Music Talk: What The Hell Is Country Music

So here's a true story about me, I grew up in a country music household.  Everyone in my family loves country music and I was a die hard country music fan back in the day.  For a majority of the 1990s and the early 2000s, I had a wide assortment of country albums in my life.  Heck, I still have Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Brooks and Dunn.....guys I can be here all night.  I was that far into the country music scene.  Now why am I confessing this?  Because....what the hell is this shit they are calling country music?

I absolutely hate modern day country music.  Not because it's terrible.  It's because country music is far more capable of doing much better than what they are making popular.  It's like they are throwing songs to the wall and trying to pray it sticks to the point that it crosses over to mainstream radio.  Because of that this is what we have popular now:

Shameless rip offs of mega popular pop songs.

Country artists borrowing heavily from rap music.

                                         Whatever the hell this atrocity is.

It's just awful.  The bro country movement is just stupid.  It feels like country music is embarrassed to be country music these days...but is bro country slowly dying out?  I mean you still have plenty of bro country still on the radio right now, but I feel like it's not reflecting on the state of modern country music these days.  You still have your Luke Bryan's and Florida Georgia Line's still selling out arenas and crossing over into mainstream, but their radio singles aren't charting as high as they were back when bro country was massive in 2013 and 2014.  As I look over 2015 in country music, I think it's safe to say the two biggest hits from this genre were "Girl Crush" by Little Big Town and "Take Your Time" by Sam Hunt.  While Girl Crush was huge due to being "controversial" with it's lyrical choices and because country radio is still a predominantly conservative genre, Take Your Time became popular due to radio inertia and it lasting long enough to find a pop radio audience.  I mean who doesn't like a good ole song about picking up girls and....

....I'm sorry but what the actual fuck is this music video.  It completely missed the point of the song in such a massive fashion that....sigh, I'm getting off track.  Anyway, I think the popularity of Take Your Time is telling of how country music is these days.  Hope a song has long enough radio inertia to crossover into the mainstream and become even more popular.  I guess "taking our time" does mean something.  It means waste our time long enough to be popular.  Because let's face it, country music is recycling songs at a rapid rate to find that next huge song that will make the genre relevant in the mainstream.

This is not what country music.  If country music wants to become as boring as a majority of the mainstream radio, it can go right ahead.  But I know this genre is capable of far more because it's audience deserves better than what it's giving it.  Because there are still great artists out there that know their roots and can get popular in their own merits.  They don't have to try and be something the genre is not.  It's more pathetic than anything else to see a genre sell itself out this blatantly just to get credibility amongst it's peers.  Because otherwise, country music will just turn into a pop hybrid and that won't be good for anyone.