Country Music

Post by **Leisher** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 1:15 pm

Formulaic and here's proof.

Seriously listen to the YouTube video. They might as well be the same damn song.

Stranger · Post by **Stranger** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 1:44 pm

This is a little misleading, they changed the tempo of these songs and used autotune to put them all in the same key. I could prolly do the same with just about any type of music.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 1:48 pm

This thread title is misleading. There's country, country, and country.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 1:49 pm

I lost track of what made country COUNTRY years ago, when the Shania-Twain-OMG-CROSSOVER thing happened. Pop sounded like country and country sounded like pop, and most of it never unfucked itself. I guess any pop song can be country if you sing with an accent or add a twangy guitar.

Here's Lady Gaga doing one of her songs all down homey.

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Post by **Leisher** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:04 pm

This thread title is misleading. There's country, country, and country.

I stole that link from a FB post, and many folks there are making that same argument. I think that's completely legit. Because...

I lost track of what made country COUNTRY years ago, when the Shania-Twain-OMG-CROSSOVER thing happened.

My wife has become a big country fan, as I've come to realize all women eventually do because honestly, what else is there for them? (More on that in a second.) Anyway, she points out to me that all sorts of people are "country" and I don't even know it. She then proceeds to list a fuckton of people I thought were pop.

So yeah, Malcolm and Gordo's points are totally legit. I think the line between pop and country has been completely blurred.

Why? I think it's because pop has been taken over by people who don't sing, people who don't play instruments, and rappers.

Thus, all the women who used to lock themselves to pop have moved to country. They don't listen to heavy metal or alternative. Rap hates women. Nobody listens to blues or jazz. Pop is no longer pop. That leaves country.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:12 pm

New Country: Pop music with twang and steel guitars.

One of the biggest problems I've got with the traditional country music industry (HQ'd in Nashville) is that it's more a product than art. The dudes who write the music aren't performing it. The dudes who sing and play it didn't write it. The dudes touring aren't the same ones they had in the studio. There are exceptions.

Stranger · Post by **Stranger** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:33 pm

Any mainstream music is more product than art, its the problem that has been plaguing the music industry for a long time now. Now you're either a writer, performer or a musician and the industry will put you where they want you. Very rarely do you see an act that can and does all three anymore.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:40 pm

Very rarely do you see an act that can and does all three anymore.

One of the most polished, professional bands I've seen live. Mainly because it's three musician-writer-producers who know exactly what they're doing plus Shirley.

Stranger · Post by **Stranger** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:08 pm

One of the most polished, professional bands I've seen live.

Yah, and Butch Vig, great producer!

That was just about the end of an era, the early 90's. Artists were still allowed to be themselves and the industry would put it out there. Then it all changed...

I'll be honest, I like country music. Like the old adage goes, three chords and the truth, that's the formula. Its much better than pop and rap/r&b, and I can only stomach so much metal before my brain hurts (and I was in a metal band for 15 years!) And classic rock, heard them songs so many damn times what's the point in listening anymore. Hell I've been hearing Nirvana on our local classic rock station! WTF!! And all this newer hipster music doesn't really do it for me as well, maybe a song here and there but mostly, blah.

I've only waited for a new Tool album for 10 years now and still nothing. So what the hell else is there? The radio doesn't put any new rock music out. At least country does keep music coming out and at least to my ears some of it is pretty good, but this might just be because nothing else is there to listen to.

All in all, over the years I've become less and less interested in music and more disenchanted with the music industry. Now the music I enjoy the most is when I go to my old bandmates house and play our own music, at least its always original and I can get my own ideas out. In the old days, this was the core of music and that's how bands like Nirvana and Metallica started but that's just not allowed to happen anymore. Sad state of a affairs the music industry is in.

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Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:13 pm

That was just about the end of an era, the early 90's. Artists were still allowed to be themselves and the industry would put it out there. Then it all changed...

It's easier than ever for an independent artists to write, perform, produce, and publish their own songs now.

Stranger · Post by **Stranger** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:15 pm

Sure it is, but do you know any of them? How many of those guys are getting airplay? How many of them artist are making a living off of it.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:20 pm

How many of those guys are getting airplay?

Hell if I know. I don't listen to FM radio. There are plenty of internet stations designed for new artists to showcase their shit.

How many of them artist are making a living off of it.

The percentage of musicians that make a living from only that trade is tiny. It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:45 pm

Yeah, the old model with the producers buying up artists with a contract and then sucking them dry from their (probably) only album is over. I at least think I have a handle on that old system. Give them a wad of cash up front against the album they produce around a hit single, then nickle and dime them to death so the artist never sees another nickle from sales of that album while they are spending their advance on hookers and blow, and wasting the rest.

The new model, I don't quite understand, yet. I don't know where the money is coming from outside of iTunes, and do they sell independent artists? I don't even know. Are they giving the music away and just making their money touring? Again, don't know.

Post by **TheCatt** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 4:08 pm

I like both kinds of music, Country and Western.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 4:24 pm

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Jan 12, 2015 5:23 pm

Especially when you drink $300 of beer during a $200 gig.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sat Jan 31, 2015 10:27 pm

Stranger wrote:How many of those guys are getting airplay?

This is a prime example of "not getting it." :p

How many of them artist are making a living off of it.

Quite a few are these days. All you need is a thousand dedicated fans that kick in a couple of bucks each and you can make a living wage as a creator. Some are doing it through doing their own tours, some are doing it through selling their own t-shirts and other merch, and others are using sites like Patreon.

The biggest example of the last one is Pomplamoose but there are lots of others. Personally I spend a bit over $200 a month at Patreon and Subbable, in $1 to $5 increments supporting a wide variety or artists that I like. They put out their stuff for free and I like what they do and I want to give them money so they can keep doing it and I can afford to so I do. In many cases there are enough others out there like me that together we can provide what they need to keep doing it.

It's the old patronage system, but in a distributed format for the digital age.

You won't get rich that way, but if what you want is to make good music and not have to work a side job to pay the bills it can be done, and is being done by far more people than ever made it in the traditional industry.

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Post by **thibodeaux** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 12:06 pm

Randoms:
1. "All country songs sound the same." No shit; this has been known to Country since at least 1975.

2. This could be either the product of somebody with a legitimate esthetic axe to grind, or it could be part of the race/class war where the only thing safe (indeed, encouraged) to ridicule is something belonging to non-liberal white people. If the former, see #1. If the latter, go fuck yourself.

3. Has somebody done this for the Blues? Because every Blues song literally is the same. If it's never been done, is that because it's so trivially true that it's not even funny (my own position), or because RACISM? Note to aspiring comedians: you can work around the race problem by focusing on the nauseatingly derivate "white boy blues", where every guitar solo sounds the same, because it was ripped from Kenny Wayne Sheppard who stole it from Stevie Ray Vaughan who stole it from Jimi Hendrix. So you got your cultural appropriation two-fer!

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