What the fuck happened to country music?

What the fuck happened to country music?

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classic country music is not the same as country music today.

>implying there isn't a huge country underground

it started taking influence from hip hop and pop

It got better. Fuck you lewronggeneration faggot.

The state of mainstream country today is awful, what the fuck are you talking about? It isn't even country anymore it's pop music about southern US culture.

and it sounds better than ever.

>he thinking growing up in the greatest economic dive since the Great Depression is just as good as living in a booming economy

the roaring 20s have just as much musical output the what are they even called 30s. Kids these days, am I right?

Man, you fantano fags need to fuck off.

The """city""" of Nashville.

Nu-male shit like uncle tupelo and wilco

I bet your idea of "good" modern "country" is fleet foxes and bon Iver

Pop country became a thing

check 'em, fantano fans btfo

youtube.com/watch?v=d1mw4ImMUmQ

I feel you OP

you know what else got better? the systematic oppression of the white working class--the creation and promulgation of a white working class consumer culture based entirely around the purchase of large, secure-credit backed pick-ups and beer. Old boots, new dirt in fact, as I'm sure you know. What once was a pure, folk-based art involving the emotional depth of a heartbroken and lonesome white working class man has become a mass-produced pop-etherea to be listened to and then discarded, repackaged, rebought and sold to the depressed husks of potential-men who are too far gone to accept their emotions, instead believing that the only things a man is allowed to feel is resentment toward different groups and classes of people and toward perceived weakness. Annie and I broke up. I still can't get my mind around that. I keep sifting the pieces of the relationship through my mind and examining my life and trying to figure it out, where did it all go wrong. The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Is that you John Wayne, is this me in fact.

Really makes you think...

If you were alive in the 50's you would have looked down your nose at old school country. If you were to be born thirty years in the future you'd probably think Miranda Lambert is cool (which she is, btw).

You like Hank Williams because you're nostalgic for some tired old anachronistic brand of masculinity based on self-destructiveness, pomade, and whiskey. Your love of Hank Williams is a fashion accessory, no different from a handlebar mustache or a flannel shirt.

What happened to country music is what happens to all music: it evolved. It evolved enough that you no longer think of country from the 50's as ignorant poor person music the way you think of today's country.

You want the authenticity and masculinity of rustic poverty without the stigma. You found something that has aged long enough that it has cool points for you to mine, and dammit you're gonna mine them.

I WANT SOMETHING TO EAT

m8, a lot of the complaints about country music these days - at least country pop has nothing to do with the fact the players are "white trash", if anything the complaint is that they AREN'T of the country lifestyle.

And it should be noted that Charlie Parker dug Hank Williams Sr while Lucinda Williams has said in interviews she tries to not listen to modern pop country.

nostalgia has nothing to do with it. There is good country being made today it just happens that most of the mainstream stuff is pure garbage

I remember being 15 and being so retarded that i unironically believed anti-lwg and that somehow music has always remained 100% consistent in its quality throughout various trends and time periods

I remember being 19 and having no concept of what life is like having prominent good music aside from records.

Tell me, in what shape or form does Taylor Swift even try to present herself as a member of the white working class?

Music in general sucks now

Your dumb dude. Read it again

Oh, mister I-can't-spell-you're, you called me dumb. I guess I'll have to talk your word for it.

Pop music made to sell records, but it's better than having no music. The only known alternative for lots of people is a form of hip-hop which we all know.

>wtf is Coltrane bro
>wtf is Vivaldi bro
>wtf is jungle bro
>2pac? I love only God can judge me
>yes bro, lil Wayne seriously runs the game
>drake is probably my favorite artist

>Adele is probably my favorite artist
>21 piolets is probably my favorite artist

>yeah bro I love the Beatles
>pink Floyd is awesome

True lads

Lil Wayne did run the game at one point

like 80% of the music i listen to was released in the past 16 years, but modern country is still shit. most people would agree on this.

you stopped looking for it

>Your

Everybody in every side of this argument apparently needs to be told there's an underground country scene still alive, authentic, masculine and most of all, listenable.

rateyourmusic.com/list/CrushDepth/keepin_it_real_in_country_music__zombie_edition_/

IT GOT BETTER

Drive-By Truckers are fucking amazing, been really on them and Lucero the past few days

You anti-lwg are the most pretentious head up your own ass most insufferable cunts. When someone asks what happened to X, they are not talking about underground, but as a whole. No fucking shit every genre has an underground scene more engaged than the mainstream. I shouldn't have to look into underground anything just to get the best out if a genre. The fact that Jason Aldean is what passes as country nowadays makes ops question extremely valid. Holy shit youre such a faggot pointing out the obvious and acting smug over it

what do you guys think about sturghill?

seems alright but i'm not getting why he's being hyped up so much

Chris Stapelton, Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell have all charted in the past three years.

And those are just the ones the indie mags have taken a liking to/I've heard about through Sup Forums and rym.

In fact, Isbell's most recent releases topped the country charts. I'll admit I didn't know that until I looked it up just now.

Actually, all three of their most recent albums have topped the country charts. That's three modern artists who're well-liked by country fans on Sup Forums and have literally been some of the best selling country artists in the past two years.

He looks like a monstrous faggot.

As usual, no self awareness, no insight, defies previous words just to be able to further look smug and passively neutral when desperately trying to look smart. You are such a massive piece of shit dude, the absolute worst kind of person there is.

This. Trad. Country stalwarts are content to grow old and die with the artists they already know and love. It's true that you get less adventurous musically once you hit your 30's.

A lot of Alt-Country is pretty good. Stuff like Big Blood, Bonnie Prince Billy, 16 Horsepower, The Immortal Lee County Killers, Those Poor Bastards, Hank Williams III.

Fuck HWII.

No its not

>they don't know...

I gave you three examples to disprove your point. These artists aren't even alt-country, they're in the mainstream - as in, perform and win at the CMAs country.

You really want to go at this? There was plenty of shitty country back in the day, just listen to Conway Twitty's Tight Fitting Jeans (which topped the charts as well). The issue of what "what passes as country" has been around as long as country has been an established genre. Patsy Cline had more in common with the music of Frank Sinatra and the other trad pop artists of her day than she did Chet Atkins or Bobby Bare - and that was used as a criticism of her in own day. A huge portion of what's considered "good" by most country fans, even fans of the older examples of the genre was just as underground as the alt-country artists nowadays. Guy Clark charted for the first time this decade, just for an example. Townes Van Zandt never charted in his lifetime, not unless you count cover versions of his songs.

It's a testament to the fact that you have nothing really worth to say in this argument that you're attacking my character instead of the points in my post.

he looks like a rat senpai

because you're a sheltered bitch.

>It isn't even country anymore it's pop music about southern US culture.
Which is what mainstream country music has been since the late 60s.

Sorry bud. You didn't roll wuints, therefore my original point stands. Thanks for playing tho.

This has to be bait. You sound like the faggot hicks I work with at my job.

Please compare:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=-zBzZJd-nfw

m.youtube.com/watch?v=crCqWK3SmRo

it sounds like shit

user, that Marty Robbins album is from the late 50s.

>the systematic oppression
stopped reading here. fucking hate retards who don't know the difference between 'systematic' and 'systemic'

This isnt even true
Just because you think it is doesn't make it so
Please stop being a pseud and spouting your bullshit everywhere

youtube.com/watch?v=eR4KcO_MovE

"classic" country

Country is the only genre that is objectively shit. Or at least the only genre that instead of fluctuating in quality, dramatically got worse over time.
There are still some great alt country artists today but for the most part its a shit genre.

Man... reddlt

Another victory to add in your book of intellectual prowess

How about some Townes Van zandt then?
m.youtube.com/watch?v=l4zfEkKs2ZM

My god. You really cant stop preaching obvious shit, can you? Whatever, you'll grow out of your edgy pseud "pass off the obvious in a tldr" phase like I did after 15.

Scratch that, youre literally retarded. Do you really think people that miss trad country don't know shit like not all of it was good, and thst some it is worse than modern stuff?

BABY YOU A SONG YOU MAKE ME WANNA ROLL MY WINDOWS DOWN

m8 listen Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Hillbilly Music vol 1-26 if you don't believe me. It's an anthology series showing all the big country hits (as well as the historically relevant hits) from 1945 to 1971. You can hear the influence of Nashville and pop, yes, pop, on country.

You could argue that maybe modern country pop is worse in quality than country pop from back in the day but it's a fact that this criticism has been directed to country music since before our parents were born.

Reread my post. Townes wasn't mainstream in his day.

There's enough crap from back in the day and enough good these days that it's just about equal is what I'm saying and the exact same critiques you're using were used when the classic artists were just getting on their feet.

it died, randy travis and alan jackson revived it for a while, but now were left with crap. it really fell through when jason aldean turned it into pop music and started including rap.

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This is my local country station. This is what real working class whites across the country on a daily basis.

its not even about southern us culture anymore. literally it created its own fantasy culture of people drunk 24/7, driving lifted dually's, and cheating on eachother. that ain't southern culture.

Ok, unlike rock music where there's good shit that isn't butt rock on the radio, it's harder to find modern country artists in the underground that differ from the mainstream. The only one I can think of of note is sturgill simpson.

it's systematic because there's been an orchestrated conspiracy to keep white working class wage slaves and addicted to high fluoride corn syrup and consumerism.

See Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell.

youtube.com/watch?v=4zAThXFOy2c
youtube.com/watch?v=NaUCDqWzy1k

Honestly, I don't really find Sturgill Simpson THAT different from other country. He's a good artist sure, and his subject matter is a bit more out here than most other country artists today, but it's not like he's re-writing the outlaw bible. He's damn good though, that's for sure.

It's about trailer park and farm kid rural white culture. Drinking down by the river, high school football, hunting, church, more drinking, sex, and the disenfranchisement of rural and working class white Americans economically and politically.

I don't particularly enjoy modern county or agree with it's political themes, but that's what it's about.

Rap-country is a thing because redneck kids love rap almost as much as country and have for a while, it was common at my high school for a lifted old truck with hunting decals to be blasting Juicy J or Lil' Wayne.

>it's systematic because there's been an orchestrated conspiracy to keep American working class wage slaves and addicted to high fluoride corn syrup and consumerism.

ftfy

Thanks. That "and" was used to create an approximation of the mood of ambiguity that stems from the conspiracy though

Slightly off-topic, but I've always thought a genuine country/hip-hop album could be great. They have many of the same themes and tropes, if someone could put them together for a concept album it'd be good.

>literally it created its own fantasy culture
I grew up in middle class suburban Connecticut, every popular jock kid was into country like this and "being country" was a persona kids adopted same as being skater or a metalhead. Kids I knew lived in McMansions were "country" for driving trucks and having dads that owned construction companies. It was absurd

I'm going to be called out for being smug by that one user but this isn't really all that new, it's just changed its face. Townes Van Zandt and Gram Parsons, just for two really, really easy examples were from millionaire families and made a point out of living the "country" lifestyle.

Is it just me or has this year been fucking awesome for country?

Is this country?
youtube.com/watch?v=CNbXvD7J6y8

where is it

...

i was going to make a thread asking that verything. Is this a good year we're having? A very good year? Or a great year/ So, so much great stuff I can't decide. As usual Alt. Country turns in a great year. Might even earn Genre of the Year by default seeing ashow every other music genre has been off including, surprisingly, Hip-Hop, which was so huge last year.

Has anything topped this yet?

youtube.com/watch?v=h7wWinwIKnI

Great record. I'm more of an acoustic country boy myself but I can recognize excellence when i hear it. Right now I'm hung up on the demos from the last Robert Ellis album. I hate to say it but some of them sound better than the official release, especially the title track which still kills me.

youtube.com/watch?v=WK3xkvH8I8I

>I'm more of an acoustic country boy myself
youtube.com/watch?v=MWrTf7i9uSQ

pretty cool so far. gonna check out his new one after this.

Dylan LeBlanc is probably the closest thing I've gotten into this year.
youtube.com/watch?v=yOu2iZn5xeM

This new one is fucking awesome. I'd go see him this weekend but I have to work.

youtube.com/watch?v=NF69qkvxy7g

kek chris stapleton, i'm sorry as good as he sounds he's got the shitest lyrics. atleast he's easy on the ears, it's the same with hozier though, you have these artists who sound amazing but there's no substance.

Try Hank III

This is true in that my parents certainly looked down at country as whiny working class garbage. However, I would say it has absolutely become increasingly thematically and musically formulaic. I've always thought it mirrors what happened to gangsta rap, and to some extent hip hop in general, after the mid-90s.

and it's worth noting that this has been happening to country music since at least the mid-70s, it's not just a contemporary issue

Well said

Is Doc Watson /country/? Particularly this kind of country blues

youtube.com/watch?v=Y1q4Eb34mwM

It's also worth noting that the dislike shown to today's commercial rap garbage is the exact same argument. Modern country radio and modern urban radio are two sides to the ame coin, both playing to ignorance and division enforced by a monolithic corporate state that profits from said division. Of course, Hank Williams and Otis Redding and Marty Robbins and Marvin Gaye had more class. We all did, once.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Aldean#Discography

Jason Aldean (2005)
Relentless in Racism (2007)
Wide Open to White Supremacy' (2009)
Mah Kahnda Pawty (2010)
Night Train to Georgia (2012)
Old Slavery, New Supremacy (2014)
They Don't Know that I'm a Hardcore Racist (2016)

He's objectively right, I worked on a major upcoming documentary about the genre, and that was the general consensus among historians, critics, and artists. The genre's mainstream has been increasingly fused with pop and rock, and therefore increasingly audibly detached from the sounds that defined it since before 1930. This has been ongoing since the late 60s, if not prior to that. The state of popular country during the last 20 years, as a whole, is such that at the time I was on the documentary project, the plan was hardly to cover contemporary country at all. The implication being that it is so far from its roots, it is an now an entirely different genre. Pop-rock with (often lewd) rural white American themes addressed with the shallowness of an electro-pop or contemporary hip hop party anthem.

It is perfectly OKto point out the current underground scene, but harping on its simple existence distracts from a legitimate and interesting discussion regarding the evolution of this genre in particular, the commercialization of genres in general, and the tendency of our media to exploit America's poor, working class cultures for entertainment.

The romantic, fantasy aspect is totally a huge selling point of modern country. Let's not forget how many females still dream of getting railed by a well-groomed cowboy. For many women, country is the equivalent of an erotic or romantic paperback

greatest song ever written about san antonio

youtube.com/watch?v=-7pMk4MiGj4
Published on Feb 24, 2016

greatest song ever written about a blackout

youtube.com/watch?v=qtZQF9XckYM
Published on Jan 16, 2016

Obviously, everybody knows he is a flamboyant homosexual, it's part of his persona

it's hiding behind the le edgy goth scene

classic country is closer to folk then what we now know as country