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A Country Serenade
While people may argue about their tastes in music, it is hard to argue that Country music does not rule the current roost when it comes to story-telling. While pop music may attempt to be clever, country is up-front and brash. Increasingly produced and polished, country fans all look for heart-wrenching lyrics; even the menfolk. Even the upbeat songs often have a melancholy core. It is a beautiful trait of country music that goes way back when it moved away from folk.
We pay homage to the greats: Dolly, Johnny, Willie. Different varieties of country, but the greats stand together in their times. Patsy. Hank. Reba. Loretta…. the litany is long and a tribute to our common American experience.
But those that inherited the genre did not completely betray it. While more produced and palatable for people who can’t stand the banjo or slide guitar, the heart is still there. At its core country is about the normal people. It is about normal experiences normal people have.
It isn’t about riding in a private jet or having the most expensive champagne. It isn’t about the truck or the pool. It’s about buying your first home. It’s about hating your job. It’s about losing your mother. It’s about calling home. It’s about running away from home. It’s about wanting to, but staying.
If you despise country music, I defy you to not find at least one song that deeply resonates. I have a few, but this one came on the radio the other day and it rang true. A little country serenade for One of the Good Ones.
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Published in General
Also, I have to say this: I love the song but the video kinda ruins it for me. Her gestures are obnoxious. Some of the live performances are better because they’re less produced, but she does this inflection thing live (when a producer isn’t there to rein her in) that’s annoying. That said: it’s a great song. The writing is excellent. Fight me.
Agree.
Even with eyes closed to block out the obnoxious video, the continuous stream of phony, standard mass-production vocal gestures of country music–the vocal fry, cry-in-your-voice vocal attacks, swoops, ostentatious nasalization, faked back-country grammar, and faked twangs–are too obnoxious to allow me to listen to the rest of the song.
I think I would like the song if I read the lyrics, or if I heard it sung by an authentic country singer recorded by an authentic country music lover.
Country has become a polluted commercialized stream that started out clean and pure in the mountains, years ago.
Ah.
But there is where I disagree with you.
It’s all commercial. What are you, some kind of hipster? It’s not real country, unless it’s on vinyl and made 40 years ago? C’mon. Country does not have to be over produced.
My point was more that regardless of production quality (which has increased and yes, commercialized), the core is still better than a large swathe of popular music.
ACOA warning on that last video, guys. “Whiskey Lullaby” is not for anyone who is in tenuously in recovery or deals with these issues.
Another great song, and yes, twangy (but that’s because they’re from Tex-AS) in truth:
And not overproduced one bit.
I never heard of anyone not liking the banjo or slide guitar. Do such people exist?
A wonderful song about how a lot of girls feel. People on the right missed the point entirely and banned it from Country radio because it was a lesbian (?) song. It’s not about being with a girl. It’s about being the girl. It’s about having a huge crush on someone because you wish so badly that you were that person and you could inhabit their body. Again, another song that any girl over the age of 11 has experienced.
The guy’s probably sawing on the wrong side of the line.
Oh sweet Jesus yes. Slide guitar can go away. UGH. Banjo…not as much. But I did have a dog that violently despised it. Ironically, she was bred in Kentucky.
…she was also racist.
Still, great dog. But you could literally chase her down the hallways playing Mumford and Sons because she was repelled by it.
Want some of the new class of menfolk? Last few years, Brothers Osborne have been hitting it big. More than the pretty boy Dierks Bentley, they write songs Cash would be proud of.
No, the original Country wasn’t at all. It was folk music: music of, for, and by the people. In this case, the country people.
And the historical commercialization process occurred in two stages that served two opposite purposes. One was to transmit, unaltered, the beauty that was discovered in the provinces to the urban public for the benefit of all three parties. The second was to alter what the country people created, and alter the tastes of the city people, for the benefit of the commercializers and to the detriment of the other two parties.
No, not any kind. Hipsters have neither respect nor understanding of me, and though I respect and admire them as human beings, the qualities of hipsterism which distinguish them cause me to respect them less than I otherwise would. I grew up with their parents, the hippies, and I felt the exact same way about them.
Not at all!
The music, and not the medium of transmission, determines the quality of the music.
If you mean that the best country songs produced today are better than the large swathe of popular music, I agree.
No. It was folk music. But once they realized that it would sell (you know, back in 1950 or so), but the first big selling album was back in the 1920’s. So this sort of provincial music idea is not exactly right. If you’ve ever tried to make it in music, you understand that part of it is writing and part of it is audience. Who are you writing for and do you appeal to them? The next is a matter of getting paid for it. It was commercialized early. Do you think that Hank wasn’t commercialized? Do you think that The Carters weren’t commercial?
I think you have a serious misconception about it. This is music that has been recorded and produced for the masses since before the 1920’s. It became more and more popular as the areas the music was from started to be slightly less country and slightly more urban; the reach was greater. Instead of just people out on the farms listening to albums, the music reached across the city centers and started to appeal. Country was changed to appeal more and people changed to like country more because the pop and rap music no longer appealed. It no longer related to the experiences they were having of living, working, getting married, struggling. It all related to a lifestyle that was aspirational at best.
What you are spouting is the same as hipsters. “I liked it before it was cool” aka: “I liked it before they made money”. It’s anti-capitalism at it’s worst.
By and large, country music is what could have happened to pop music if it forewent electronica and grunge.
Wow, TRN. Why have you been sitting on this?
There are some of the “honky-tonk” type songs where I really didn’t care for the over-application of steel or slide guitar, but when it’s done well, it is excellent. I’ve never heard a Lee Roy Parnell song where I thought it should have had less slide guitar. As a couple of examples of slide guitar mastery:
As for the pedal steel guitar, check out some of these Alan Jackson songs. In the first one it’s used sparingly and to lovely effect.
The pedal steel is used a lot more in this one, and it would be a lesser song without it.
I’ve always loved this song. The lyrics are genius.
Another great song. Yes I had to explain it to my hubby. People don’t listen.
I don’t think one can discuss country music unless George Jones is in the mix.
And how come Dwight is so overlooked lately?
Not rap? Or did you mean white people?
I’m glad you didn’t say rap music.
Now I’m going to have to write a post about *that*….