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Rock and classical enthusiasts always looked down on country music as if it were un-cool and hickish...They had a prejudice towards it. If you go to roots country you will find the most honest and heart felt music in the world. Same can be said for roots blues...it's the real thing without pretense.
People thought that it was for truckers and country drunks driving pick ups...over the years country has evolved into a very slick and sophisticated sound. If you take a listen to the production it is second to none- and the musicianship surpasses most pop players.
I don't make a habit of listening to it but I do know that if I did I would get hooked on it...From the hill billy lament to Taylor Swift...the stuff is great- Caught my self listening to some pop country- in fact is was "That don't Impress Me Much"---being a musician I listened ever so carefully to the way the tune was produced- it was absolutely brilliant...bar none.
It was better and more skill fully put together than to days mainstream pop. Country music has come a long way and no one should put it down, If they do- it is they that are the hicks from the sticks.
Perhaps the funniest example was Bob Dylan - granted not a country singer, but who couldn't have sounded more phony had he been trying to sound phony.
Bob Dylan sucks at singing...but his lyrics and songs are pure poetry...pure genius. And actually the brilliance of his lyricism actually makes his singing tolerable in my eyes. I think he is an amazing artist and creator that stands out in society as not being someone who is mainstream yet he is admired by many. A very hard feat to pull off- being who you are and not selling out and at the same time appealing to more than the outliers.
Given the choice between a vocally trained American Idol winner and Bob Dylan...no contest. To me an artist and someone I admire is whole...a creator from the heart not just a trained performer that learns all the right tricks.
No one in the corporate country community wants to sing about the hardships of country life. The long hours of hard word work or the family that loses their farm because they can’t compete with the corporate farms. These topics are persona non grata in Nashville. Nashville portrays country life as one big booze-filled party with tons of babes, trucks, and mud. Maybe one day in the distant future, some kid will go rummaging through family storage and happen across a Legendary Shack Shakers CD or a Hank Williams vinyl and discover once again what music is.
I find my roots in hating country music stem from Garth Brooks (yeah, I know I'll get heat for that).
Besides, go look at the words to "Itty Bitty" by Alan Jackson, and tell me the lyrics, not to mention the title alone, aren't the most uninspired writing of all time. To think that song got and still gets airplay, well, there you have the basis for hating on country music.
Why do people hate country music so much? The full explanation and true stories why are off topic. Real life is off topic. So is not seeing a raise for five years and more blood, sweat and tears than B100 can muster up in todays top 20 played over and over and over again until the songs are wore out. By the way, the A/C doesn't work in the old truck, nor does it even have a CD player. It's a bone stock AM/FM "cracker" that sucks. Too real for B100.................
I have always liked Johnny Cash. He doesn't sound "country" to me. In fact I think he has more in common with the Beatles than say...Garth Brooks.
Well, the Beatles are more country than Garth Brooks, so there you go.
I've been a fan of country music pretty much all my life, but off and on over the years there have been periods of time where I had no affection for the contemporary sound of the day. The "disco country" era of the late 1970s and the "hat act" era of the mid-1990s are two examples.
Today's "soundalike" era is another. I can't tell one young male country singer from another based on vocal style, phrasing, or lyrical content.
Years ago Steve Goodman wrote a song that was a big hit for David Allan Coe that was the perfect country and western song, except that it didn't say anything about mama, trains, trucks, prison, or gettin' drunk until he wrote a final verse that included these subjects. Today's perfect "country" song (nothing "western" about it anymore) apparently would have to include tailgates, bonfires, lakes, dirt roads, and gettin' drunk. I'm dead serious here, apparently there has to be at least one song on the country charts at all times that mentions all of these subjects, I heard another one yesterday for the first time.
Lack of depth is a key as well. There's a 3+ minute song about a guy dropping a girl off after a date, walking back to his car, then going back to the house because he decided he should have kissed her. That's it. It's a duet, one verse from each person's viewpoint. First time I heard it I thought it was okay; the vocals are good, tight harmonies on the chorus, they really convey the emotion well, arrangement and instrumentals are good (as someone mentioned, they usually are in today's country), but after the song was over I just sat there and thought "That's it??"
When I really want to listen to country music it's John Prine, Dale Watson, or some "moldy oldies." I also like bluegrass and western/cowboy music (Ian Tyson, Chris LeDoux, etc.). Those genre's are pretty far removed from today's country, though.
I like country music because it's humble, simple, real, and vastly different and separate from the rest of popular culture. It relates to basic human experiences and life in a simple way, a real culture and way of living, and country artists hold themselves and their music to a higher (different?) standard than most other popular genres, which I think is at least partly due to the casual Christian influence. Yes, it's become a bit more mainstream and less distinct in the past couple of decades, but it still remains very different and separate. I think this is the reason so many people don't even give it a chance and say things like "except country". If you grow up in the city or suburbs, especially outside of areas with people who are first or second generation city people, and have no connection to anything rural, you won't have any reason to consider country music - no exposure. A lot of people don't see it this way, but I think having rural connections is a privledge. If you and your family and friends are fully urbanized with no rural connections, especially as a kid, you don't get to experience what it's like to be out in the country in the middle of the night on a porch, or what's it's like to go mess around down by a river or creek, or what a small-town dynamic is like, or just what it's like to live "easy", etc. etc. I have a lot of experience being out in the country, on a farm, on a ranch, and in a small town, and most of those connections are severed. I didn't know how lucky I was to have those experiences until they were gone. But some people even intentionally dive into middle-class/urban/mainstream culture to cut ties with their more rural backgrounds of which they may be ashamed of, taking pride in being a city person. Ultimately, I think there's a big divide between urban and rural and that plays a role in the dislike of country music. I think some of this stuff I've mentioned is why liberal-minded people have such a hard time understanding conservatives and vice-versa. Anyway, my favorite is 90's country and artists from the 90's. It's what my dad listened to when I was growing up, when we were cruising in the Corvette or the 40 Chevy.
After continuing to read the comments in this thread, I'd like to add that "country" is like a sub-culture in and of itself - which I've sort of described in the above quote - separate from the modern mainstream. While humility and having appreciation for and enjoying the simple things in life are central to the subculture, it transcends socio-economic class. I've seen comments in this thread that seem to suggest some believe country folks are all poor and uneducated, which is simply not the truth. Country folks span the socio-economic spectrum. Everything from blue-collar, working-class individuals who are happy with who they are and enjoying their place in life rather than self-loathing, to college-educated, middle-class office workers, to upper-middle class business owners, farmers, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals, and even upper-class farmers, politicians, ranchers, oil magnates, whatever. In my opinion, these folks typically interact with the rest of society better and are more in touch, no matter how educated or successful they are. Unfortunately, it's typically only in the South and Texas that that you visibly see highly-educated professionals who have retained their culture and personalities. In the North and elsewhere, unfortunately, their culture is snubbed and disencouraged - thus you don't don't find many Yankee professionals with a trophy buck mounted in their office or much interest in things like hunting, fishing, etc. Rather, those things tend to be looked down on and attributed to folks who are unsophisticated, uneducated, or any other derogatory name that can be applied. The Yankee side of things seems to be more about one-upsmanship that is taken very seriously, appearing to be as sophistcated, intellectual, and "cultured" as possible, keeping up with the jonses, and otherwise not appearing "less than" or in any way humble or simple, which traces of can be seen in this very thread. In my opinion, country folks are actually cultured in that they have their own culture. They have cultural solidarity. Cultural attributes. The South and Texas, for example, have much more pronounced cultures that have been carried on rather than abandoned. The North and much of the rest of the country, while having a few strong minority subcultures, is mostly characterized by homogeny, beige. Ultimately, I think there are a lot of great qualities to country music and with the culture it stems from and caters to. So where one poster above said something to the effect "all country music stands for is country"...well, I think that's standing for a lot. I think there are a lot of things to be learned from country music and the culture behind it for those who are open-minded enough to do so. Whereas some folks see shallow things like recurring words or themes in country songs that have to do with drunkeness, partying, etc., I see themes of humility, a love and great appreciation for life and all its blessings, the love of others, the love of the experience of being a human being, etc. With that said, I think a lot of dislike for 'country' is driven by the same reasons dislike for many other things is...not being a part of, not having what they have, a deep maybe even subconcious jealousy and envy. I would liken some of the dislike for country as the same dislike displayed by the masses of students on a college campus toward fraternity and sorority types, or in high school toward the 'popular' crowd. People who are a part of, who are living their lives and have their own thing going on, aren't so worried about other cultures so much as to dislike them.
I have seen on Facebook and other social sites saying that a particular person likes all types of music "except country".
I am just wondering why do people hate country music so much? Much of it know could fall under lite hits. Classic country is beautiful, I mean I thought mostly everyone liked Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton?
I also learned that a lot of people who say they hate country music never really gave the genre a chance. And once I introduced them they instantly became fans of it.
So, why do you love or hate country music? For those who don't like it, have you really listened to it?
Country music seems to have the exact same character it had 60 yrs. ago. Clean up the quality of the recordings and give them truer stereophonic separation and there's no reason for there to be new country singers. Just revive Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Patsy Montana, Kitty Wells, and Bob Willis and you've pretty much got all there is and they're from the 50's! Same themes. Same lyrics. Same sentiment.
By the time Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, and Patsy Cline arrived on the scene, in the 60's, it had already been done. So by the 21st. Century we're talking overkill. It would be like listening to Rock n' Roll's Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Jerry Lee Lewis 60 yrs. later...over...and over...
Country won't go away because it's Jerry Springer-ish voyueristic message of sadness, betrayal, revenge are enduring. Country also is preoccupied with the ideals of conservative values in which men are defined by their machines, women are defined by their daintyness and reliance on men.
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