Is this the demise of country music today?

[SteelieAJK]

all the same?

[PosterBoy]

It is unless you dig a little deeper. Like most genre's of music you rarely find the good stuff at the surface.

[Malcolm]

Most stuff coming out of Nashville in my opinion is not country unless it involves the likes of Vince Gill or Alan Jackson etc,the rest is basically rock.Try the stuff Heart of Texas Records put out, eg Amber Digby, Bobby Flores etc, real country in my view Probably be told by some that I'm old fashioned and not moving with times, but if I wanted a screaming overdriven distorted guitar I would go to a rock concert..

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

JEEEEEEZ! it took me way too long to hit the KILL switch!!!! I bet the line dancer's will find something to do to it AND love it!!I have a four letter word for it...

[Jason Lynch]

To echo Malcolm, try also georgette jones (She refuses to record anything other than traditional country)
This is quite funny, really. and shows how little thought goes into pop country.

[happyminstrel]

Most stuff coming out of Nashville in my opinion is not country unless it involves the likes of Vince Gill or Alan Jackson etc,the rest is basically rock.Try the stuff Heart of Texas Records put out, eg Amber Digby, Bobby Flores etc, real country in my view Probably be told by some that I'm old fashioned and not moving with times, but if I wanted a screaming overdriven distorted guitar I would go to a rock concert..

I agree with you Malcolm, i prefer the likes of Charley Pride, Loretta Lynn that era
George jones, Alan Jackson, others can move with the times i am happy with my choices
i prefer classic country music!!!! and pedal steel by David Hartley who is imo the best in the World!!!!
atb Brian

[Jif]

My background is not in country music, so I'm basically looking from the outside in. What I would say is that this sort of is not unique to country music IMHO, music in general seems to have been steered down a path of statistically generated "catch" cliches. It all ends up as colourless & bland, sort of like what you end up with when you mix all the colours of Plasticine together.

Everybody likes a catchy tune or riff, but it's better if it happens to be original. It's like they analyse all the big hits and take out the riffs, lyrics etc that they reckon will generate the most sales. That's not music, that's just pure business and money generation and sucks the soul out of "real" music, whatever genre you are talking about.

I have a wide taste in music, generally I like anything that is played with heart, what I can't stand is music solely produced with the cynical aim of raking in a pile of cash. If it is a good song and makes a pile of cash, fair enough, reward for genuine talent.

My hope is that the younger generation will see through or tire of this cynical manipulation of music and something new will break through. As some have pointed out there is a lot of good music out there if you look for it, you just might not hear it on the conventional radio but there's a lot of interesting stuff on internet radio. I came across a Cajun channel broadcasting from New Orleans I think, which featured a lot of music from Cajun bands mainly from the "Deep South" and Canada, a lot of it was in French. Very enjoyable.

To paraphrase Frank Zappa - "Country music is not dead, it just smells funny"

[Will C]

Seems to me that post was a great indictment of how "samey" country has become if you are looking at the commercial output from Nashville - as Alan Jackson sang, "murder's been committed, down on Music Row". But there's still good stuff out there, you just hafta be a bit patient.

[Willie Gamble]

Have a listen to Tea Goans, Two arms two lips too lonely too long............that's the mutts nuts as far as I am concerned

Asleep at the steel

[Will C]

Nice one, she surely has the spirit of trad country. Never hear of Teea Goans before, but I think we'll hear a lot more of her.