Technically it was “old-timey”. Old-timey doesn’t have instrumental solos like bluegrass, which came along later.
As far as the OP, “popular” country music is the way it is because it’s for people who are made to feel small, all day long, in real life. They like to hear someone sticking up for them, even if it’s just a voice on the radio. The manager of a Wal-Mart in Mississippi probably doesn’t listen to country music, but you can bet the guy who sweeps the floor does. Isn’t there a strain of “I’m like you and we’re both OK” in many other forms of music?
I prefer to hate “popular” country music because it sucks, not for some fancy psychological reason.
Why do Country/Western singers sing in an Appalachian accent? Even singers from foreign countries sing in Appalachian. Are they making fun of how my family actually speaks? Why do they do that?
I’m a North-east liberal elitist, and I love country music, and will as long as someone keeps writing lyrics like ‘An American Child’, ‘Just Another American Saturday Night’, and “Earl Had to Die”.
I used to hear that Brad Paisley song every damn day. Now I just shut it off when I hear it start. The lyric I quoted is my least favorite. Aw. Your boss yelled at you? Poor lil guy. Don’t worry. Brad Paisley and country music will stand up for you and stop that mean old boss to stop yelling at you. :rolleyes: That seems so shallow, especially considering how many country songs are about people losing their jobs. In this song, it’s apparently worse to be yelled at.
What also bugs me is that, aside from the lyric about tractors, the song is wrong about everything else. Nobody sings about drinking after work? Nobody? Not one other genre of music? Really?
And it’s more vague than a list of symptoms to qualify you for a new drug? Do you like beer? Do you live in a small town? Do you have a mother? Do you have an erection lasting more than four hours? If you answered yes to any of these, country music may help. Ask your doctor about [del]pop[/del] country music today.
I’m also tired of hearing Kid Rock on the country station. The word “rock” is right in his name, and the song they play features two classic rock songs making up the melody (Werewolves of London and Sweet Home Alabama). Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rocks make a country song.
Country stations willingly embraced her royal GOOPness Gwyneth Paltrow, who is so country that she doesn’t even need to live in this country. They’ve also accepted [del]Darius Rucker[/del] Hootie who has continued to make the same alternative music as he did in the nineties. Only now it’s country. Makes sense to me.
Last bit and I’m done. I recently played the Willie Nelson demo recordings for my country fan coworker. Her response? It was “too country.”:dubious::smack:
That’s a great point - it’s like 40 and 50 somethings talking about how there hasn’t been any good music made since the 70’s - yes, there has, tons of it, but you’re not likely to hear it on the radio.
I kind of hate Calgary’s reputation for everyone here being a redneck shit-kicker - not everyone who lives in the west is a cowboy (hell, most of the people dressed up like cowboys aren’t cowboys). Just because we live in a place called Cowtown doesn’t mean we like country.
My response to that song is “Fuck me!” Wow, that is some Grade A Shite there.
Even the Canadian ones sing in that accent, which is actually so stupid it’s just funny.
One of the presets in my car is exactly this kind of mainstream country radio. Most of the songs are awful, but yet are still pretty good at expressing a certain confident & comforting worldview. They remind me of the old time comics page in the newspaper (Beetle Bailey or whatever). I’m always amazed at how many shout-outs to big companies go on those songs - Ford, Chevy, Wal-Mart, John Deere… and once in a while you do get a song that’s actually quite good.
Most so-called “country” music I hear nowadays is just mediocre pop-rock that happens to feature a “southern” accent and has lyrics about “country” related things. If you took away the singer, leaving just the instrumentals, there would really be nothing distinctively “country” about it.
We’ve come to the point where “country” really describes the packaging of the music, and not really the music itself.
I’m a lifelong musician raised in West Virginia, and I really dislike most ‘successful’ country music of the last twenty-some years. My tastes in country run to the Carter Family, Hank Sr., Johnny Cash, early Elvis.
One of the interesting things about country music is that ten different people can have ten different definitions of it. But they can all claim to be the “real” country music.
Country used to be music about the lives of poor white people. At some point, a lot of it became cluelessly imperialistic, as detailed upthread, about the desire some country music expresses to influence and “conquer” others.
If the Third Reich had won we’d have it made
We’d be exalted rulers of the master race
We take them Jews that run the banks and we’d mow them down in tanks
If the Third Reich had won we’d have it made
But that song is about poor white people, or at least working-class Southerners, feeling pride in their culture but marginalized–it is certainly not about racism or a desire to impose upon anyone else (except “killers” on death row, “pushers” in Miami, and Chinese[?]-made cars). Notice Hank says he’d run for President of the Southern states, not that he wants the South to rule over any other. Remember, Northern and Southern victory weren’t equivalent propositions.
Your parody version seems intensely unfair, and prejudiced in itself.
