# Country Music and Grunge-Alternative Angst **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [August 8, 2023, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261 "2023-08-08T18:00:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/1 "2023-08-08T18:00:50Z")
Given the success and popularity of Jason Aldean, and the unlikely (and beautiful) country remake of _Fast Car_, wonder what folks thought about these hits or the increasing popularity of country music in general. I largely ignored this genre until Burns’ documentary, but grew to like it. If more background is needed, inspiration is from the below link. **An excerpt:** _In “Try That in a Small Town,” Aldean, the 46-year-old Georgia hitmaker, salutes supposedly rural values (honor, neighborliness, gun ownership) by warning the listener that supposedly urban pathologies (robbery, spitting at cops, burning flags) don’t fly in what some would call “[Real America]”. Around here, we take care of our own,” he boasts. But the music hardly brings to mind peaceful pastures or sawdust-strewn saloons. As soon as I heard the song’s grumbling guitars, drooping minor chords, and riff ripped from Foo Fighters’ Everlong, I felt transported back to my suburban-male adolescence, circa Y2K—a time when I lived in an oversize black hoodie, listening to the groaning of men with soul patches. Aldean’s song is country in name, but its sound is post-grunge alternative rock._ _In the early ’90s, Nirvana and its peers opened space for a new strain of mainstream manliness: vulnerable about feelings of failure and alienation, but with a hard, noisy edge that no one could possibly construe as sissy. Soon came a flock of [melodically moaning] bands, such as Bush, Creed, and Nickelback, that sheared grunge of its punk disposition, creating a broadly appealing template for directionless angst. [Some popular country groups now say these groups inspired them.]_ > **[When Small-Town Pride Sounds Like Anger](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2023/08/jason-aldean-country-music-luke-combs/674952/)** > > Jason Aldean says “Try That in a Small Town” celebrates community—but its words and sound tell a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/2 "2023-08-08T18:15:22Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > the unlikely (and beautiful) country remake of _Fast Car_ I happened to hear this recently and was struck with several thoughts: - Wow, he didn’t reverse the genders. He even calls himself “a checkout girl.” - Do country audiences know this is a cover of a song by a Black, likely-gay woman? And they’re OK with it? - I don’t know anything about Luke Combs but now I might be a fan. - And yes, it’s beautiful. No opinion on Aldean. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/3 "2023-08-08T19:03:20Z")
What’s Chris Gaines up to these days? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/4 "2023-08-08T19:15:57Z")
I’ve always liked country music but I haven’t listened to contemporary music since like 2014, and even then my interest was spotty. I mostly listen to 80s and 90s country. My husband played me _Fast Car_ the other day and my son went absolutely bonkers and insisted we play it over and over. It’s a good cover but I’m not really sure it adds anything to the original. A lot of recent country music sounds more like R&B to me, which isn’t my thing either. Then there’s the fact that I feel so alienated from the politics of many of these guys that it’s hard to enjoy the music. Now grunge I do like, but the message of that song is so awful I won’t listen to it. It gives me big Sundown Town vibes. I can attest that country singers have had big Internet Tough Guy energy for ages. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/5 "2023-08-08T21:22:10Z")
I don’t think the country version is better than Chapman’s original. But it is very good, beautifully sung, and seems more unlikely than it probably should. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/6 "2023-08-09T02:50:29Z")
Seems like the Chapman cover is not like the Aldean “nickelback” style country that is popular. The first is OK, the latter is not. Is country music more popular than in the past? I used to love it, now not so much. Most of it now seems to be a more countrified version of Kid “Truck Nuts” Rock music. No thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/7 "2023-08-09T14:03:19Z")
My theory is that grunge bifurcated the rock audience. Until the early 90s, boomer and Gen-Xer rock fans all listened to the same blend of classic and new rock that encompassed everything from the Grateful Dead to Guns & Roses. (I’m being uber-general here. Obviously, not everyone liked everything equally. But that’s what the rock stations played.) Grunge hit around the same time Garth Brooks became massively popular, and he was basically Bob Seger in a hat. Suddenly, people who liked the edgy direction of grunge went all-in for alternative, and people who didn’t enjoy alternative found rock-like comfort in the new Nashville. As a result, rock basically died as a popular genre. Alternative splintered and (mostly) fizzled, but country just got bigger. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/country-music-and-grunge-alternative-angst/988261/8 "2023-08-09T14:20:58Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > …wonder what folks thought about…the increasing popularity of country music in general. Country music is shit and degrades everything it touches, including the careers of one-time southern rockers who got countrified as they aged. Thankfully, it’s easy to avoid.