I, like many people in this world, am a huge country music fan. I love what it stands for. I love the storytelling. I love the instruments. I love EVERYTHING about country music. I owe a great deal of my songwriting and style to country music. That said, there has been a definite decline in the "realness" of country music over the past few years.
To fully understand my dislike for the direction of today's country music, one must first understand where country music got it's roots. In the early 20's a ton of people from the Appalachian areas moved into the cities to work in cotton mills, and the factories. When these "backwoods" people brought their "hillbilly music" to the city, it was something completely different to the more urban people. They didn't care much for it actually. However, with the influx of hillbillies into the city, there was a definite market for this music. And a MUCH larger market than the market they had on their front porch in the middle of nowhere. They brought a unique sound and a level of emotion to the music that most people hadn't heard before, much like the blues music from the same era. In fact there were many early country artists that recorded blues music while the country music scene was taking shape. One thing was the backbone of the music....It was real. The stories that were told were those that many of the cotton mill workers could relate to.
In the 30's and 40's came the Western movement...Cowboys. REAL cowboys. Real hardworking cowboys with incredible stories to tell...Stories that could break your heart, paint you a picture and make you smile, all at the same time.
This trend kept going for years and years. Different times brought different styles of music. Yet the backbone remained the same. The instruments, the theme, the feel of the songwriting and storytelling kept everything in tact. Whether its the hillbilly boogie, rockabilly, gospel-folk, honky-tonk, outlaw country, even country rock like Bob Dylan and John Denver fell into the same niche of instruments, songwriting and storytelling. All was well....
....And then came the "I'll write a song just to get a single" country music. Leading the way was "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk"...Pure crap. Country music had gotten so commercialized that artists went from writing and performing the songs that touched them and the songs that made them who they were to singers whose only purpose in the business was to make a dollar by singing about the stereotypes that the REAL country artist had EARNED.
Country music was NEVER intended to be mainstream, but now that it was, people were going to make some money and put out catchy hooks about horses they've never ridden, guns they had never shot, whiskey they had never drank and worst of all, a Lord that they didn't seem to know very well.
There are still a few Jamey Johnson's in the crowd who write songs about their life with no restraint on the realness of what they sing about. Songs that you can feel just as much as you can hear like Miranda Lambert's "House that Built Me" or ANY Gary Allen song.
On the other hand, there is Blake Shelton singing his song "Boys 'Round Here" ...Quite possible the worst song to ever grace the Country music radio stations. It is a disgrace...Like 100 years of songwriting and storytelling has been thrown away just so these CITY-SLICKER PANSIES can sing songs about things they OBVIOUSLY know nothing about. Living in the country doesn't make you "Country". Being country makes you country....
And I leave you with the worst of all of them....TOBY KEITH....Suck to a never ending level of SUCK...Toby Keith is like a NASCAR...I think he writes songs and gets paid to drop names...There is no telling how many "Red SOLO Cups" have been sold since they obviously took out an advertising slot on his album...
Get real people. Writing songs is IN YOU. It is ABOUT YOU. And good songs come FROM YOU and your experiences. Not from what you think it would be like to be country....
Here's to decent songwriting/storytellers in the VERY NEAR FUTURE...I don't think I can handle anymore....
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