What happened to country music?

[JumboDavid]

Seems to be the same thing with all types of music once it gets too big.

 

[sunnyboy]

My parents listened to "old country" like Eddy Arnold all the time while I was growing up. I listened to "rock and roll" like Crosby, Stills, Nash & (sometimes) Young.

Years ago I noticed the jerks that run the music biz reclassified CSN&Y - they are considered country now.

Thank goodness for Pink Floyd. But if they ever get "declared" country I'm just gonna give up.

 

[TMHeimer]

Seems to be the same thing with all types of music once it gets too big.

An interesting take on it, and probably true. I don't like the old country music--just a personal preference. The only reason I dislike the new country music a little less is because it's a little better than all the other crap that's been going on since the late '80s. I don't mean just rap and hip hop (which are on the top of the crap heap). I mean pop songs that feature one or even TWO chords (if you're lucky), have no type of interesting MELODY, and generally are void of anything INTERESTING. Makes me long for a relatively mediocre performer like say--Madonna-- who had some GREAT songs. She sang one at the '12 Super Bowl, then two more from the top of that crap heap. Where are you Boy George? But as Jumbo David said, everything has it's time, gets too big and dies. I am not a country fan as I said. Not particularly an old time rock fan or one of head banging music. But I understand all of that and see some value. I liked Disco, something people have fashionably made fun of since maybe 1985. As a band director/music teacher I have always been open to different styles and incorporated some jazz into my own clarinet repertoire. The Top 40 (if they still call it that) on the radio for at least the last 15 years just leaves me with a blank stare. Yes, it "has a dancable beat". Goes nowhere. BORING. Never thought I'd say that. But that's just a classical musician's view.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

There is some good new stuff out there but they don't play it on regular radio. We have a really good alternative radio station where I live that plays all sorts of new roots music that I like. Much of it draws from old country.
I personally get a kick out of the old Bakersfield school.
You won't hear any of the new crossover crap like Carrie Underwood or Keith Urban and the others.
Some of the garbage I hear when I scan the stations is pure ear poison.
May as well shove a red hot nail in my ear hole, it would feel better than the vomit they spew out of my speakers.
I should sue them for contaminating my sound system.

 

[JumboDavid]

I think a big problem is once something becomes popular, it gives the blueprint to everyone else. Most of the time it leads to improvement and innovation, but eventually it turns into rehashing what worked before.

 

[TMHeimer]

I think a big problem is once something becomes popular, it gives the blueprint to everyone else. Most of the time it leads to improvement and innovation, but eventually it turns into rehashing what worked before.

Another good point Jumbo, and one I've often thought of. If you trace the history of music (both "classical" and "popular" as we like to label it), the rehashing you mention eventually leads to breakdown and introduction of something new. In classical (more correctly called "serious") music, the music of the Romantic period of the (late) 1800s eventually got very complicated and resulted in "20th century" or "contempory" music which lead to the breakdown of the tonal system (which we all like in pop music as well) to a point where a tonal center (aka "Do" of do re me of a scale) no longer existed. So, what can we now compose that can be called "serious" or "classical" music. On a tangent, the "original" music (serious or pop) centuries/eons ago wasn't based on a scale of "equal temperment" (half steps that are equally spaced apart, visible on a piano keyboard, thus the invention of pre-piano keyboards such as Harpsichord, etc.). It was based on how sound really exists in nature--such music we would hate, not being used to it for maybe 1,200 years. Will we eventually return to that? I believe the same thing has happened with all pop music (though there still is a tonal center). What can today's artists do now that is different but still enjoyable to our ears? I can't think of anything. Maybe something new will still emerge--fingers crossed. I also think of the many talented stars of today doing these songs from the top of my "trash heap". Do they make the best of it and take the $ millions, or do they really love what they're doing as well? I know I philosophize at length, but it does explain the original question of why "new" country sucks and we all can't just turn on the radio and hear the old stuff. It's all been done, just like when the true Classical period ended no one could think of anyhthing else to write since Mozart, Beethoven, et.all covered it all.