Around late 2012 or early 2013, I essentially stopped listening to country radio. After being a stalwart fan of the genre throughout my entire short life, I realized that the times were a’ changing yet again. Granted, this isn’t exactly new. Everything changes, including country music. I just didn’t particularly like what it seemed to be changing into. All too often something about the lyrics, styles or sounds used in the musical architecture rubbed me the wrong way. I heard too many cowboys trying to rap, and too many posers trying to straddle the line between pop and country to stay interested in Top 40 country.
This incidental hiatus from the country music scene was extended by the advent of the iPhone. When you listen to music on your phone, you don’t have to submit yourself to the mercy of deejays or their playlists. You only play what you actually want to hear. For a good long time, I only wanted to hear different genres, or old favorites. After all, my local country stations don’t seem likely to play Kris Kristofferson anytime soon.
Today, while watching a year-end retrospective video from Todd In The Shadows, I came across an awful country song that I’ve heard before. It was Florida-Georgia Line’s “This Is How We Roll.” I first heard it on the soundtrack to one of my video games, and I hated it so much that I adjusted the music settings to permanently ensure that revolting tune was never played on my XBox again.
It’s everything I hate about the state of country music of today. The singers strike me more as wannabe rappers than anything else. Their meathead lyrics are uninspired at the very least, and their insipid rhymes and inattention to decent grammar stretch me far past my breaking point. The actual music is little more than the product of a computer program, artificial and lifeless, void of personality or the touch of a human. To cap it all off, the pop remix (?!) features none other than the shlock-master himself, Jason Derulo. Just thinking about this song makes my lip curl. It’s that bad.
It is also a hit. Not just any hit mind you, but the biggest country song of 2014, according to Billboard magazine. It somehow made it up to #15 of the Billboard Hot 100. Somehow.
The fact this reprehensible half-baked failure of a country song that I just plain don’t like also happens to be a smash hit really bothers me. How could such a bad song rise so high on the charts? What else was it up against? To answer this question, I did something that I'm regretting. I went to iTunes and listened to a preview of every one of the top 25 country songs. After hearing each of them, I am left with a single question...
WHAT THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO COUNTRY MUSIC?
Coming back to country this way is a shock similar to a parent coming home to find their children hosting a drug-fueled rave in the house. At first, you can’t believe what you’re seeing or hearing. Then, you realize that everything is completely and totally wrong. What you thought was real, what would never change, is something else entirely. You never thought things could go this way. You can’t help but feel betrayed.
I knew country would be changing with the times. I knew that once George Strait retired and Brooks & Dunn separated, things would be different. I knew that Taylor Swift would likely put both her feet in pop music. I knew there would be bands even slicker and even more pop-friendly than Rascal Flatts. I knew that we were either losing our heroes or letting them fade into obscurity. I just didn’t know it could get this bad. Of all those twenty-five songs I listened to, only six of them were palatable. (Thank you God for Maddie & Tae and Dierks Bentley.)
Once upon a time, I adamantly defended the merits of country music to all of my friends who hated the genre on principle. I would emphasize that the foundation of country music was the experiences of the common man. To paraphrase Ray Charles, country music has the best stories. Love, heartbreak, pain, anger, revenge, depression, redemption, joy, respect, and salvation are the colors that those great artists of the past would use to paint with.
Men like Johnny Cash and Kristofferson would speak about the problems facing the world. They’d point out the wrongs in society and glorify the virtues. They told the truth and stood their ground. They had respect for women. They didn’t forget about the poor and the downtrodden. They knew they were more than the sum of their possessions or their interests. They knew that life is short, and you need to sing about the things that matter while you’re still here.
These days all you’re likely to hear on country radio is a bunch of meatheads singing the exact same song about driving their trucks down dirt roads, getting a buzz through either a beer or a bag of weed, while their tan-legged girlfriend in Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots sits there as their arm candy. Though she may be a character in the song, she gets little description beyond her appearance and even less respect. She’s just an object to be desired, and not a person. If these singers really care about anybody else besides themselves, they sure aren’t acting like it.
Have we really sunk this low?
Perhaps I’m being too serious. Perhaps I’m just not letting myself have fun. Perhaps I’m just an old man in a young man’s body. Perhaps I’m out of touch before my time. But seeing as I’m just a twenty-five-year old man with a college degree who has lived in Texas all his life and loved country music just as long, I doubt it. The artists of today were inferior to their predecessors before I said anything. The fact I prefer The Highwaymen to Florida-Georgia Line is irrelevant.
Believe it or not, listening to all those no good, lousy pieces of sound trying to masquerade themselves as decent country songs brought a William Faulkner quote to mind. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he spoke about how the writers of his day were failing themselves and society. “They have forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself, which is the only thing worth writing about. They must learn them again.”
If country music is to truly survive as an art form, then we should keep the focus on the things that really matter and make art accordingly. The artists of today should take pointers from their forebears, the way Kacey Musgraves has done. They must re-learn what it means to be a real artist by re-learning what it means to be a person, and not just a stereotype.
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