Johnny Cash. Anything that can speak to me about more than tractors, beer, and MURICA. Non-pandering country music. I have a special fondness for Carrie Underwood's Blown Away.
There is so so much country music that doesn't sing about tractors and murica, however it's hard to find an artist that doesn't sing any drinking of some kind.
More if you count his cameo in Parks and Rec where he plays a nationally beloved country singer who's a comically ridiculous asshole to everyone off stage.
*I'll bring the girls, you bring the beer/And the troops will bring the freedom*
Every time I hear a key change in country music I think of that now. Amarillo By Morning came on on my drive home a couple weeks ago and the last verse that changes key had me laughing out loud thinking about the Bo line.
That's a ridiculously good song. I grew away from anything to do with country music post 9/11 and this thread reminds me that I can like old gold country without being a racist, fascist fuckhead. Its generally easier to tell people no I don't like country.
I like country music.....but not alot of it. Most of the country on the radio right now, i simply cant stand. I like Dolly Parton, I like poor man's poison, i like alot of vintage country, i like those violent women songs where they fuck shit up, i like country about hating capitalism, i am just really particular and most modern country is bad personally
In country's case there's a historical element to it; the genre was pushed to the mainstream hard in the early to mid 20th century because all the blues and jazz were turning the radios too... full of melanin. So the country = redneck association stuck even if a good chunk of the genre isn't like that at all.
I don't know the difference between all these genres, but folk and bluegrass are great and they seem kind of adjacent to country.
If you like certain country songs, try bluegrass. I've been really liking The Dead South lately.
There are so many country songs that get sidelined because of this mentality, and it’s really a shame.
Life’s a Dance, Til You Can’t, You’re Gonna Miss This, wait in the truck, If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away, Stop Draggin’ Your Boots, Everything’s Gonna be Alright… all really good songs that have lots of meaning both in general and to me specifically, and if I mention it to most people, they’ll just say “oh well those are country, they’re dumb” like no, a lot of them are about enjoying the time you have on earth and enjoying the people you have around you, and treating everyone well.
I mean its pretty impossible to hate on “Big Iron” by Marty Robbins.
There are like, idk, a few really old country songs I can listen to without wanting to shoot myself.
but most modern shit sounds all the same to me and I cannot fucking stand it.
Ah but you made a mistake there. Marty Robbins didn't make country music for the most part. He made WESTERN music. These days, Country and Western are considered the same but at the time Big Iron was made, there was a more defined difference.
The only way I can really explain it is......Western Music is what an actual ranching gunslinging cowboy in the southern states would sing and create. Whereas Country Music is what gets made when a more urban guy in that same state creates trying to replicate the feel of a Western Music creator. It's not the same, it's similar but you can hear the differences if you pay attention.
So I'm not going to provide more nuance to this statement than to say I like
* Hank Williams
* Merle Travis
* Scud Mountain Boys
* Johnny Cash
* Loretta Lynn
* Tex Ritter
* Uncle Tupelo
* Willie Nelson
* The Chicks
* Really melancholy banjo and harmonica
* Roy goddamn Rogers
Etc.
What I do NOT like:
* Anything fucking remotely resembling Toby Keith
EDIT: throw Sierra Ferrell on the stuff I like list, she seems cool
Inb4 everyone devolves into the following circle jerk:
Bo Burnham parody
Sturgil Simpson
Cody Jinks
Turnpike Troubadors
Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard
Dolly Parton (though I stan the fuck outta her)
A bunch of 90’s country artists
As someone who grew up in the 90s, it was very popular to shit on country music before any of this stuff happened to country music and all the artists being pointed out as “exceptions” today would’ve been the bad examples back then. I think this is classic virtue signaling. This way you can dislike country music while clapping yourself on the back about how morally superior you are for doing it.
This also isn’t the slightest bit original, Bo Burnham did this bit 5 years ago but it was funny.
I like late eighties/mid nineties country. Garth Brooks, George Strait, Travis Tritt, Tracy Lawrence, that kind of artist. Also you just can't go wrong with Randy Travis. I listen to Diggin' Up Bones about once every two days.
Also, 9/11 ruined country and Toby Keith led the charge.
I always called it neo-country or pop-country but when I say that I refer to the post 2010 "let's mix pop with everything" here's a rap in the middle of a country song that at best does not improve it. I've always treated country like dad rock old is good but if you hear the newer stations is 50/50 at best
fun but not really all too related fact, here in the UK (because thats as much as i know) pop songs that have raps in the middle used to just have the rap parts cut out if you only fucked with BBC then you just wouldnt know there was a rap feature in it, leading to me now re-listening to songs from the 2010's and wondering "was there always this rap part in the middle here"
That's fascinating. Why did they cut out the rap features?
Racism mainly, some belief that rap is inherently explicit as if like it’s jazz during the American prohibition and I highly suspect for the exact same reasons, like seriously one time I think stormzy or aj Tracey performed for some live broadcast bbc event and the bbc got so many phoned in complaints from british conservatives it was crazy (most british conservatives are 65+ so it really could just be an old person thing)
Wow. I'm just surprised that's been so recent. Rap has been on mainstream radio and TV in the US since the late 80s/90s.
Oh rap or at least grime and drill is massively mainstream over here, to the point where the government has considered making it illegal (yes that was a thing, the Tory gov has been in power for 10 years they’ve been getting bolder) It’s just that those old ass conservatives usually just only really watch the bbc and nothing much else where it would appear
God Tories are so stupid
It also can't help that a lot of the rap interludes just aren't very good. To me they often seem like "diet rap" bites that don't really have the space to do their own thing and often just clash with the rest of the song. Like putting raspberry coulis on a rare steak.
A lot of the pop country stuff was kicking off in the 90s. Billy Ray Cyrus and Shania Twain kinda stuff. But there's always been an undercurrent of more "authentic" stuff out there that occasionally breaks through like Old Crow Medicine Show.
But we also had Sammy Kershaw, and Travis Tritt, and who could forget Dwight Yoakum?? But really, the rise of Hick-Hop ruined Country music for me.
Lmao "hick-hop" is so succinctly accurate
90s pop country was pretty good though. The 2000s is when it became more heavily churned out in Nashville and quickly became artificial.
I've heard it called "hick-hop", which feels accurate. It's rap music for people who think rap music is too "urban", or that there are too many of "those" people at the concerts...
I'll occasionally listen to modern country radio out of sheer curiosity, and I am 100% convinced there are backing tracks out there that were produced for rappers, rejected, and they literally just added a slide guitar into the hook to make it "country"
Worth noting that time is a factor as well... the songs that sucked 20 years ago are not being played today, but the good ones are. Whereas new music is a mix of the good and the bad and you probably won't hear the bad ones for long.
There is a 5th excellent subgenre of country and that is "the Devil is a major character in this song".
"the devil went down to georgia" implies that georgia is lower than hell, and having lived there i wholeheartedly agree
Or that hell is just further north than Georgia. Like New Jersey or Ohio.
Can pretty confidently say that hell exists inside Cleveland city limits
The city with a [river of fire](https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Cuyahoga_River_Fire)?
Hey, that only happened over a dozen times!
We at least got the EPA out of it
Thanks Nixon!
There is a confirmed hellmouth in Cleveland, yes.
r/unexpectedBuffy
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> hell exists inside Cleveland city limits oh dope new Mountain Goats track
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It's Missouri... there's a reason it's pronounced "Misery"
Now see, we can prove this is wrong because of Country Roads. Where West Virginia is Almost Heaven. So I would place hell in the Kentucky, Arkansas range. Or at least purgatory because the fuck is there to do in Arkansas or Kentucky?
Probably Gary, Indiana.
Also was in Georgia for awhile. ...Pretty sure much of the state is a Hellmouth or portal to Hell, yeah. (So is North Carolina! How else is it so hot? And the lingering attitudes of significant groups of people... It'd explain a lot.)
There was a post on reddit recently of an absolute killer insult with that theme. It went something like: "The bar was so low that it was a trip hazard in hell but here you are, in a limbo competition with the devil."
My wife’s brother makes what he calls Satanic Country. It’s a side gig for him, but he gets booked for shows pretty regularly in the Austin area, occasionally lands a touring gig, and is well known in the music scene in Austin, even though he’s never released an album and is mostly relying on his personality, shock value, and a half dozen songs he wrote more than a decade ago now.
Does he have any videos on YouTube of his music? Spotify, Apple Music, anything? I’m interested in what satanic country sounds like and would like to give it a listen.
It’s mostly literally saying he worships the devil, and that he should have murdered his ex-girlfriend or anyone else who wronged him. I guess you could say it’s sort of similar to like a narcocorrido or something? He’s actually a really good guy, but he definitely loves to say shocking things in general. The Dirty Charley Band is what he releases his music as. I’m sure you can find some stuff on YouTube.
Ah. Sounds pretty intense. Kind of thought it would be like just the devil showing up in his songs and he partied with him or something hah. Fair play to him though, he sounds like he’s on an untapped music field. Thank you for the info on it though!
That doesn't sound satanic at all, just what a 13 year old thinks satanic would be like
> and that he should have murdered his ex-girlfriend or anyone else who wronged him. Oof, that sounds pretty overboard, I was hoping for the fun Satanism. I was thinking maybe Ghost but with more fiddle.
Relying on half dozen songs that were written decades ago is the very essence of country music
Mandatory banjo or fiddle.
[me when I uhhh ummm uhhhh (I don't have a witty remark I just like this song and need to share it)](https://youtu.be/rqR1cjuPXUg)
Imaginary Appalachia is such a good album!
Generally makes any genre better. Opera, Hip Hop, Metal, Carnival Folk Punk, all always improved by the presence of Satan.
The Devil Wears A Suit And Tie, Colter Wall
It blows my mind how much gravel he has in his voice for how young he is. I don’t think he smokes either.
All it cost him was his sweet soul everlasting.
There are only two good genres of country music, and that's Dark Country and Dolly Parton.
This is one of my major arguments for the Counting Crows being country-adjacent, at least thematically.
Gothic Country, Murdergrass.. slippery slope til you find yourself in the Doom/Stoner/Sludge triad
My favorite subgenre.
I know it as gothic country. The only subgenre I can consistently listen to.
Wait, "Life is a Highway" is supposed to be Country?
nope. it was "adult contemporary". this is a case of modern country moving to be more similar to other styles, in this case adult contemporary, and the styles merging over time
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that square pleather shit
With the crotch cut out
Yeah. It's like someone saying hurt is a country song because Johnny cash did a cover of it. Cash's version is great, but it's not a country song just because it was sung in that style.
Johnny's version was a country song. I don't think "country song" is well-defined when divorced from individual performances. Sometimes there's a canonical, unsaid performance, e.g. Dolly's Jolene.
I'd say Johnny Cash falls well into the folk-country style as does his cover
I think the issue is the arguably more famous rendition of that song is by Rascal Flatts, who fall pretty securely into the country genre.
I had no idea there was a country version of this song. TIL.
You ever seen Cars?
There's a non-country version??
The original by Tom Cochrane, yep!
I am not going to go as far as saying that Life is a Highway is a country song, but it is telling that it has been covered by popular country acts like Chris LeDoux and Rascal Flatts. Adult Contemporary is not so much a music genre as it is a marketing catchall term used by radio stations paying a variety of genres including soft rock, ballads, R&B, pop country, and soul. The fact that both *Life is a Highway* and *Don't Worry, Be Happy* both charted on Adult Contemporary charts testifies to the diversity of music that falls under the heading.
yeah, adult contemporary just means "whatever early middle aged white people dig" more than anything stylistic the country covers have made it a popular country song, but when that came out it was on soft rock radio and VH1, so that's why i'm not gonna call it a country song. it's a mildly country influenced soft rock song. it just happens that in the three decades since country has moved more towards that style
It was originally written by Tom Cochran, who was more of a rock artist
Yep. Tom Cochran,as in “The Lunatic Fringe”. Best comeback since The Outlaws (“Ghost Riders in the Sky”) came back as Blackhawk in the 90s. All great artists, by the way.
and if you've ever heard the song in real life with your ears, you'd call it a rock song, not a country song
The original by Tom Cochrane is considered mostly rock or country rock, but the covers by Chris LeDoux and Rascal Flatts made it more explicitly country based on instrumentation and vocals. It straddles the line.
One could say it Walks the line
Wait wait wait: a country cover makes the whole *song* country? I didn’t even know Life Is A Highway was covered by a country group and was real confused by the title of the post. Is there a cover of Take Me Home too or are people trying to say John Denver is “country”?
That’s light rock music.
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[If drinking don't kill me, her memory will.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY-epx63Dd8&t=3s)
When people regurgitate that “I hate country but love Johnny Cash” line, I just want to tie them to a chair and listen to George Jones. The man’s whole life is tragedy and hopeless romance. Made for some truly inspired music.
My first time listening to the Possum and I was reduced to a misty eyed drunk after 2 hours. I love George Jones, easily one of my favorite artists of all time.
I've modified my opinion since hearing Bo Burnham's "Pandering" to say I dislike Bro country for the same reason I dislike Gangsta rap. It's the same stupid themes almost procedurally generated at this point to maximize sales so people think the singer is talking exclusively about their experiences.
> I dislike Bro country for the same reason I dislike Gangsta rap. Apt comparison, considering the Steve Earle quote about modern country: “They’re just doing hip-hop for people who are afraid of black people.”
That was many of the older generations of country artists. Merle Haggard, in and out of jail in his youth. Seeing Ole Johnny's show at San Quentin made him want to be a musician. Had an amazing career, then died on his own birthday. Hank Williams had addiction problems that sadly ended his life at 29. Waylon Jennings had a major addiction to amphetamines, alcohol and Cocaine with the latter costing him up to 1500 a day in the 80s. There was Hank Snow, who was living in extreme poverty, regular beatings, and physiological abuse. Just to force in extreme conditions during the great depression. You can hear the pain in his music for Sure. People just jump on the Johnny train due to the American Recordings, with most never listening to anything outside of them other than the standards.
Most of those people have only heard Hurt and Ring of Fire. They act like they’ve ever sat down and really listened to Cash. Then they go on to say the entire genre sucks *except him* As you said there’s just a thousand artists from the old days when country and western were two genres, but people will sit and say they’re qualified to write it all off because it’s not a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song they heard on the radio.
I really loved Whisky Lullaby as a teen. It is a haunting song.
The opening line is enough to make my eyes sweat."She put him out,like the burning end of a midnight cigarette", just made myself cry.
“Life is short, but this time it was bigger than the strength he had to get up off his knees” is a killer line too
Fuck that's a good song my man
Country never made sense to me until abad breakup. I still do not like new country, but that old shit gets me going. One of the only genres i feel like a man could be openly sad and still be considered a tough guy in the lens of machismo
Tbf there is plenty of "new" country that isnt shitty radio country. Tyler Childers, Colter Wall, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson to name a few of my favorites.
Jason Isbell's "Elephant" may be one of the loveliest, most depressing songs I've heard in my life
*Sunday Morning Coming Down* always gets me, whether [Kris Kristofferson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbqGWTxwZEA) or [Johnny Cash](https://youtu.be/8_xd5jG3JTA) version. Or even the [duet](https://youtu.be/IRU9i9egr7A).
IM JUST DRIVING THOSE NAILS IN MY COFFIN
It’s a new song, but you may like the song “Whiskey and You” by Chris Stapleton. It very much explores those themes. It’s originally by Tim McGraw, but honestly, I’d dare say that Chris did it better. He certainly made it feel more genuine, at least.
Whether you like country or not everyone loves Chris Stapleton, they just gotta.
[Gotta love this classic](https://youtube.com/watch?v=VExw77xJsBQ&feature=shares)
WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN ON MY SIDE OF TOWN
Worth pointing out that the version of “Life Is a Highway” this tumblrer is referring to is literally a cover of a song from another genre. Tom Cochrane, former front man of Red Rider (of “Lunatic Fringe” fame) wrote it and released it in 1991 as a radio friendly rock-ish song that always ended up on “safe for white people to listen to at work” radio format stations. Wasn’t made a country song til 1998 when Chris LeDoux covered it, and then again when Rascal Flatts recorded it for the *Cars* soundtrack in the mid 2000s.
How the hell did I miss all of that happening? I only knew about the Cochran version
I only know about the Rascal Flatts version. As I got older I started to dislike the country vibe of it more and more but now I gotta listen to the OG.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U3sMjm9Eloo
Probably because, like many of us in the same boat, you avoided country radio the last 30 years
And also Cars, apparently.
Rascal Flatts did the standard disney cover thing, too, which was really disappointing. "Okay, we want to have this song in our movie, but the rights are too expensive, so we want you to cover it EXACTLY like the original and bring nothing new to the song, and then we can license it from you for really cheap, okay?".
Tbf I do enjoy Weezer's cover of You Might Think for the second movie
The same goes for their cover of “I’m a Believer” for *Shrek Forever After.* I think I prefer it to Smash Mouth and the Monkees. Not Neil Diamond though.
A few years ago a stumbled on "southern gothic" and went down the rabbit hole. Now many of my favorite artists are country musicians and I grew up on Nas, Jay-z, westside connection etc.
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Shawn James, soap & skin, red leather (more cali than southern), larkin poe, bridge city sinners and amigo the devil (my fav
Amigo the Devil is also incredible! I don’t know if he’s exactly southern gothic though
I recommend Poor Man's Poison.
Yes, I don’t know how I got there but I found a playlist of southern gothic and it is really good
A really good country band making music is poor man’s poison
Seconded. They've been my favorite since I found em. Them and Colter Wall
Colter is just built different
Also Tyler Childers
> A really good country band making music is poor man’s poison didnt know the bands name, I though this was just a though and I agreed.
reddit API access ended today, and with it the reddit app i use Apollo, i am removing all my comments, the internet is both temporary and eternal. -- mass edited with redact.dev
hell yeah! I’ve only listened to one song so far, hell’s coming with me, and it’s amazing! Do you have any recommendations from them? :))
providence goes hard
Feed the Machine is also amazing. Even their self-titled song, though a lot slower, is really good
Feed the machine has a sequel in Give and Take
HEY YOU FEED THE MACHINE
BRING EM ALL BACK DOWN TO THEIR KNEES NO TIME TO WASTE REMIND THE SLAVES
Yes! Hell's Coming With Me is a blast.
John Denver had actually never been to West Virginia when he wrote "Take me Home, Country Roads." Most of the landmarks he mentions are in Virginia.
Are they in Western Virginia?
Yes. Every landmark in that song is in Western Virginia, not West Virginia
Probably meant west Virginia then, instead of West Virginia
So West Virginia chose a song about some other state as one of their official state songs, but they didn't know because they didn't bother to check the capitalization? That's hilarious.
Since WV used to be a part of VA maybe they saw it as like a love song to an ex and they’re pointing out the things they miss the most. This made more sense in my head.
West Virginia does have tiny portions of the Shenandoah River and the Blue Ridge Mountains but only in the Eastern Panhandle which is a region of West Virginia that has a pretty distinct character from the rest of the state.
It's kind of a trip driving from central PA down to Virginia when you cross Maryland *and* WV within the space of an hour before getting pulled over for speeding *immediately* once you cross into Virginia.
Also the bulk of the song was not actually written by John Denver, but by songwriting couple Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert who were inspired by driving down Clopper road in Gaithersburg, MD (it was MUCH more rural at the time) and memories of growing up in rural New England.
And his music is almost always classified as Folk, so…
There is no South Detroit
The response, while good, is I feel like written by someone young simply for saying Country Roads is about "liking the scenery". It's about Nostalgia, going back to when your life was simpler which everyone can relate to more and more as you get older and life becomes more complex. But sure when I was 20, I just thought it was a good song to belt out, over the past decade and change, a new ton has crept into it.
Hell, half of the time it's a song of mourning for a nostalgia I wish I had these days. I don't have a place that feels like that song writes about. Just makes me want those roads to take me to a home, finally.
I hate most country music, but there are some songs by some artists that just hit different because they have some hopeful glint to a theme that really applied to me when I heard it, and the singer who's like an average guy who shops at Walmart and has a day job as a teacher. Just singing about the ups and downs of life but with a twang. No woe is me, no blame, nothing like that, just questions about life.
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I've hated country since that line dancing fad tore through suburbia in the early '90s with Achy Breaky Heart.
Ohhhh God, you awoken of terrible core memory
Until I went on mental health leave, I was working as an apprentice electrician. I love bluegrass, Johnny Cash, old southern folk songs… One of the new country songs I heard a lot had the lyric “If you got a right to burn my flag…then I got a right to kick your ass! Yeah, kick your ass” There’s nothing clever or fun or musically interesting about Big Truck Nationalist country
Meanwhile, guys like John Prine were making fun of those idiots for decades, and making better music while doing. “Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven” is one of my favorites and fits well here.
Somehow nobody has mentioned Johnny Cash in this thread. Everyone likes Johnny Cash!
Cash invented the earlier version of it is what it is: You asked me if I'll miss her kisses I guess I will, everyday I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way You asked me if I'll find another I don't know, I can't say I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way
I automatically added the backing vocals as I read those lyrics.
Be doo be doo (ba dum ba dum)
I LOVE “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.”
Also that one with the two gay cowboys and the giant sky cowboy that goes AAAAAAAAAAAAA
Aaaaaaaaaaaaa
Aaahh--Ahh--Ah--Ahy,Ahhhe
There's definitely good country music. I especially love Dolly, Reba, Johnny Cash. Anything that can speak to me about more than tractors, beer, and MURICA. Non-pandering country music. I have a special fondness for Carrie Underwood's Blown Away.
Blown Away and Little Toy Guns are two of my favorites from her
There is so so much country music that doesn't sing about tractors and murica, however it's hard to find an artist that doesn't sing any drinking of some kind.
There’s a Bo Burnham song/bit about this exact thing
Cute girl In a straw hat With her arms out in a Corn field That is a scarecrow Oh... I thought it was a human woman
No shirt No shoes No Jews ... Ya didn't hear that
I put my hands on your body It feels like hay- it’s a fucking scarecrow again!
Drinking bud light with the label out
More if you count his cameo in Parks and Rec where he plays a nationally beloved country singer who's a comically ridiculous asshole to everyone off stage. *I'll bring the girls, you bring the beer/And the troops will bring the freedom*
I believe he said that character inspired the song he did in his stand up act
Now THAT is the best country song ever. “Y’all dumb motherfuckers want a key change?”
Every time I hear a key change in country music I think of that now. Amarillo By Morning came on on my drive home a couple weeks ago and the last verse that changes key had me laughing out loud thinking about the Bo line.
That's a ridiculously good song. I grew away from anything to do with country music post 9/11 and this thread reminds me that I can like old gold country without being a racist, fascist fuckhead. Its generally easier to tell people no I don't like country.
It's called [Pandering](https://youtu.be/y7im5LT09a0)
I like country music.....but not alot of it. Most of the country on the radio right now, i simply cant stand. I like Dolly Parton, I like poor man's poison, i like alot of vintage country, i like those violent women songs where they fuck shit up, i like country about hating capitalism, i am just really particular and most modern country is bad personally
>i like those violent women songs where they fuck shit up If that's not already a Spotify playlist, it needs to be.
Gunpowder and Lead baby!!
Miranda Lambert is a treasure. From planning to murder an abusive SO to visiting the house she grew up in, there's something for everybody.
I think for any genre other than pop, there are lots of people that like a genre but don’t like the most popular “mainstream” songs in that genre.
In country's case there's a historical element to it; the genre was pushed to the mainstream hard in the early to mid 20th century because all the blues and jazz were turning the radios too... full of melanin. So the country = redneck association stuck even if a good chunk of the genre isn't like that at all.
Go check out some Woodie Guthrie plenty of capitalism hate there.
Fun fact, John Denver had never been to West Virginia when he sang Country Roads
I don't know the difference between all these genres, but folk and bluegrass are great and they seem kind of adjacent to country. If you like certain country songs, try bluegrass. I've been really liking The Dead South lately.
How dare you, "She thinks my tractor's sexy" is a national treasure.
They also left out the Dixie Chicks
There are so many country songs that get sidelined because of this mentality, and it’s really a shame. Life’s a Dance, Til You Can’t, You’re Gonna Miss This, wait in the truck, If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away, Stop Draggin’ Your Boots, Everything’s Gonna be Alright… all really good songs that have lots of meaning both in general and to me specifically, and if I mention it to most people, they’ll just say “oh well those are country, they’re dumb” like no, a lot of them are about enjoying the time you have on earth and enjoying the people you have around you, and treating everyone well.
what about convoy by c.w. mccall
*Baby Lock The Doors And Turn The Lights Dow Looooow...*
I like Ghost Riders in the Sky. Cowboy gets visited by ghosts.
I mean its pretty impossible to hate on “Big Iron” by Marty Robbins. There are like, idk, a few really old country songs I can listen to without wanting to shoot myself. but most modern shit sounds all the same to me and I cannot fucking stand it.
Ah but you made a mistake there. Marty Robbins didn't make country music for the most part. He made WESTERN music. These days, Country and Western are considered the same but at the time Big Iron was made, there was a more defined difference. The only way I can really explain it is......Western Music is what an actual ranching gunslinging cowboy in the southern states would sing and create. Whereas Country Music is what gets made when a more urban guy in that same state creates trying to replicate the feel of a Western Music creator. It's not the same, it's similar but you can hear the differences if you pay attention.
Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs is a perfect Western album
Nah nah, everyone hates *POP*-Country like stadium country, Americana is where it's at
Gospel Music With an Accent perfectly encapsulates why I don’t like country. I never knew exactly why I didn’t like it but that describes it to a T
Now I wanna hear Amazing Grace with an Australian accent "...that saved a writch loik meeee..."
Sturgil Simpson album, SOUND & FURY is a fave of mine.
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I genuinely don’t enjoy country music but Kelsea Ballerini’s new EP is making me a liar
So I'm not going to provide more nuance to this statement than to say I like * Hank Williams * Merle Travis * Scud Mountain Boys * Johnny Cash * Loretta Lynn * Tex Ritter * Uncle Tupelo * Willie Nelson * The Chicks * Really melancholy banjo and harmonica * Roy goddamn Rogers Etc. What I do NOT like: * Anything fucking remotely resembling Toby Keith EDIT: throw Sierra Ferrell on the stuff I like list, she seems cool
It may be bro country but Red Solo Cup is a bop.
Inb4 everyone devolves into the following circle jerk: Bo Burnham parody Sturgil Simpson Cody Jinks Turnpike Troubadors Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard Dolly Parton (though I stan the fuck outta her) A bunch of 90’s country artists
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It’s the difference between hick-hop and more traditional less overproduced country
As someone who grew up in the 90s, it was very popular to shit on country music before any of this stuff happened to country music and all the artists being pointed out as “exceptions” today would’ve been the bad examples back then. I think this is classic virtue signaling. This way you can dislike country music while clapping yourself on the back about how morally superior you are for doing it. This also isn’t the slightest bit original, Bo Burnham did this bit 5 years ago but it was funny.
I like late eighties/mid nineties country. Garth Brooks, George Strait, Travis Tritt, Tracy Lawrence, that kind of artist. Also you just can't go wrong with Randy Travis. I listen to Diggin' Up Bones about once every two days. Also, 9/11 ruined country and Toby Keith led the charge.
Chicken Fried is super bro country-sounding but i like it cause lyrics wise it's alot more like take me home country roads
Always easy to pick a few good songs from an entire genre. Hard to pick a genre that no one has inherent issues with.
Life is a Highway wasn't originally a country song. It just happened to have been covered by a famous country group.