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.

almonds

I'm not sure if this is true for all of Taylor Swift's songs, but there's one that has a version that sounds more country-like than what plays on the radio. :/ Even though I enjoy both versions, I kind of wish they played that country-like version. Its sound is very different.

Konrad

Taylor Swift is a decent Pop singer, I guess. For mainstream music, she is okay, but definitely not anything I will remember by next week. It'd be nice if the text was a bit...deeper as well, but you cannot ask that of people you see on MTV.

supasteveify

At least she writes her own music.

Dr_Rez

Because her music is a wealth of credibility.

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djchameleon

you heard it here first ladies and germs

Taylor Swift will be doing a country/hip hop crossover album

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Geetarguy

she's another person mixing my two least favorite genres of music together... pop and country.

saw her live with def leppard. her voice sounded like trash. i'd check out another live performance if anyone has one.

my point is whether or not she has talent, she is not my cup of tea.

Maxwellwebb

I just lost so much respect for this forum.

Have you heard her live? Anyone here? Have a listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4_h3v-6g-M

She is consistently flat in every single live performance she has ever done.

Oh awesome, someone else here knows what I'm talking about.

Howard the Duck

i like some of her stuff, but it's just generic country-pop, nothing special

and she looks weird

Hank The Drifter

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.

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