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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“If a song can't be written in 20 minutes, it ain't worth writing.” - Hank Williams

djchameleon

I know die hard country fans hate the whole country pop sound but its the only way to get some people introduced to country. I know for my I prefer the country pop stuff because it seems easier on the ears than the heavy twang stuff. I haven't listened to a Taylor Swift album yet but groups like Lady Antebelum , SugarLand and Zac Morris Band are some of my favorites in country and they aren't as traditional as some of the older artists.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.