Who Destroyed Country?

  • Thread starter Thread starter cephus
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Garth Brooks, blecch. All hat and no cow.

The decline of country and western began with Elvis Presley, but it would have happened without him.

It's really a function of the urbanization - and suburbanization - of America. How can you have "country music" when there is no "country" anymore?

When Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins established the Nashville Sound in the early 1960s, they institutionalized country, and that's the beginning of the end for anything.
 
i must somewhat give props to the mindless talentless drones that make todays country music though. even though the formula is clear and laid out (sing a sappy ballad about missing your daughter or anything praising the troops), these lameasses do sell lots of records. you cant blame the country stars, you have to blame the musically brain-dead idiots that buy the stuff.
 
cephus said:
No poll. Polls are gay. They keep getting bumped to the top even though no one posted anything.

Anyway, I don't like much country. I detest what passes for country these days for sure. I grew up in appalachia, so I always rebelled against it. Now I sort of embrace it - at least the old stuff. Recently CMT started rerunning Hee Haw and I have been watching it in small doses when I see it's on.

George Jones and Roy Clark with bag-assed mutton chops. Jim Stafford. Buck Ownens, God rest his soul. Nothing wrong with that.

Two minutes ago, I think I saw the death of true roots American music that we called country:

Garth Brooks.

When I think about the commercial, cross-over success of Garth, I can just picture the wheels turning in the record execs head. I can see the greed in their eyes. It was when they decided that rural folks and truck drivers weren't enough and they went after that mainstream pop dollar.

I guess this will end up being a "Country sucks" thread. As a guitar player and a performer, I can truly appreciate Hee Haw and what it represented to me as a pre-teen wanting to get into music. But I can also see how the country music manufacturing industry has really been turned into the equivalent of fiberglass rocks in a fake cave at Universal Orlando.

Just to further tie this to the "Who destroyed metal" thread, I have heard from various sources that all the hair metal shredders from the 80s that lost their gigs when money left metal moved to nashville and now play on all the country records. I did a sub gig once for a pop country band and had to learn that awful toby keith song "How do you like me now". The guitar solo in that thing is fricking impossibly hard. Could have been played by a head banger for sure.

Maybe it's up for debate. Do you think today's country is especially shitty compared to country before Garth? Maybe you think it's better. Maybe you think it always sucked and always will. I just wanted to bang out how much I hate what garth did to the institution.
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I think you answered your own question....the record exec's.....Kill 'em All!!
 
I will admit it, I like old country music. I can't ramble off all of the great country stars because I've never really followed it, but stuff like old Willie Nelson is great. I watched Hee Haw too when I was little.
When I hear country now, it's like listening to hip hop or pop on the radio. It's all just trendy garbage and they're looking for the easiest way to hook people or to insert a funny catch phrase or something that will make mindless idiots request the song over and over and over.
Modern popular music of every genre makes me want to puke though, so I guess I can't single out country.
 
Garth Brooks may have stabbed it in the back; but Billy Ray Cyrus decapitated it, sawed off all its limbs, covered it in petrol and threw a flaming zippo in its mouth.
 
stetto said:
The Eagles did it. They hired Joe Walsh and ph-p-p-t!! It was gone... ;)

Eric
Click to expand...

Now that was fucking funny. I dont care who you are, that there was funny. :p :p :p
 
Country music lost its way when it went mainstream - mainstream not just in the South, but all over the country.

I think it started happening on the heels of the "progressive country" movement - Jerry Jeff Walker, Commander Cody, etc., etc., that started incorporating a little bit of non-redneck-sensibility into music that was kind of a folk / country / rock fusion.

It was the full-scale incorporation - or theft, if you will - of some of the critical elements of rock music that put the knife through the heart of country music. Overdriven guitars, heavy grooves, overly polished production, and high-zoot theatrics onstage have become the norm now.

Funny, I never did like "traditional" country music - still don't - and modern country music strikes me as either invisible or irritating. It has become a caricature of itself.
 
Il stick my neck out and say Rock killed country.
Not all young girls and guys would be into heavy rock or rap, hip hop or metal.
What was left for a young person to get into?
Country became a softer kind of rock that wasnt in your face and you could dance to it.
13 years ago I played alot of the modern country of that time. Now that Im older the new country for me sucks.

It is all just a age thing. In my day as a young guy it was nothing but Hendrix,
Doors steppin wolf stuff like that and as I aged I started getting more into the softer rock.
Now I am at a place where there is nothing made for me at all so I have went back to listening to nothing but shit from the 60,s and 70,s.
 
maybe this says it best:

Nobody saw them running
From 16th Avenue
They never found the fingerprints
Or the weapon that was used
But someone killed country music
Cut out its heart and soul
They got away with murder
Down on music row

The almight dollar
And the lust for worldwide fame
Slowly killed tradition
And for that, someone shouldhang
They all say "Not Guilty!"
But the evidence will show
That murder was committed
Down on music row

For the steel guitars no longer cry
And the fiddles barely play
But drums and rock 'n' roll guitars
Are mixed up in your face
Ol' Hank wouldn't have a chance
On today's radio
Since they committed murder
Down on music row

They thought no one would miss it
Once it was dead and gone
They said no one would buy them ol'
Drinkin' and cheatin' songs ("Oh, but I still buy 'em")
Well there ain't no justice in it
And the hard facts are cold
Murder's been committed
Down on music row

For the steel guitars no longer cry
And you can't hear fiddles play
With drums and rock 'n' roll guitars
Mixed right up in your face
Why the Hag wouldn't have a chance
On today's radio
Since they committed murder
Down on music row

Why they even tell the Possum
To pack up and go back home
There's been an awful murder
Down on music row
 
I read a very interesting book (several years ago) written by a guy that was a country producer back in the day of Merle, Hank Sr. Roy Clark, etc. (I don't remember the producer at this moment) but there were several very logical points made that explained how traditional country changed to "new country"

Several years ago, many producers and sessions players started to migrate to Nashville for two main reasons - 1) Session work was drying up in LA due to the early days of sequencing, drum machines, etc. etc. 2) As the producers & musicians got older, started families, etc. they did not want to live in the cesspool of LA. Suddenly, the glossy production values of LA filtered into the Nashville sessions.

At the same time, the up and coming country artists (even going back before Garth - although he probably was s significant cog in the wheel of change) - were all people who grew up listening to the Beatles, or late 60's classic rock - so naturally that influence found it's way into country music.

Keep in mind, Hank Sr. or Merle or Willie, etc. didn't have rock influences when they first came up, so traditional country would not some like rock.

I am influenced by a lot of music and own a very extensive coolection of recordings (thousands or reconds, tapes and CDs). I have recordings of everyone from early Bobb Wills, Merle, Hank Sr, etc. all the way to Kennt Chesny, Gretchen Wilson.Keith Urban, etc. So I can literal foolow the changes in country from one recording to the next.

On one hand, the improved production, etc. was a good improvement, on the other hand, so much of the new country sounds too much the same!

I was never that much of a country fan, but as a song writer I found a larger market in that genre, so I started to do my home work - now the last several songs I've had published have been in the "new country" style.
 
m scared to ask this but :

would you guys like it if rock and roll still sounded like the beatles?......
 
Gidge said:
m scared to ask this but :

would you guys like it if rock and roll still sounded like the beatles?......
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Aww, hell, no.

I think the complaint with modern country is that it's just too homogeneous. Everything sounds alike, including the voices, and it has too much of a rock influence. Pop and rock have gone through the same thing.

Here in Fort Worth we have a publicly-funded radio station, KNON 89.3. It's one of those stations that will have an hour of eastern Indian programming in midafternoon, gansta rap at 8 AM, god only knows what else throughout the day. They have a program called "Texas Renegade Radio" in the afternoons that features new artists in the progressive country singer/songwriter tradition, as well as some of the older music of the same genre. It's very enjoyable. So there is still life in country music - you just have to look to find it.
 
Gidge said:
m scared to ask this but :

would you guys like it if rock and roll still sounded like the beatles?......
Click to expand...
before or after 'sgt peppers'?
 
It's not destroyed, you just have to look harder.

Commercial country music has almost always been crap.
 
gummblefish said:
Who was that achy breaky heart fuck ball?....that mullet headed, clothear, no good, low down, yellow belly...swine....Billy ray Cyrus?...Aghhh...Im not sure if anyone killed country...but if they did i hope they bury him with it.
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I played for that duffass back in the early 80's.......he did start the death of country!!!
 
Garth helped kill country by showing more of an Billy Joel / James Taylor sensitive influence mixed with a big rock type show country had never seen. However it was Ms. Twain's records, produced by Mr. Twain (AKA Robert John "Mutt" Lang) that crossed and blurred the lines between country and pop. Face it, "I'm Outta Here" was probably a left over from Hysteria or Adrenalize.
 
Country music is alive and well. You are just not going to hear it on the radio.

What is played on country radio, just like rock radio is decided according to which record companies shell out the $$ to get their artists music played. It doesn't have anything to do with being good music....
 
I think country was killed when Rob Halford got together with Conway Twitty and the Twitty Birds.

"Screaming....screaming for cornflakes."

or maybe it was ...

"Green Manicott with the Two-Pronged Crown"

I could be wrong......... :D
 
"Polls" are gay?

"Polls" are gay?
Think about what you just said.
Any light bulbs suddenly blazing to life?

This thread is gay.
It belongs in the cave.


I killed ****ry. I enjoyed it. I'd do it again, 1,000 times.
 
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