Quote:
Originally Posted by Burning Down
Yeah. I think "real" country (I mean the real twangy, folky stuff) is for a niche market. Johnny Cash became really big because he toured with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and all those guys. Taylor Swift has a country/pop sound that's more mainstream, and therefore appeals to more people.
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I know this is a really old post but I found it to be fairly interesting. I agree with country being dead to extent. Outside of a number of underground acts, namely Joey Allcorn, Wayne Han****, Lucky Tubb, and a few others country music with that more traditional western swing, honky tonk, sound is indeed dead. With that being said, I think there's some fine alt-country out there currently. Its certainly not 'purely' country though.
As for Cash being so popular, I think you're absolutely right. Cash came along at the perfect time and had that bad boy attitude that helped him become as known and popular as he was. Don't take that as me saying his music was bad, because I love him. I just think he got really lucky and come onto the scene at the right time and had enough of that rock 'n' roll attitude to make it happen. Not to mention he was playing along side of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, that obviously brought more people to shows he was playing and such. Plus Cash was around for a long time and his covers of semi-known songs, IE Hurt, helped him to appeal to a much different audience than he normally would have I think.
/useless Saturday morning ramble.
On the note of Taylor Swift, I absolutely hate what country musics become. Its just pop music with a bit of 'twang' added in to it for the most part. I have more respect for her than I do most country artists of today. She does write her music as mentioned before and while its not extremely credible at least that shows she has the heart/ability to write her own music.
As for a hip-hop/country crossover album, ugh. I absolutely hate this awful sound. I love music that's different, don't get me wrong, but I think this crossover between those two has never, and probably wont ever work. I mean I don't know, I just don't find it interesting. Unless it ends up sounding like Gangstagrass which I doubt is the plan, lol.