DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Here.

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Weaver Wynd

save tonight - eagle eye cherry

Gavin B.

I completely agree with you. Nearly all country music recorded in the past 25 years is completely indistinguishable from middle of the road pop music.

So when someone asks me,"Do you like country music?", it's hard to me to give an answer without knowing what sort of country music they're referring to. Yes I love Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Hank Williams, John Hartford, Ernest Tubb, Norman Blake, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Doc Watson, Lucinda Williams, Bill Monroe, Gillian Welch, Townes Van Zandt & Eddy Arnold BUT I hate nearly all of the music that has been recorded in Nashville since 1990 because it's not country music but a pop oriented mutation of country music.

I think the downfall of real country music began when Billy Ray Cyrus recorded Achy Breaky Heart in 1992. Then Garth Brooks came along with his hideous pop music and guitar smashing rock show antics. Then every female country singer began to imitate Madonna's MTV oriented pop and that pretty much signaled the end of real country music. I really hate how all of the "nu-country" pop stars give lip service to the country music tradition but still sound like a bunch middle of the road pop singers. If they like country music so much, why don't they play it?

At least Steve Earle has the courage to never stray too far from his country music roots... but everybody in Nashville hates him because he's a constant reminder of their lack of musical integrity.

I'd go so far as to say that Austin Texas has replaced Nashville as the capital of country music because there's a lot more authentic country music coming out of Austin these days than in Nashville. I hate to sound like a purist but there are some aspects of our musical culture that are worth preserving and old time country music is one of them.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

I'm sort-of two minds about the whole thing. One the one hand I do agree that country music that doesn't sound much like, well ... country music ... probably doesn't really count as "country music!" On the other hand, I also recognize that a genre - any genre - has to grow and experiment or it just keeps repeating the same thing over and over, which gets boring. It's one reason why I've become sort-of 'meh' about the blues: I like the blues, but after a while they all start to sound the same. And if you stray too much from it, it doesn't sound so blues-y, so then you have to wonder if it's really a blues song, and some of its original appeal is lost.

Darned if you do, darned if you don't, I suppose.

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Punk Ass Kid

I think some of you need to learn what Country Music is. Like for example: The Flying Burrito Brothers aren't country.

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Just googled "top country song 2012" and got this. Typical generic 21st century country/pop song. Harmless to listen to and generally inoffensive, but otherwise totally generic, sterile and ordinary. Pretty dispassionate. Stereotypical country lyrics about everyday life hardships, but the actual music elicits basically no emotion in me.



THIS, on the other hand, is someone singing WHO IS HURTING! You can tell by the music alone, the words don't need to inform you what the singer is feeling. And neither did he need to swing with a twang, nor were any slide guitars needed to tell you it's officially a country song.

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butthead aka 216

im sure country fans will hate me but......... i love that cruise song




baby you a song you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruuuuise

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Another problem is, the fuzzy line between country and pop isn't exactly new (this is true of other genres I might add, like the perpetual argument about whether the Beatles are rock or pop). I think it was the 70's where pop and country began to overlap. ONJ is often credited as one of the first singers to overlap the two genres.

Country? Or pop?

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DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Is it me, or is yodeling in country music a lost art?

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Gavin B.

Au contraire, mon frère... there is plenty of experimentation going on in the world of authentic country music. Examples are the present day alternative country artists like Lucinda Williams, Marissa Nadler, Jolie Holland, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Laura Cantrell & Alison Krauss. Notice that many of the new alternative country music artists are female.

The alternative country music scene began in the late Sixties with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. In the Seventies and Eighties, John Hartford, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Townes Van Zandt, Dillard & Clark, Freddy Fender, John Prine, John Hiatt, Norman Blake and Steve Earle kept the home fires burning. And just when everyone thought authentic country music was dead, along came Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown, and the soundtrack to Oh Brother Where Art Thou, which revived an interest in the old time music of Americana. It's true that Jeff Tweedy's Wilco has developed into an alternative rock band, but Jay Farrar's band Son Volt, is steadfast in keeping with the country music tradition.

I always considered the Eagles and Linda Ronstandt to be closer to mainstream rock than country music, even though Ronstandt had the vocal pipes to be the greatest country music singer ever. I hated the Eagles and the only person in the Eagles who was a good country music player, Bernie Leadon, was unceremoniously fired by the Eagles because they wanted to be rock stars. I can't imagine why the Eagles fired Leadon to replace him with a drunken arena rocker like Joe Walsh.

Somebody earlier in the thread wrote the Flying Burrito Bros. weren't a real country music band, but that person must have thinking of some other band. I saw the Burrito Bros. twice in concert and own all of their albums and if they don't sound like a country music band, then I'm Brad Pitt and my wife is Angelina Jolie.

From my perspective, the Drive By Truckers are more of a roots rock band in the tradition of Credence Clearwater Revival, than an authentic country music band.

The amazing part of the newer alternative country music stars is they are experimental without impugning the integrity and authenticity of the country music form.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt