2013: The Year Country Music Died

[Jack-Hammer]

I don't usually post in here but, for some strange reason, a notion just popped into my head out of the blue concerning the quality of music, especially music that's considered to be mainstream. Maybe I'm a little slow on this while many others have long since come to this conclusion, but it just suddenly struck me how uniform and cookie cutter the music industry has become. I think that's been especially true over the past couple of years, this year especially.

I was reading an article at Entertainment Weekly.com the other day in which the writer was listing his top 10 picks for the best country music albums of 2013. I was looking over the list and only about half the albums mentioned were from artists I've heard of and the ones I had heard of aren't really thought of as mainstream these days. The biggest star, commercially, on the list is Brad Paisley, who's been a chart topper since the late 90s. Compared to what was on the radio in 2013, Paisley's style & sound is considerably less pop flavored.

I get that some people aren't into country music at all, it's like that with any genre of music, but it just struck me that 2013 has been a year in which quality seems to be a thing of the past in a lot of music as a whole. Or, I should say quality as it pertains to anything that garners any significant air time on the radio 90% of the time.

A HUGE problem, in my eyes, is that, just as we've seen with pop, hip hop and other genres over the years, it seems that every country song and country recording artist that garners any real radio time sounds the same and is about the same thing: namely pop flavored party anthems about driving trucks, drinking beer, getting buckwild on Friday & Saturday night, then going to church on Sunday all while patched together with some catchy hooks. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good party song as much as anyone, but not when it's every other song that's put out. Not every single act you heard or song follows that formula, but it's become a formula that's become definitive to be considered mainstream these days. It's also about being more of a spectacle than anything else. A song can be absolute crap, but if you have a hot girl running around practically naked in the video for it, then you wind up with a potential hit on your hands.

Whether it's country, rock, R&B or whatever, soooooooooo much of the "mainstream" music & acts seems so friggin' shallow and pointless. It wasn't all that long ago when music, especially country music, seemed to actually be about something. You know the songs had a point to them and told stories about love, happiness, loss, faith, sadness, triumph, the good times, the bad times, pain, contentment. Artists also didn't try to sound exactly alike, thereby making themselves stand out.

I dunno, maybe I'm just developing premature old age but I honestly wouldn't walk to the end of my driveway to hear some of today's top acts do their thing.

 

[klunderbunker]

My mom is a fan of modern country and I have to hear it all the time as a result. Jack-Hammer is absolutely right (shocking I know) in that almost all songs are roughly the same. Her favorite singer, Blake Shelton, had a big hit this year with a song called Boys Round Here. Part of the chorus is as follows:

I'm one of them boys round here
Drinking that ice cold beer
Talking bout girls
Talking bout trucks

That's almost every stereotype mentioned in the opening post and it was possibly the biggest country song of the year. The song is little more than that, but the video featured Shelton's wife's band by a river. The band is called Pistol Annie and all three are good looking women in somewhat revealing outfits. The main part of the video features even more good looking country girls at a cabin. While having next to no depth to the lyrics. the song is incredibly catchy and hard to get out of your head. It's harmless, but there's almost no effort to it at all.

I've heard the rest of Shelton's latest album many times this year as it's all that's on in my mom's car and there's some much better stuff on other tracks. However, it's never going to make it onto the radio because they're actually well made songs instead of catchy stuff with hot women in the video. Such is life in mainstream music.

 

[Harthan]

I was just reading an article about this and indeed, it's true. That article linked to this video:


The maker of the video also wrote this article, indicating that there is perhaps hope:

http://music-mix.ew.com/2013/12/18/best-country-albums-of-2013/

I listened to a few songs off of those albums and it wasn't bad. Country in the modern sense isn't really for me, though I like/appreciate older artists like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams (Sr. and Jr.).

EDIT: KB also makes an interesting point about what's on the radio vs. what else is on the album. I haven't listened personally but I wouldn't doubt it. If anything it says a lot about the state of radio these days, although the songs on the radio are also the best selling singles off the album.

 

[Slash-LN]

It's like that with rock music too. At least where I live it is. Bands like Buckcherry, Nickelback, My Darkest Days all pretty much sing about party type stuff.

When I was a kid my mom listened to a lot of country music so I knew quite a bit from the 80s and 90s.

I also knew some of the really old stuff that my grandma would listen to every once in a while.

From what I understand country music has become almost rock based compared to what it used to be. The only modern country song I can think of off the top of my head is that red solo cup song by Toby Kieth. My brother had it playing once when I was in his truck and it just sounded awful.

In general a lot of mainstream music just sounds generic. The radio songs do anyway. It can be kind of hard to tell bands apart.

 

[Alex]

Being in England I don't listen to much country. But I have listened to some Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond (if he counts) and they're far different to what counts as country now.

I read a few tweets by Todd In The Shadows (who does music reviews) and he's kinda right.

"Country" music has adopted basically every Caucasian genre that went out of style in the mainstream. Folk, adult alternative, classic rock, Southern boogie, easy listening, hair metal... in a few years, Pearl Jam & Sublime will be "country."

This isn't just country music. As Slash pointed out mainstream rock bands do the 'party hard, have fun' songs as well and it's even worse in mainstream R&B and rap.

In general a lot of mainstream music just sounds generic. The radio songs do anyway. It can be kind of hard to tell bands apart.

I have to agree 100% I honestly can barely tell the difference between anything on the radio