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Who should we blame for Bro Country?

GhostOfTomJoad

By GhostOfTomJoad
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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 30731

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Posted
On 8/22/2018 at 8:44 AM, Mileslong said:

Yoakam, I should never misspell my favorite country artist. Dwight can rock the best of them but he’s never too far from fiddles, mandolins and steel guitar

Haha, yeah, I have to check.  I had a client from Yoakum, Texas, whose name incorporated Yoakum.  I would constantly find myself typing "yoakam" in their documents.

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Ollie Slatt

Ollie Slatt 289

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Posted (edited)
On 8/18/2018 at 7:07 AM, deadshank said:

The Nashville machine is to blame.

This seems like the correct answer to me.  However, I reject the premise that seems to be present in most of the posts on this thread that mainstream country used to be really good and lost its way somewhere in the 90s/2000s.  The Nashville machine and country radio are doing the same thing they have always done . . . market to America's rubes.  And guess what, rubes often have bad taste.   

And so much really good country music made over the years was so different from the Nashville sound of the day that it had to be classed as some sub-genre to differentiate it (Bakersfield country; cosmic country; outlaw country, neo-traditional, Americana, etc.).  

Guys like Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, and Townes never had commercial success.  Even most of Willie's best albums (with some exceptions like Redheaded Stranger) were commercial flops.  The country crowd was too busy listening to Kenny Rogers and Glen Campbell.  There are obvious exceptions (I know Dwight, Buck, Dolly, Loretta, and other greats all had commercial success among the mainstream country masses), but most country fans have had bad taste for many decades.    

Edited by Ollie Slatt
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Bill Brasky

Bill Brasky 1415

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I blame people.   They are the dipshits that go to the concerts and buy the cd's therefore giving their approval of the product.

I also go back to the "I was country when country wasn't cool", at whatever point in time it became cool to like country every one jumped on the bandwagon.  It didn't matter that it was light rock or adult contemporary or pop flying under the flag of country, as long as the person listening to it felt they were country it made them feel special.  It didn't matter if they lived in the suburbs and drove a honda accord.   

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Fondren & Main

Fondren & Main 6552

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You guys sound like angry men yelling at clouds in this thread lol.

I think bro country’s time has come and gone.  Country seems to be shifting towards blues and r&b now.  It’s not even really country music any more.  I do like some of the songs though.

Midland is a pretty awesome band.  14 Gears whips ass.

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Mileslong

Mileslong 4663

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You guys sound like angry men yelling at clouds in this thread lol.
I think bro country’s time has come and gone.  Country seems to be shifting towards blues and r&b now.  It’s not even really country music any more.  I do like some of the songs though.
Midland is a pretty awesome band.  14 Gears whips ass.


Liking good music doesn’t mean you an angry old man. This isn’t good music, it’s shit, and you’ve have no taste if you like it, seriously it means you like the same shit teenage girls like.
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Hate

Hate 20040

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I listened to about 30 seconds of “Boys Round Here” by Blake Shelton this morning on the way to work. It may contain the dumbest lyrics I’ve ever heard in a song. “Chewing tobacco, chewing tobacco, chewing tobacco, spit”. Really? Where did all of the real song writers go?

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 25771

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OK, first you write a song.

Have a band of white guys who don't know many black guys perform it, with the lead singer imitating the accent of an imaginary black guy. That's "rock".

Have a band of white guys who don't know many white people who live in the country perform it, plus a fiddle, and the lead singer says "ain't" a couple extra times. That's "country".

Hire the best musicians to perform it, but forget to tell them what time, so they don't show. Instead, one guy rhythmically mumbles it over a beat. That's "rap".

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Gil Bang

Gil Bang 25514

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On 8/24/2018 at 9:16 AM, Ollie Slatt said:

This seems like the correct answer to me.  However, I reject the premise that seems to be present in most of the posts on this thread that mainstream country used to be really good and lost its way somewhere in the 90s/2000s.  The Nashville machine and country radio are doing the same thing they have always done . . . market to America's rubes.  And guess what, rubes often have bad taste.   

And so much really good country music made over the years was so different from the Nashville sound of the day that it had to be classed as some sub-genre to differentiate it (Bakersfield country; cosmic country; outlaw country, neo-traditional, Americana, etc.).  

Guys like Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, and Townes never had commercial success.  Even most of Willie's best albums (with some exceptions like Redheaded Stranger) were commercial flops.  The country crowd was too busy listening to Kenny Rogers and Glen Campbell.  There are obvious exceptions (I know Dwight, Buck, Dolly, Loretta, and other greats all had commercial success among the mainstream country masses), but most country fans have had bad taste for many decades.    

don't be talking shit about Glen Campbell.  That motherfuckng arkie may be the finest musician to ever hang his hat on the "country" nail.   He's 100% badass.  Fucking Eddie Van Halen wanted guitar lessons from him...I'm not shitting you. 

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irishtexan

irishtexan 11413

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The "Nashville Machine" existed long before bro country, and was responsible for writing and producing many of the great classic country songs by artists we love. The Nashville Machine just writes what will make the Nashville Machine money. 

This is the right answer. 

On 8/17/2018 at 5:37 PM, BoomMF said:

Once he showed how much money there was in the genre, shit went down hill fast.

Killed country music.

Side note: Garth Brooks is awesome. Did you happen to see his solo performance retrospective thing from a few years ago? It was really good.  Almost as good as that This Is Garth Brooks concert from 1992, but for much different reasons.

As soon as everyone figured out how much money was in that kind of shit, it was all over. 

The funny thing is, I used to fucking HATE Garth Brooks and blamed him for it. But I actually think he's aged quite well, especially when you compare him to what passes for popular country music today. 

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po elvis

po elvis 2070

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On 8/27/2018 at 8:10 AM, Hate said:

I listened to about 30 seconds of “Boys Round Here” by Blake Shelton this morning on the way to work. It may contain the dumbest lyrics I’ve ever heard in a song. “Chewing tobacco, chewing tobacco, chewing tobacco, spit”. Really? Where did all of the real song writers go?

There is a contender now from Luke Bryan. "sunrise, sunburn, sunset, repeat". My GF knows to switch that song pronto or I fly into a rage.

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UTCzech III

UTCzech III 2892

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OK a little tldr here...  I've been on a kick lately, converting all our cassettes to digital and getting rid of the tapes/clutter.  My wife is the "new" country fan (unlike "old" country, which is me), so I've been transferring all her tapes first just to get them out of the way.  (Not just country btw, sitting through 3 Bryan Adams tapes and Miami Sound Machine will make just about anybodyslit their writsts...).

Skipping the whole cosmopolitan,urbanization phase (which was mainly older artists trying to stay relevant, Ray Price, Oak Ridge Boys, etc...), the mid to late 80's was actually a pretty decent period, a lot of new traditionalists like Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart, k.d. lang, Lyle Lovett, Clint Black. Ricky Skaggs, Patty Loveless, Suzy Bogguss, Hal Ketchum.  Some of them may have pushed the boundaries, but in a good way (jazz, punk even a little, but it was pure).  Even Garth's first (technically 2nd) album was pretty neo-trad.  But going through all my wife's tapes, it's pretty obvious to me when the shift occurred.  Musically, 2 songs I think turned "country" music toward where it is now - "The Thunder Rolls" and Shania's "Any Man of Mine", 2 horrible rock songs masquerading as country.

Lyrically, it seems like in the mid late 80's, country music began softening, less getting drunk or getting divorced, more I got a good woman, working on a family, lots of "Amen"s and God start popping up in lyrics.  Again with Garth, though, I think it was "Friends in Low Places".  That set the bar, let's just party and have a good time.  Then you had Rodeo, American Honky-Tonk Bar Assoc, Ain't Goin Down till the Sun Comes Up and all that other bullshit, and it's off to the races.  

That's about the time I was done with country.  I'll go see the Derailers or Dale Watson if I need a live fix, otherwise it's just vinyl and CDs for me.  Couldn't tell you a thing about anybody nowadays, well, except this douche.  He played at our annual company party in February, the only way he got people on the floor was when he did an Ac/DC cover,  I assume he's the epitome of all the modern bullshit.  Chas....  Christ.

 

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  • 6 years later...
Paul Wesley

Paul Wesley 3273

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OK, so I'm gonna bump this 6-year-old thread instead of starting my own.  

The local UT radio station is KVET.  Which means that I often listen to the postgame while driving home.  It's just about the only time I listen to terrestrial radio.  But that means that on Sunday when I start my car, modern country invades my silo.  Outside of that, my experience with the genre would be limited to trips to Walmart to buy a new car battery, and maybe the Jumbotron.  

So anyway... for 20+ fucking years, I am just stunned at how much the music sucks.  I have soundhound on my phone, and about half my searches for the past two decades are on autumn Sunday mornings/afternoons, just to find out who the offending "artist" is that *made* this shit.  

Today, it was the wildly auto-tuned parody-of-itself first line of a song:  "A beer has got 12 ounces."  

It turns out the guilty party is Luke Combs.  

And I just want to offer this thesis statement:  Modern country is the single worst genre of music in the history of America.  That would have been my subject headline had I not found a similar thread to bump.  

And I'm not saying that other genres are good, or that other genres don't have cynical mercenaries producing trash in the name of "art."  I'm just saying modern country is the worst, and 100% of the musicians and engineers making it are cynical mercenaries.  Just about all of them are ridiculously talented musicians.  Mick to Rocky:  "You had the talent to become a good fighter, and instead of that, you became a leg breaker to some cheap second rate loan-shark." 

Yoko Ono spent decades screeching and making dolphin noises, and it's utterly unlistenable, but at least she was making a sincere effort toward producing something with artistic merit.  

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 45056

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Yesterday I complained on the (pre) game thread that my ears were being polluted with bro country when they went to breaks.  I mean, I guess if someone invents a way to make a shit ton of money roofing houses they don't have to have any particular reason to make those roofs anything but functional, but I find the bro country movement terribly depressing.  I don't even get the feeling that a Jason Aldean or Luke Bryan would feel any shame having a conversation with Sturgill or Jason or Brandi.  They would just be proud that they have bigger investment portfolios.  They're not artists, they're business people.  They don't even sing that well, and they don't write anything.

Edited by jimmyjazz
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G650

G650 13063

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20 minutes ago, Paul Wesley said:

OK, so I'm gonna bump this 6-year-old thread instead of starting my own.  

The local UT radio station is KVET.  Which means that I often listen to the postgame while driving home.  It's just about the only time I listen to terrestrial radio.  But that means that on Sunday when I start my car, modern country invades my silo.  Outside of that, my experience with the genre would be limited to trips to Walmart to buy a new car battery, and maybe the Jumbotron.  

So anyway... for 20+ fucking years, I am just stunned at how much the music sucks.  I have soundhound on my phone, and about half my searches for the past two decades are on autumn Sunday mornings/afternoons, just to find out who the offending "artist" is that *made* this shit.  

Today, it was the wildly auto-tuned parody-of-itself first line of a song:  "A beer has got 12 ounces."  

It turns out the guilty party is Luke Combs.  

And I just want to offer this thesis statement:  Modern country is the single worst genre of music in the history of America.  That would have been my subject headline had I not found a similar thread to bump.  

And I'm not saying that other genres are good, or that other genres don't have cynical mercenaries producing trash in the name of "art."  I'm just saying modern country is the worst, and 100% of the musicians and engineers making it are cynical mercenaries.  Just about all of them are ridiculously talented musicians.  Mick to Rocky:  "You had the talent to become a good fighter, and instead of that, you became a leg breaker to some cheap second rate loan-shark." 

Yoko Ono spent decades screeching and making dolphin noises, and it's utterly unlistenable, but at least she was making a sincere effort toward producing something with artistic merit.  

Praise The Lord Applause GIF

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DougO

DougO 5223

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Pretty much every legit genre of music is dead now, replaced by recycled soylent green dreck. Even the shittier popular forms that emerged in the 80s and 90s seem listenable compared to today's regeration.

All you can do is dig through everything you can and sift through the trash to find some hidden gems, both past and present, that were never allowed to by the industry to gain significant play.

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