What has happened to Country Music?

[Steel Player]

It has become apparent, by some of the posts in this forum, that there is a deep division between people and there idea of what country music is and how it should be played. While there is no doubt that the music has changed over the years, a person has to ask, is it good, bad or just different and who says so. Many lesser known artists themselves have voiced protests over Nashville’s shaping of the music that they want us to think is good. Dale Watson said on a television show once that he was told by Nashville’s executives that he was “too country” to be sold. To me, that is like a judge telling a beauty contestant that she couldn’t win because she is too beautiful so go away. And so we are hearing country music that is being packaged and sold by people that tell us what modern country is. The problem is that so much of the music has changed so that it hardly resembles the humble sounds of what makes a great country song. It has become a flashy, poppish, rockish, slick kind of music that attracts a younger crowd. That is what Nashville wants because it sells. The result is that we are hearing bands more and more on Country radio like Rascal Flatts, Mirand Lambert, Kenny Chesney, and even the Eagles, to mention a few. These artists are great musicians and they possess all the talents to play great Country music but they don’t, or are told not to. Listen to “Murder on Music Row” by George Strait and Allan Jackson. Nashville tried to do the same thing years ago with the slick, orchestrated, sounds that Patsy Cline and Eddy Arnold used to have backing them up. If it weren’t for rebels like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens making their mark on Country Music by recording in Bakersfield, Country Music might have an entirely different look. Country Music is a style of music. If you alter the common threads that tie the songs together they become something else, like another genre. Take for instance Rock and Roll. There is little played these days that resembles old Rock and Roll. So the names have changed. It is now, Grunge, New Wave, Alternative Rock, Punk, Heavy Metal, Pop, just to mention a few. The same has to be said for older country. Now it is Country, Western, Western Swing, Bluegrass, Folk, Country Rock, to mention few. Maybe it is time to divide the term “Country” further to describe what is being sold to us these days. Country Pop, comes to mind but that is just my cynical view. There are still a lot of great artists still playing out there but you are hearing less and less of them. What does everyone else think?

[grissem]

http://www.painetworks.com/photos/gy/gy1986.JPG

[maduro_1]

I went last year, had a great time, and even though I had VIP's I spent most of my time at the Alt Stages. This years line-up is a joke...
It would be nice to see George Jones and Shaver... other than that, it's Nashiville crap.

[Cooter]

:rolleyes:

[Seattle]

Fortunately for the Stagecoach festival organizers and promoters, there are plenty of people that enjoy Nashville Crap. Fortunately for the people that don't enjoy Nashville Crap but still want to go to the festival, there are lots of other "styles" of country music (whether or not they have specific names) at Stagecoach and those stages/areas (at least last year) are much less crowded because the majority of the festival goers are at the Nashville Crap stage. Then there are those fortunate few who actually enjoy and appreciate many styles of music, and Stagecoach is a great weekend for them as they get to hear lots of different "takes" on country music.

I suspect (hope?) there are a lot of folks like me, who aren't terribly concerned with labeling the various types of country music -- we just like what we like, and Nashville can do what it wants -- we'll find the artists who make the kind of music we like (whatever kind that happens to be) and we'll support them.

[Cooter]

i don't even like country music and i go just because i know it is an amazing weekend of fun with my fellow human beings. i go to coachella every year and was so stoked once this festival was announced. where else can you go hang out with 10,000's of thousands of people who are for the most part all in a great mood. def. makes you feel good to walk around and see everyone just put their lives on hold for a couple days to just unwind and have fun, something a lot of people take for granted.

[gaypalmsprings]

Sure is a lot of negativity here. If you don't like the line-up, don't go. If you think country music is a single genre & unchanging, go hide in a cave. Then the rest of us will hoop & holler & have a great time at Stagecoach.

[hillbillyRockstar]

Sure is a lot of negativity here. If you don't like the line-up, don't go. If you think country music is a single genre & unchanging, go hide in a cave. Then the rest of us will hoop & holler & have a great time at Stagecoach.

ditto.

[Broccoli1]

10,000's of thousands of people

man, dat be a lot o' peoples:eek:

[Steel Player]

Sure is a lot of negativity here. If you don't like the line-up, don't go. If you think country music is a single genre & unchanging, go hide in a cave. Then the rest of us will hoop & holler & have a great time at Stagecoach.

First of all, Gay-boy, I never said I didn’t like the line up. My original post was to question the direction of mainstream country and get others opinions on it. Mainstream Country is changing and leaving its traditional roots. It is becoming something else, much like a Led Zeppelin song that has become something else when it is morphed to be played in an elevator. It’s no longer rock and roll. You can call it rock and roll if you want and you can call this new “Nash-pop” country if you want but you are just fooling yourself. Maybe this glitzy, slick, stuff attracts you, like many others, but it is anything but hardcore country. The thing that pisses me off about it is that, in most places, you can’t hear good country on the radio anymore because they are force feeding us this crap. Fortunately there are some good artists out there, like Strait, Jackson, Lawrence, Jones, Haggard, Etc, but you are hearing less and less of them theses days. The thing about Stagecoach is that it has many genres of country music and I will be there listening to them just like last year. You can go to the Mane Stage and listen to your Nash-pop singers where the people are all packed in tight. Hell, you’ll probably like that.

[Cooter]

much like a Led Zeppelin song that has become something else when it is morphed to be played in an elevator. It’s no longer rock and roll.

i still throw the devil horns in the air...

[gaypalmsprings]

I like Dolly Parton's version of Stairway to Heaven

[Steel Player]

I like Dolly Parton's version of Stairway to Heaven

So do I. I also like Dolly's version of Seven Bridges Road too but I think I like "I get a kick out of you" the best. We need to get Dolly at this festival.

[countrycutie]

I grew up listening to Merle, Waylon, Willie, Heck my dad loved Grandpa Jones and some of my best memories was riding in his truck listening to that. My mom always had a great country tune going...we still listen to those guys we also love George Strait, Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, They are all great. The music of today is just that music of today and i love it as much as the others, Tim Mcgraw is my Favorite. My girls love Big and Rich. All in all it will be a great time whoever plays. I will be with great friends my mom and my girls who could ask for anything better than that.

[Hankdog]

It has become apparent, by some of the posts in this forum, that there is a deep division between people and there idea of what country music is and how it should be played. While there is no doubt that the music has changed over the years, a person has to ask, is it good, bad or just different and who says so. Many lesser known artists themselves have voiced protests over Nashville’s shaping of the music that they want us to think is good. Dale Watson said on a television show once that he was told by Nashville’s executives that he was “too country” to be sold. To me, that is like a judge telling a beauty contestant that she couldn’t win because she is too beautiful so go away. And so we are hearing country music that is being packaged and sold by people that tell us what modern country is. The problem is that so much of the music has changed so that it hardly resembles the humble sounds of what makes a great country song. It has become a flashy, poppish, rockish, slick kind of music that attracts a younger crowd. That is what Nashville wants because it sells. The result is that we are hearing bands more and more on Country radio like Rascal Flatts, Mirand Lambert, Kenny Chesney, and even the Eagles, to mention a few. These artists are great musicians and they possess all the talents to play great Country music but they don’t, or are told not to. Listen to “Murder on Music Row” by George Strait and Allan Jackson. Nashville tried to do the same thing years ago with the slick, orchestrated, sounds that Patsy Cline and Eddy Arnold used to have backing them up. If it weren’t for rebels like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens making their mark on Country Music by recording in Bakersfield, Country Music might have an entirely different look. Country Music is a style of music. If you alter the common threads that tie the songs together they become something else, like another genre. Take for instance Rock and Roll. There is little played these days that resembles old Rock and Roll. So the names have changed. It is now, Grunge, New Wave, Alternative Rock, Punk, Heavy Metal, Pop, just to mention a few. The same has to be said for older country. Now it is Country, Western, Western Swing, Bluegrass, Folk, Country Rock, to mention few. Maybe it is time to divide the term “Country” further to describe what is being sold to us these days. Country Pop, comes to mind but that is just my cynical view. There are still a lot of great artists still playing out there but you are hearing less and less of them. What does everyone else think?
I couldn't agree with you more in your observations. I think the issue is that people outside of the genre or who are new to it, assume that Sugarland is the real deal and that offends a certain segment of the listening population. I get that this stuff sells and that Nashville has to make money. Obviously the demographic that they're making money off of is age 16 to 46 year old women. I think that people who are familiar with the legends (Willie, Waylon, Johnny Bush, ET) get offended by the saturation of the airwaves with the likes of Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney and company and that new listeners think of that as "true blue country."

[realgoodfan]

I grew up with rock music with a little country on the side, now it's reversed. the reason being, I got tired of Zeppelin and Hendrix. country music is cool, the words have meaning, without the 20 minute guitar solos. Sure, its not outlaw music, but it is what is. meaning is pearl jam, white stripes, and even Jonas bros, is modern day rock, somehow they've earned their way on stage, enjoy, its all part of the ride. check out Tim 's cd " Let it Go" sounds country to me..

[gaypalmsprings]

Here's a good country motel in Victorville.

http://www.national66.org/photos/007nucrl.jpg

[Kymery]

Use spell check next time....

[gaypalmsprings]

http://www.nataliedee.com/092405/dangit.jpg

[chompy]

Good topic but it seems, unfortunately, that some people don’t want to step up to the plate and give some real good input on it. They instead want to deviate from it with silly pictures, off topic remarks or statements regarding spelling. They must be in that teeny bopper, pseudo country music listening category that has all but ruined real country music. Give us a break people. I, for one, agree that a lot of what is being pushed at us is crap. But hey, if it blows your skirt up that is fine for you. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking that you like “country music”. You’ve just been commercially programmed by Nashville and you didn’t even know it. I just wish that the promoters of the Stagecoach festival would bring in some other good country acts to play at other stages while the pop acts play at the Mane stage. Don’t get me wrong. It’s good to see that George Jones, Dwight Yoakum, and The Judds, along with many good Western and Bluegrass acts are going to be there. That is why I am going. It would just be nice to see some other good country acts on the other stages too, like Merle Haggard, Randy Travis, The Derailers, The Tex Pistols, Kevin Fowler, Lyle Lovett, Hank Williams III, Ray Price, Steve Earle, Jon Anderson, Tracy Lawrence, or Dale Watson, just to mention a few.

[Sweet T]

this is just my humble opinion, but didn't we hear this same sort of discussion when we were kids?

I'm going, I'm going to have fun, and I LOVE the old country. But guess what? Times, they are a'changin'. And if you can roll with the punches, you'll have fun too!

As for me, YES, I'll be watching Big and Rich, and Rascal Flatts. Are they my faves? No, I'd much rather attend a Patsy Cline concert. But hmmm, since she can't be here (I'm sure she'd have loved to grace us with her presence!) I'll be watching The Judds, Gretchen Wilson; Don't you, steel, agree that even Gretchen, a "newbie" in the country world, has embraced that old country sound with a new twist?

LET'S HAVE FUN! Y'all look for us, we'll be livin' as cheap as we can with two little boys in tow! But OMG, we are going to have FUN!

[hillbillyRockstar]

two little boys in tow? Great. We'll have one with us...good to see other people are bringing kids.

I agree that times are always changing. You'll just have to listen to what you like.

[Steel Player]

Yes, Sweet T, Gretchen has some great songs, "When I think about cheatin'" is one that comes to mind. She is an expample of a new country artist that maintains a country feel in many of her songs while still being innovative enough in other songs to bring in younger listeners. And she does that with out selling out and playing the "In Sync with a banjo" type new songs out there. There are many artists out there right now playing new country music that is good. I would like to hear more Paisley, Toby Keith, Gretchen, Strait, Jackson, on the radio than I do. I am not talking about "old" country music either. Unfortunately, most new popular country music is just that. Pop. It is being pushed at us to draw larger and younger crowds. I voice my opinion as many others do. Obviously they feel the same way I do. So, I don't roll with the punches I fight back. I play traditional country music and new country music with traditional feel. Hopefully others will see the light.

[WillieCash]

What? No Willie Cash & The Cashiers in the lineup? And you call this a country music festival?

[Sweet T]

Well Steel, you've made a very good point. Funny you mentioned "When I think about Cheatin'" it's one of my top 5 faves of hers. Sounds like we have very similar taste in country music, I want to hear "real" country too. My point was that the music industry is lead by the $$, and unless Me N You types start spending more on music, well, we just have to let the young people decide. Sucks. Yep, but it's the nature of the beast.