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For Those Times When Only Real Country Music Can Save You
Yes, I said real
It has been pretty well established that I am a grumpy old bastard, and while this trait is enormously helpful when writing rants, it does make navigating the world as it is today a bit of a challenge. I encountered just such a challenge recently when I fell into a funk that Springsteen could not pull me out of and The Smiths couldn’t make me glad to be in. There is only one solution in times like this: country music. The problem came when I had the bright idea of adding a few current country stars to my already existing playlist.
If you know me, you may have already guessed where I’m going with this. I quickly found that there are no current “country” stars because there is no current country music. Having a mullet, a cowboy hat, and a drawl while singing about how your woman left your heart in the mud, all to a K-Pop beat with a fiddle added is not country. If you don’t believe me, believe Alan Jackson, who sums it up nicely here.
And what the hell is up with these exaggerated drawls anyway? Every one of these guys today sound like they just walked out of a Mississippi cornfield when they sing (even if they’re from Houston, where the folks sound the same as people from Phoenix or L.A.). It’s like they’re going out of their way to sound like freaking hicks.
Here’s the test these new so-called country artists should have to pass. If they can survive one night playing in a roadhouse bar in Greenville, South Carolina or Macon, Georgia or Lufkin, Texas then they can continue. The ever-popular “stadium country” is not going to cut it there, because country music was never meant for stadiums. It is meant for smoky bars, American Legion halls, the front porch on a summer night, and those times when Bruce and Morrissey simply can’t help you.
If you’re really desperate to defend current country you might be tempted to use this argument: you can dance to it, just like the old stuff. Here’s why that dog won’t hunt: I was in a country bar outside Austin one night many years ago, and when the band took a break the DJ decided to play rock instead of country. Everyone kept right on dancing, except now they were doing the two-step to “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Enter Sandman.” True story.
