Country music is like a person that finds every opportunity to say “thank you veterans for protecting our freedoms” or “America is the greatest country on earth” or all those other saccharine pronouncements with absolutely no thought behind them.
This excerpt from the country song “You never even call me by my name” explains all that is (hillariously) wrong with country music and why everyone (should) hate most country:
WELL, A FRIEND OF MINE NAMED STEVE GOODMAN WROTE THAT SONG
AND HE TOLD ME IT WAS THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG
I WROTE HIM BACK A LETTER AND I TOLD HIM IT WAS NOT THE PERFECT COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG BECAUSE HE HADN’T SAID ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT MAMA,
OR TRAINS,
OR TRUCKS,
OR PRISON,
OR GETTING’ DRUNK
WELL HE SAT DOWN AND WROTE ANOTHER VERSE TO THE SONG
AND HE SENT IT TO ME,
AND AFTER READING IT,
I REALIZED THAT MY FRIEND HAD WRITTEN THE PERFECT
COUNTRY & WESTERN SONG
AND I FELT OBLIGED TO INCLUDE IT ON THIS ALBUM
THE LAST VERSE GOES LIKE THIS HERE:
WELL, I WAS DRUNK THE DAY MY MOM GOT OUT OF PRISON
AND I WENT TO PICK HER UP IN THE RAIN
BUT BEFORE I COULD GET TO THE STATION IN MY PICKUP TRUCK
SHE GOT RUN NED OVER BY A DAMNED OLD TRAIN
I don’t like Jazz music, but Swing is okay.
Similarly, I don’t like Country music, but Bluegrass is okay.
What about James Otto? I’ve heard good things about him.
d&r
You win the thread. 
Rather than repeat what others have stated…
This
This
This
This
This
To be clear: 95% of everything is crap. With Country Music, a lot of that 95% is taken up by the crap you and the other posters describe.
So? Is that not true about EVERY genre of music? And, like every genre of music, there are excellent examples of it out there.
Country is widely disliked because it is easy to dislike some of the noisier champions of it and paint it with a broad brush. And also because the Country fans who take that dislike personally are likely to wear it like a badge and get feisty - just like the folks who get in line at Chick-Fil-A because they resent the pressure that the company got over its stance on gay marriage, or who stand in line at Paula Deen’s restaurant to show her support.
I totally get why folks dismiss hackneyed, God Bless the USA, Toby Keith jingositic crap. But folks who just throw Country Music out as a whole are missing some fine music.
“A Ghost To Most”- Drive-By Truckers
“Carl Perkins Cadillac”- Drive-By Truckers
“Outfit”-Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit
“Windfall”-Son Volt
“Passenger Side”-Wilco
You get out of here. That verse is golden.
I agree with both of these sentiments. I like Willie and Johnny and Patsy and even Dolly. But I don’t like pop country any more than I like Brittney or Bieber. I also don’t like the stuff that might not be considered pop country but it is the stuff that drastic_quench links to.
As far as the music itself is concerned, I think the biggest reasons I don’t care for it would be 1) the twang (especially the slide guitar, which is ok when it’s just used very occasionally, but it’s featured in country music), 2) it’s generally between down- and mid-tempo music (The Devil Went Down to Georgia is the only song that immediately springs to mind that moves at a nice clip), and 3) I can’t see that there’s much adventurousness in the music. Most songs seem to just go along for 3-4 minutes, and follow the radio-friendly style. Maybe it’s my ignorance to the genre, but do they have many songs that explore sounds for 6, 7, or even 10 minutes without being a live jam version?
The only place you’ll find anything interesting like you’re looking for is with alt-country artists.
“Choctaw Bingo”-James McMurtry
I didn’t know that - interesting.
The reason I remember hearing was that their artistic natures were too different. Once their fame made it possible to play the same songs every night for the rest of their lives, Lester was satisfied to do just that. But Earl wanted to try new things and experiment with different styles, as shown after the split by the formation of the Earl Scruggs Revue with several younger musicians (including his son).
Maybe, but there must not be much a push to put them into the public mainstream since I just keep hearing the “Red, White & Blue I Love My Daughter Let’s Drink Beer At The Pool Hall” stuff. Hearing that there’s some secret trove of great music doesn’t inspire me to slog through all the crap looking for it. With other genres I listen to, the stuff that I feel is good rose to the top on its own.
::smacks forehead and looks around:: if someone had told me that I would be an apologist for Country Music at some point in my life, I would’ve looked at 'em gobsmacked. 
Jophiel - yes, there’s a lot of crap on the radio. I hear a bunch of hip hop crap, rock crap, dance crap. And yeah, country crap - and yeah, a lot of country crap is Tea Party Boner Jamz™. Meh.
Good Country should be full of crossover-famous names that most musically-literate person should’ve at least heard of. Hank Williams. Patsy Cline. Johnny Cash. Willie Nelson, etc. They are “stuff that is good that rose to the top on its own.”
If you need to reach three decades or further back for examples of “good country” people have heard of, maybe it’s time to abandon the argument.
I was trying to cite Classic names - no different than citing the Beatles or Stones in rock.
Today? Vince Gill, Keith Urban. I really liked the Dixie Chicks. The Civil Wars, Lumineers and their ilk. To be clear - I don’t listen to country music; I can’t given anyone a big tour of the genre. But when I come across these and many other players, it is clear that they have excellent songcraft, superior music skills and know how to sell a song without wrapping it in rank sentimentality. That’s cool by me.
I wouldn’t classify the Lumineers as country. More of a folk-rock type. I’m more likely to see them on VH1’s Saturday countdown than CMT’s. That’s just me though; I suppose the lines are blurry enough that an argument can be made for whatever.
Country music is marketed to those who feel disenfranchised by other genres. A lot of the compositions lag 5-20 years behind the pop cycle. This attracts listeners who may feel left behind when pop cycles change. The whole God-country-drinking beer-working folks lyrical schtick is marketed to folks for whom that attitude is a source of pride (they may not have much education/money/sophistication, but by gum they’re superior in some way!).
Like a lot of other music, when it is good, it’s very good, but when it’s bad, it’s horrid.
Could you direct me to some good examples? Love hearing new (to me) good music.