Who ruined country music?

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spigelwii




Age: 30
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
United States

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  • Posted: 5 days ago
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I'm going to begin this post by immediately backpedaling and explaining what I *actually* mean by my clickbait thread subject: I am *not* saying that all country music is awful. Far from it. I was binging some 90's alt-country the other day, and it might have been during Lucinda Williams' "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" that I declared to my wife, "You know, I think country music might be my favorite genre of music!"

Aside: How much crossover you think there is between Lucinda's 1998 breakthrough smash record and "true" country music is neither here nor there; the purpose of this statement is to establish my credibility as someone who doesn't hate the country ethos, the accents (phony OR the real deal), the instrumentation, or the subject matter. When done well, I genuinely find the floor to be higher than just about any other genre. The great stuff reaches people with hearts of ice and begins thawing with its blend of authenticity, simplicity, and occasional pathos. Hell, even when it's just being imitated or even PARODIED (Costello's "Almost Blue" or Ween's "12 Golden Country Greats" respectively come to mind) it's still awesome.

Circling back around to my original question, at some point, the quality of what was popular in country music changed. Jones, Willie, Cash, Hank, Dolly, Loretta, and a hundred other influential country musicians paved the way for the aforementioned Lucinda, but also Uncle Tupelo/Wilco, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, and the Drive-By Truckers, but also the mega-crossover artists like Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift...and honestly the crossover was happening three decades before that anyway, right?

Enter Florida-Georgia Line, or, who my wife and I came to the conclusion was responsible for the current state of country music. Perhaps it was happening before "Cruise" was a ridiculous(ly stupid) megahit, but we sort of zeroed in on that early '10s period as the time when the dam burst and country music became largely songs about (not) growing up on a farm, beer, trucks, and other ridiculous existential detritus that appeals largely to the lowest-common-denominator of society, while simultaneously making a buttload of money and showing up in Applebee's commercials (you know which one I'm talking about). Was it actually "Red Solo Cup," or anything written performed by Blake Shelton? Does it go all the way back to "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" or "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy"?

Does the earlier version of country music even exist anymore? The alt-country stuff is still there but it feels less celebrated than its 90s and early 00s form, possibly because of an actual dip in general quality or quantity, or maybe because of its perceived association with the bro-country of today. Are we now doomed to endure decades of f***in' "Try That in a Small Town" and "Last Night"? What the hell happened?

Editing to add that, in case it wasn't obvious, I'm no expert! So please educate me if you can!
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MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...


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I think you have to go back to the early 90s and tracks like John Michael Montgomery's "I Swear," the success of which convinced a whole generation of country artists that they could score huge hits on the Top 100 by basically eliminating all the rough edges from their production sound, their lyrics, and arguably their entire approach to music. I don't think the genre ever recovered from it. This was also around the time when Branson, MO started to eat into Nashville's supremacy as the Country Music Capital of the World, and I believe Nashville became more cosmopolitan and less country-oriented as they tried to make up for the lost revenue.

I might even go so far as to argue that the growth of computerized music production, MIDI sequencing, and digital sampling, starting in the mid-1980s and practically exploding in the 1990s, hit the Country genre harder than almost any other — because Country music is (or was) so reliant on an unpolished, less-slick, "human" sound to achieve authenticity.
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JOSweetHeart



Gender: Female
Age: 41
Location: East Tennessee

  • #3
  • Posted: 5 days ago
  • Post subject: Re: Who ruined country music?
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spigelwii wrote:
Does the earlier version of country music even exist anymore?

The country band named Sawyer Brown just released a new album named Desperado Troubadours and it is awesome. This year marks the 40th anniversary of them being on the radio. Their song named "Leona" was released in 1984 and it got as high as #16. Their follow up named "Step That Step" is the first of their three number one songs. Smile Smile Smile

God bless you and each past and present band member always!!!

Holly (one of their many fans)

P.S. Go here to see the rest of their radio history. The reason why certain songs on that list did not do as well compared to others is because of how the country radio powers that be looked at the band. They weren't considered the most traditional then and so even things did get better for them once the 90s were here, they are no stranger to the way that things can go for a musical act that may not mix perfectly enough with others.
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spigelwii




Age: 30
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
United States

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  • Posted: 4 days ago
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MadhattanJack wrote:
I think you have to go back to the early 90s and tracks like John Michael Montgomery's "I Swear," the success of which convinced a whole generation of country artists that they could score huge hits on the Top 100 by basically eliminating all the rough edges from their production sound, their lyrics, and arguably their entire approach to music. I don't think the genre ever recovered from it. This was also around the time when Branson, MO started to eat into Nashville's supremacy as the Country Music Capital of the World, and I believe Nashville became more cosmopolitan and less country-oriented as they tried to make up for the lost revenue.

I might even go so far as to argue that the growth of computerized music production, MIDI sequencing, and digital sampling, starting in the mid-1980s and practically exploding in the 1990s, hit the Country genre harder than almost any other — because Country music is (or was) so reliant on an unpolished, less-slick, "human" sound to achieve authenticity.


Was talking with another friend about this topic, and he also mentioned that Nashville really changed and took aim at a more commercial sound. It's interesting how an entire genre can change at a whipcrack.

I'd seriously read a book about the topic if one was floated in here; I can't really think of any other mass-market genres that "evolved" so suddenly into something that is completely unrecognizable (at least from an authenticity perspective, as you mentioned). It seems "the good stuff" is still out there, but the tap is dripping, not running.
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Brigand99



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  • Posted: 14 hours ago
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This was very interesting. Since my favorite country music was mostly from the '60s and '70s, I guess it went bad sometime in the 80s. I don't blame things like commercialization because some of my favorite country music was the Countrypolitan style of the '60s, and that was an effort to expand the market for country music and make it a mass-market type of music. So I don't think it was commercialization that ruined it. And then when the Neo-traditionalists came along in the early '80s, it was like a backlash against the commercialization of country music. It was supposed to be an attempt to go back to the roots, but I don't think it was even as good as the stuff it was supposed to replace. Basically I think there was just a general decline of all music around that time, and I really don't know why that happened either.
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MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...


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Brigand99 wrote:
It was supposed to be an attempt to go back to the roots, but I don't think it was even as good as the stuff it was supposed to replace. Basically I think there was just a general decline of all music around that time, and I really don't know why that happened either.


I'm probably already on the record elsewhere as saying it was computers, but at the same time, computers have also made it much cheaper (and arguably easier) to make demos that sound like finished product, which has led to increased exposure for a lot of quality stuff we might otherwise never have heard. (Also, a lot of really awful stuff.) So I'm not saying computers are inherently a Bad Thing for music, but in the late 80s they were still in the process of being adopted by studios and producers, many of whom simply had no idea how to use them, not to mention that the software was primitive compared to what's available these days.

Just my 2 ¢ents, I guess! Very Happy
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Brigand99



Gender: Male
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  • Posted: 12 hours ago
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MadhattanJack wrote:
I'm probably already on the record elsewhere as saying it was computers, but at the same time, computers have also made it much cheaper (and arguably easier) to make demos that sound like finished product, which has led to increased exposure for a lot of quality stuff we might otherwise never have heard. (Also, a lot of really awful stuff.) So I'm not saying computers are inherently a Bad Thing for music, but in the late 80s they were still in the process of being adopted by studios and producers, many of whom simply had no idea how to use them, not to mention that the software was primitive compared to what's available these days.

Just my 2 ¢ents, I guess! Very Happy


I see what you mean. I'm really into electronic music so I would never say computers have been a bad thing for music, but I could see how maybe they were able to take really poor quality material and make it at least sound good because of technology. That's how I feel about a lot of today's music actually. The material seems really bad to me but the sound quality makes it appear better than it actually is. I think the quality of songwriting really went down in the early eighties and then people just got used to it and started to accept it.
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spigelwii




Age: 30
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
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  • Posted: 6 hours ago
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You all sound like my dad: "Nobody knows how to write a song anymore!" Razz

Incidentally, I emailed him the music video for "Fancy Like" the other day because he said he had never heard it. He's 75 but he's in pretty good health so I didn't think it would be that risky to expose him to Walker Hayes' brand of (what I now like to call) Applebees Country. Here is his unedited response to that email:

Quote:
Oh my!!! no , fortunately never heard it. Gotta be a real low spot in country. Country Rap. Obviously an attempt to get a commercial. And the kids. That's where the money is. Each time it's played , writer, publisher and performer ( if the contract's right ) CA-.CHING
I can't dismiss , however the tongue-in-cheek aspect. I mean ,my generation (I had nothing to do with it ) had 'itsy , bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini'


It's adorable how he thinks that nobody could possibly sell out this hard, therefore it must be tongue-in-cheek!
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