TheBig3

Well I'm not going to say Bill's suggestion is bad, but if you're going to find an appreciation and inspiration in Country music, and you currently sit in a position where you do not like it, you need to know a few things.

First of all, country is a very wide genre and Artist A should not be assumed to be like Artist B. Its a genre, after all, and its made to allow people find artists in record stores (when people used to go to record stores) easier. It really has no other function. Its best thought of as the Dewey Decimal Systems idiot kid brother (genres, that is).

Off the very tip-top of my head, you're at least dealing with these breakdowns

Alt-Country
Nashville Country
Non-Nashville Country

Now obviously there are many little breakdowns in there. But let me try to illustrate, via stereotypes, what this all means.

If you've listened to Country Radio, and you're in the north, and its a fairly sizable station with polished Dj's, you likely have heard some ****ty country and therefore thing it sucks. I don't know where you're from, but I'm guessing that this situation is fairly close to your situation.

When I hated country, I thought it was too self-serious Patriotic grand-standing. A sort of "**** you, southerners are better than you Yankee ****s." Because of this and my natural inclination to hold a grudge, I ****ing hated country music. if you don't actively pursue Country, it will creep in. I remember hearing Little Big Town's "Boondocks" and thinking "oh hey, this guitar ain't half-bad." I was forced to listen to it so I had no option to change it and that badass lick was something of an oasis.

Ironically, that first song that made me sit up in my chair, with its almost Son House style guitar riff came from a band who I think epitomizes the idea that country is only state fairs, tractors, and Civil War resentment. "Little White Church" might double as Christian Propaganda music which I only point out to illustrate what stereotypes can do to a person.

I put "non-Nashville" up there because unlike most genres, Country music is like Catholicism. Nashville is the Pope, through which all country music must be ordained, though the world isn't without its heretics. If you've ever heard the title Country & Western its because the Infallible Suits back in Nashville wanted to say those in West Texas making what they considered to be folk-outlaw songs weren't Dolly Parton basically. I mean, they were right, but its still ****ing country.

For a bit of History, I believe Buck Owens (based in California) was the first to puncture the Nashville bubble. A regular-guy persona with a hit-machine for a brain, Owens seeded fallow earth by telling the Big Boys in Tennessee to go **** themselves. I'm sure he wouldn't say it, but his actions did.

So when you hear Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flats, and Little Big Town, understand that they might as well be a wildly different animal from Hank Williams, Buck Ownes, Willie, and Townes Van Zandt. (alt-country is even a further deviation from there).

Because of this polarity existing since, I don't know the 50's, today's country artists can hedge the gorge and be seemingly laconic and hick when they are deceptively shrew lyricists and amazing musicians.

Errk, my friend, its going to be what you make of it, and I'm happy to help you navigate if you'll only tell me what your prejudices are. I might not be the best, but I've been in your shoes. I'm a Yankee, I hated country with passion like you can't imagine (I literally saw it as an attack on my lineage), and I've come to find some of the current artists (even radio friendly) to be some of the better artists out there today.

Find your prejudice, find someone who bucks the trend, and move from there. All the best. Here's my list - off the cuff, no be-all end-all compilation - of stuff I'm just into currently.

1. Tom T. Hall - Faster Horses
2. Tim McGraw - Southern Voice
3. Brad Paisley - Alcohol
4. Darius Rutger - Alright
5. Buck Owens - Tiger by the Tail
6. David Nail - Red Light
7. Guy Clark - Desperado*
8. Hank Williams - Alone and Forsaken
9. Hank Williams Jr. - Family Tradition
10. Levon Helm - False Hearted Lover Blues
11. John Denver - Take Me Home, Country Roads**
12. Elvis Costello - Cheap Reward
13. Tom Waits - Blind Love
14. Big & Rich - Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy
15. Sugarland - Stay
16. Dolly Parton - Jolene
17. Lucinda Williams - Fancy Funeral
18. Dar Willaims - Iowa
19. The Pure Prairie League - Amy (might be aimee)
20. Johnny Cash - Ghost Riders in the Sky+

*thank Savannah for that one
**toots and the maytals doing an amazing reggae version of this
+ wouldn't be a list without him.

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