Steve Earle does a show on SiriusXM and I’m really impressed by his love and knowledge of music, and especially songwriters.
Heard this band on Outlaw Country tonight, their debut album was in 2017: The Steel Woods. That verse at the end is pretty badass. Another example that country/southern rock ain’t dead.
Depends on what you call it’s roots, country from the 1920’s is different than country music from the 1930’s etc.
In the 1920’s into the 1930’s you had “traditoinal country” in the 1940’s into the 1950 you started more into story songs 1960’s into the 1970’s you start getting a more pop beat with crossover hits but still heavy on the story song, with influence from pop and disco writers. During the 1980’s - 1990’s New York Times declares country music “dead” Alabama sets a new Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles, more of a rock pop beat. 2000- onward more rock pop influence.
So country like any other form of music isn’t static it changes and just like the rock from the 1960’s isn’t the same as rock in the 1980’s. What funny is the number of rock stars that went on to become country stars later in their career, and that trend is still happening today. Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash both started as rock singers and moved into country, and they brought they own flavor into country.
Really you can pick any time and say that’s when country jumped the shark. What funny is we hosted a concert with an older country star, who was saying basically the same thing, and I had to laugh a bit, she was singing songs from the 1950’s-1960’s that didn’t sound anything like country from the 1920’s .
Well, with the lamentation of no good country radio being made, I think I’d be amiss if I didn’t pop in and mention KHYI, an independent station that plays the likes of Steve Earle, Sturgill Simpson, Lyle Lovett, etc. I hear what sounds like “bro country” on there sometimes, but I may have a low tolerance for that style.
As far as when mainstream country music became pop with different lyrics, I believe that was firmly in the late '70s-early '80s. As has been noted, there were some traditionalist artists that have had success since then, but the majority of the radio format has been the watered down variant. I can’t really blame them for it, they made money. But it’s still not very closely related to the style I like or grew up listening to.
When my parents came to America in the 80s, I remember them saying they completely fell in love with country music: Kenny Rogers, Dolly, Alabama, the Oak Ridge Boys. Especially Alabama! Nowadays, I can’t recall any single of the past decade.
Was very literally listening to Sturgill Simpson when I came into this thread and read your comment. 
Heh, you’re in DFW, right? We should probably have a beer, or dinner.
There is literally a genre called mainstream rock and they have many more radio stations than alternative or classic wherever I’ve lived in the past 15-20 years or so. They mostly play hard rock and some bands that were in the last waves or have some influences of nu metal-ish sounds. I would say some of the acts are very similar to bro country in their lyrical prowess, just with harder sounds and harsher vocals. I hear nothing that would be considered alternative other than maybe a few bands that had a little crossover there 10-15 years ago and are still around with harder music.
For example, look at the charts here under “U.S. Main” -
Wikipedia says that mainstream rock stations combine playlists from active and heritage (classic) rock. While that may be the case to some extent, most of the active/mainstream rock stations I listen to only have very specific throwback shows/time periods (ex. “Mandatory Metallica” a certain time per day or week) or only play older songs from current artists (maybe a “classic” Seether song or something). Every so often you might hear “Cult of Personality” or “Back in Black” randomly at 3am.
I don’t know how old the cover is, but last night I heard a country cover of the Eagles’ Heartache Tonight done country. That to me is when country went “wrong”. Country used to belittle the long haired pot smoking rockers, and now they do cover versions of their songs.
Not that Heartache Tonight wasn’t almost country even when it was new - the Eagles were sort of spanning both worlds even in the 70s.
From what I understand the big record companies in Nashville have a lot to do with country being pop now. They have figured the formula of what appeals to the widest range of people and everything gets watered down to that level.
Record execs hear an artist in a club somewhere, sign them up, then dictate what songs go on their first album. This sort of thing has happened with Hank III, Shania Twain, Miranda Lambert, and Jamey Johnson that I know of, their first albums are hand-picked pablum from Nashville record companies. Jamey Johnson sang about it in Between Jennings and Jones. If the artists are lucky they can pick more of their own music for following albums. That’s just my impression.