Good Country Music - Page 2

Agreed. I'm not at all a NIN fan, but even if you feel they've lost the connection to the roots of rock one could argue that it's because their particular sound/style has evolved beyond the roots.

Anyone care to make that argument about Taylor Swift's music, that she's lost connection to the roots of country because her experimental artistry has taken her beyond it?

I think Fat Elvis makes some good points. Today's country has more in common with '70s heartland rock, Eagles, Jimmy Buffet, '80s glam band rock (Taylor Swift just did a Crossroads with Def Leppard) and even some '90s rock (Rascal Flatts' cover of Tom Cochran's "Life is a Highway" easily fit in with the rest of their catalog and they didn't change a single thing) than anything Hank Williams would recognize as country.


It could almost be called "conservative pop-rock" at this point. Not conservative politically, but conservative in that it's safe and sounds like the stuff you might have liked 15 or 20 years ago. I don't think it's a coincidence that artists like Darius Rucker, John Mellencamp and Jewel are all over CMT these days. A lot of the country fans these days are people who can't be bothered to discover new music, so they go for the stuff that sounds like the music they liked before they got a job and had kids, and hey, look, their favorite artists from back in the day came with them!

I'll make the argument that Taylor Swift's exposure to contemporary pop, rock, and commercial country music makes her sound very little like Patsy Cline, but that music is not a matter of "purity," anyway, so who gives a fuck? Experimental artistry, the influence of predominant styles of the time, even outright cash grabs - all of these occasionally lead to good music.

I'd wager that the music that you love - all of it - is a hybrid of a sort. I'm not sure why I should be more concerned about Taylor Swift's work being traceable back to her country forebears than I should be about Jeff Tweedy's current work being traceable back to his (which were almost entirely arbitrary, anyway - the guy was a Ramones fan who got into folk and country and started playing it on a whim, more or less).

Argue good or bad, sure, but purity and authenticity? No thanks. Not if it's at the expense of the Arcade Fire, Steve Earle (much of whose work probably has as much in common with Hank Williams' sonically as Taylor Swift's does), and Motown (which some surely considered just a watered-down, radio-friendly take on the "real" soul coming from the South at the time).

If anyone says anything cross about Steve Earle I will have you killed.

I disagree entirely wit the notion that anything about Taylor Swift's exposure to music has shaped her sound. Taylor Swift's sound is shaped by what her handlers and record executives determined via survey will sell best when coming from a girl that girls want to be and guys want to fuck. Full stop.

I probably didn't my point clear. I have zero issue with hybridization or an artist moving away from their roots. My issue is entirely with sterile, cynical, manufactured music. I don't like NIN particularly, and they don't have any connection to the roots of rock necessarily, but I'm also aware that Rezor was trying to create music. Not to keep beating on Swift, but she's not creating music. She's packaging a product*, and currently as far as I can tell mainstream country is, if possible, even more guilty of this than mainstream pop or rock.

Don't view this as a slam against anything "popular", either. Shit, my avatar and user name are taking from the lead singer of the Jayhawks... it doesn't get much less edgy than that. I'm not one of those guys that thinks music is only cool if it's obscure.

* Then again, so were the Monkees, and I'm not going to argue that Daydream Believer isn't a brilliant pop song.

My understanding from what I've read of her is that this is entirely incorrect. Like the music or not, Wikipedia tells me that Swift writes or co-writes all of it (unlike the Monkees, interestingly enough). How is it at all far-fetched that someone who's young and was perhaps not the most adventurous music listener growing up would write exactly the kind of songs that she writes? See also Sara Bareilles, Jason Mraz, etc. It's what happens when you spend your formative musical years learning to sing or to play guitar or piano, but don't bother listening to anything that's not readily available on pop radio.

To someone with this background, Taylor Swift's music is what pop music should sound like. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's not necessarily the cynical capitalist enterprise you make it out to be. The marketing surrounding her music may certainly be guilty of that cynicism, but I wouldn't be too quick to assume that the music she makes isn't exactly the kind of music that she likes to listen to.

And the cycle will repeat. There are, right now, aspiring musicians who love Taylor Swift, and should any of them decide to make a career of music in that vein, it's not because they've decided that it's a quick way to make money to sound like Taylor Swift, but because that's all they know. No one thought to turn them on to the Louvin Brothers, Velvet Underground, or Nina Simone. It doesn't speak well of them as musical innovators or as anything I'd want to listen to regularly, but they're no more "inauthentic" than some fucker holed up in a cabin with his acoustic trying to evoke the haunted souls of Robert Johnson and Johnny Cash (but, y'know, with more drum loops and feedback).

Fine and dandy, but that doesn't validate the product in any way except a purely commercial one. Which is probably sufficient for her, and important to her fans (whose personal taste, like many mainstream music fans, is likely validated by the number of other people who like the same things they do).

I don't "blame" her, or her peers, for not being musically adventurous. But that doesn't mean I have to regard their output as "good."

Since I've raved about them in other threads; Kinky Friedman, John Prine, and Neko Case. Especially John Prine. Seriously pick up Bruised Orange and Sweet Revenge.

Ok then, so who's this platonic Common Man that you're referring to and what does he listen to?

Also, just as a general comment on this thread, I find it a bit naive to assume that independent music is somehow totally exempt from the marketing that major label artists indulge in. I mean the machine isn't nearly as well oiled, I'll give you that, but most indie bands these days have street teams, press agents, etc. Blog hype and positive Pitchfork reviews can be drummed up by adhering to a specific set of image standards, too. The discerning music listener who dislikes commercial radio is as much of a niche as yer SUV mom - just a smaller one.

Which is why again I find that judging music by the process that it was created from as opposed to its actual content is a fool's game.

Damn. It's downright criminal that no one listed Reba. I mean, she did bring down a fucking grabboid.

Exactly my point - the question should be "good or bad," not "founded in tradition or not." "It's less sincere/authentic/legitimate than the music I like" is largely unsupportable. You'd essentially be saying that one piece of music is flawed because it doesn't adhere to standards created to apply for other pieces of music.

You can say that Taylor Swift's music isn't good, and you can say that Taylor Swift's music doesn't suit the country music genre, but I don't think those two conclusions need to be tied to one another. After all, Swift herself just makes the music and isn't necessarily responsible for where others might categorize it.

THIS is the only country record I listen to regularly.

Marty Robbins is pretty awesome. You might also enjoy Robert Mitchum's "Thunder Road", a storysong which wouldn't look out of place on a Robbins record:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRH7FtAAbJE

That entire "That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings" album is pretty good. The calypso part = eh.

I don't much care for her new stuff but that woman has some awesome songs. I love "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia."

Also, Marty Robbins is amazing. "El Paso" is one of my favorite songs of all time.

I sang a lot of Marty Robbins to my infant son last year.
Thanks for the heads up on the Mitchum.

One of the worst things about current country music, is the fact that most of the top stars don't even pen their own material. There's a buch of talented(?) professional song writers locked in a room just cranking out hits.

I know most pop stars don't write their own songs either, but most people expect that. When you listen to a country singer, you like to believe they lived that tune they're belting out.

Vicki Lawrence's original is pretty dynamite, too.

Patsy Cline had almost all of her best remembered songs written by someone else; same goes for Ray Price. Elvis Presley is the one most famous example of someone who never wrote a song in their life, even though of course plenty are credited to him because of Colonel Parker's canny business practices (songwriting credit = more $$$ from royalties...I've always wondered who else benefited from this sort of practice, surely more people must've tried?); Nashville has always had a professional songwriter culture, similiar in a way to the Brill Building and Tin Pan Alley in New York. This is how Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson got their careers started iirc.

Basically there's people who are good performers and people who are good songwriters and, yeah, more often than not the two converge, but if they're only good at the one or the other I say good for them if they know how to focus on what they do well. This whole notion that a true artist has to do both only really sprang up with the Beatles/Rolling Stones/Dylan generation - for the first half of the 20th century it was quite natural for people to only do one in pretty much every genre. And you know, hell, if Johnny Cash singing "Sunday Morning Coming Down" doesn't strike you like him belting out something he lived through

(edited to prevent xpost confusion)

The Old 97s did a pretty kickin' cover of this on the "King of the Hill" soundtrack CD from a decade ago. There are some really nice tracks, and some very funny bits on that CD. If Hank Hill's interpretation of Red Sovine's "Teddy Bear" doesn't warm your heart, YOU HAVE NO SOUL.

http://www.amazon.com/King-Hill-Tele.../dp/B000021XSI

A couple of more "alt. country" acts to check out: Scud Mountain Boys, Magnolia Electric Co. (more rock with country influence...check out Songs: Ohia The Magnolia Electric Co. especially)

Yesterday's AV Club 'Nashville or Bust' article has me on the hunt for some Billy Joe Shaver! I know his songs, thanks to Waylon & Willie, but I've never picked up his work as a performer. Evidently, his son was quite the tragic, guitar prodigy. (Now realize that was who was tearing it up on Yoakam's early records!)

"Jesus Christ, What A Man" should be added to the hymn book!

Shaver's great. I tried to get people to listen to him when he had a bit of a resurgence quite a few years ago due to finally getting a video ("Georgia on a Fast Train", actually) on the market, but people didn't really seem to cotton to him as well as I thought they would, which is a shame.

Plus he does the Squidbillies theme, which is awesome.

Check out Otis Gibbs.

Preacher Steve is my favorite song off of his latest album

http://www.myspace.com/otisgibbs

I've been listening to a lot of Chris Hillman lately. Morning Sky and Desert Rose are both pretty great.

John Fogerty's upcoming new album is more of the "Blue Ridge Rangers," with lots of country covers. Up at his website, you can listen to a stream of him and Bruce Springsteen duetting on "When Will I Be Loved".

Not sure if he was mentioned here but Richard Buckner--who isn't exactly country and isn't exactly alt. country, but something between alt. country and folk, I guess--is one of the most underrated artists of the last 20 years. Pick up Devotion + Doubt if you want to have your mind and heart blown.

Read an interview with him in UNCUT that rubbed me the wrong way; where he kind of pooh-poohed Gram Parsons legacy and talked down his contribution to their bands. More than a little revisionist! He sniffed Gram gets to be the legend, but he gets to live. Frosty.

A great Nashville or Bust write up on Emmylou Harris over at the AV by the way. Nathan's best one yet.

There's a lot of resentment and bruised egos between the Byrds in general, as far as I can tell. It's certainly true that the group had Country leanings before Gram ever joined, though that doesn't diminish the quality of his work. For my money the best Byrd solo album is Gene Clarck's No Other, but buyer beware - it sounds like if Phil Spector had gone Country, and I know that's not as enticing a prospect to everyone as it is to me.

Right now I'm listening to the Dixie Chick's big post-witchunt album Taking The Long Way. Nothing I'd urge anyone to run out and buy/download, but this line from "Lubbock Or Leave It" made me chuckle:

As I'm getting out I laugh to myself
'Cause this is the only place
Where as you're gettin' on the plane
You see Buddy Holly's face

Yes.

The sad thing about the Dixie Chicks is that before the whole contreversey took over poeple seem to forget how good they were. Fly, Wide Open Spaces and Home are all still great albums. Everything after home as disappointed me.

I've been enjoying Wrinkled Neck Mules lately. Particularly the albums The Wicks Have Met and Pull the Brake.

One of my favorite country albums of all time is Nickel Creek's "Why Should the Fire Die?" The opening track alone is worth the price of admission, but the whole album is a catalog of betrayal and deceit and broken hearts that hits like a god damn cinder block.

"Tallahassee" by The Mountain Goats is as close to pure genius as you can get in the alt. Country genre, a concept album about the break up of a marriage, at the same time it's melancholy and rocking and fun and playful and depressing.

Murder by Death has put out some great albums, namely "Who Will Survive, and What Will be Left of Them?" It's a boot stompin' Americana album with a rocking cello, detuned keys, a singers voice that oozes pain and in some sections screamed vocals. It's something really special; and to top it off, it's a concept album about The Devil coming to a small town on the Mexican border and the hell that he brings with him. It's one of my all time favorite albums and something that everyone should check out.

Sons of Perdition is fucking fantastic, if you're at all into the dark sounding country. Their first album could be a soundtrack to McCarthy's "Blood Meridian".

Also, if anyone is familiar with The Swans, Michael Gira hung up his punk boots and is in a band called "Angels of Light" that is really good as well.

Finally, someone else on this board knows who Sons of Perdition are.