Country Music Entering A New Remix Era
Jerrod Niemann & Pitbull have just released a remix of “Drink To That All Night”
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the new remix era of country music, where the worst “country” songs get regurgitated with an overlayed rapper or EDM twist, repackaged to terrorize the eardrums of the masses for another eight weeks after the song should normally fade from the charts and fall off of radio. Please find a group of your favorite male country stars crying for relevancy and attention to your right, and a selection of waning rap personalities looking for a career revitalization through white suburban consumers to your left. Mix and match as you choose to create the perfect mono-genre monstrosity that will then go on to shatter decades-old records because of Billboard’s new chart rules, and make a mockery of the “summer anthem” phenomenon by taking 10-month-old songs with newly added drum machine beats, and shoving them down the throat of the American consumer once again. Enjoy!
– – – – – – – – –
Here we go again. Another day, another paradigm shift for quotation mark “country” trying desperately to apologize for itself and attract new demographics by careening out of the defined borders of the genre. This time it is the emerging habit of the country remix song. We first saw this when Jason Aldean remixed his influential country rap “Dirt Road Anthem” with Ludacris in 2011, but the first widely successful implementation of the country remix was when Florida Georgia Line did a remix of their mega hit “Cruise” with the rapper Nelly in April of 2013. The collaboration went on to be responsible for creating the longest-running #1 song in the history of country music. And since we all know what a copycat world it is down on Music Row, it was only a matter of time before the country music industrial complex retooled to make the remix of any song they see fit a reality.
Now the remix train has started rolling full steam, and since so many mainstream hits already are built on top of electronic dance beats, virtually any mainstream song is optimized to accept a remix. Take Jerrod Niemann for example, who has all of a sudden emerged as country’s EDM Master of Ceremonies. His hit “Drink To That All Night” has just received the remix treatment with none other than Latin rapper Pitbull (listen below, if you dare). Just like with Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise”, Jerrod’s song was very slow in developing as a blockbuster single. It was released all the way back in October of 2013, but is just now reaching its peak, hitting #1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. By releasing the remix, the single gets new life, and now could become a massive crossover success.
But this is just the tip of the country remix iceberg compared to what we’re about to see in the coming months. Rumors of additional Florida Georgia Line remixes are swirling, and the duo can’t stop talking about how much they’d love to work with Canadian rapper Drake. There’s talk that a remix of Brantley Gilbert’s “Bottoms Up” featuring Lil Wayne is in the pipeline. And The Band Perry has been hinting at some sort of collaboration with EDM megastar Avicii. Though the remix in country might feel like a rare occurrence at the moment, by the end of 2014, it might be a given from the format’s biggest songs and stars.
READ: EDM Replacing Rap As The Scourge of Country Radio
Remixes and collaborations have been the way the hip-hop world and parts of EDM have developed talent over the years. A bigger star will give a boost to an up-and-comer by having them come in and sing a line on a slightly different version of an already popular song. Seeing how country music has for all intents and purposes dismantled its farm system, and money and time for artist development has virtually dried up, these type of remixes and collaborations could be a good alternative to an industry struggling to find new stars, especially female stars. But instead of helping their own, country music is turning to promoting already-established artists from other genres under the veil of “collaboration” to attempt to reach new heights of commercial success.
May 12, 2014 @ 10:52 am
Gonna ride that donkey, donkey
Down to the 305, Dade County
May 12, 2014 @ 4:20 pm
Yeah………….it’ll probably wind up something like the following, knowing Pitbull’s lyrical template all too well! -__-
*
“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“Yeah, I’m gonna ride that donkey, donkey,
(Yeah!)
down to the club and sip some Voli Voli,
(That’s right!)
grab a couple girls and get naughty naughty,
(Hehe!)
have them lick on my lolly lolly,
(Ha ha!)
yeah,
I went from eviction to bagging work in the rain,
now everywhere I go, I’m makin’ it rain,
(Ha ha!)
from the Big Apple to the Big Easy,
to Buenos Aires and the Windy City,
I’m makin’ the whole globe dizzy!
(Woo!)
I don’t know how to figure skate,
but I land triple-lutzes everywhere,
(Ha ha!)
I own the airwaves like Bobby Bones,
got the swagger like Fred Astaire!
(Hehe!)
Yeah, I live every night like it’s my last,
bold and italic’s how I’m typecast,
but enough about that,
tonight we’re gettin’ funky funky,
with the donkey donkey,
dale!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
*
-__- -__- -__-
May 14, 2014 @ 10:20 am
You forgot “Worldwide!”
May 14, 2014 @ 12:35 pm
That comes at the beginning of the record, not the verse! 😉
I did, however, forget Spanglish! And chances are Pitbull will try to prove his country credibility by citing he works hard and plays harder, as well as that Florida is a Southern state so is, instantaneously, stone-cold country! 😉
May 12, 2014 @ 10:57 am
What a disheartening development, but totally inevitable. As someone who tours playing a lot of “country” bars, one hears the most obnoxious music in between sets. Songs like “Wobble Wobble” and “Cupid Shuffle” booming on overly-loud sound systems. And the patrons go crazy for it! Expect more of the same as pop continues it’s full frontal assault on the country market
May 12, 2014 @ 1:10 pm
Completely agree. It’s insane how some country themed bars end up playing those same hip hop style songs for 30-50% of the night. Some are worse than others, but still. Sadly, it’s what lots of people want these days.
May 12, 2014 @ 7:03 pm
Its not that Hip Hop is bad…
But that is bad Hip-Hop..
It has no right to be played anywhere much less a country bar!
May 12, 2014 @ 7:49 pm
Agree on both points.
I wouldn’t even complain about those songs most of the time, but the fact that they get played in a “country bar” on a regular basis is what bothers me.
I think it’s time we coin the term “mono-bar” to go along with “mono-genre”…. Now you can go to the country bar to hear all types of music throughout the night. Just like you can on country radio.
May 14, 2014 @ 1:07 pm
I’ve watched a lot of bars in a lot of towns turn into “Mono-Bars.” You can blame the internet jukebox’ that are in every one of them for it. The music on the jukebox helps to define who you want your crowd to be.
May 13, 2014 @ 4:15 am
hip hop IS bad if you hate it; and I really hate it. I’d rather listen to a chainsaw run. So to me, it’s bad.
May 12, 2014 @ 11:00 am
My favorite part was 107.5 the river
May 12, 2014 @ 11:40 am
For the sake of humanity, make it stop! Just when you think you’ve reached rock bottom with mainstream country music, they continue to find a new low. And there’s no end in sight. It’s just going to keep getting worse. What’s it going to take to make it stop?
I now have to go listen to Sturgill Simpson’s new album to flush that crap I just listened to above out of my system.
May 12, 2014 @ 11:45 am
Just another nail in the coffin, as awful as this shit is I just can’t fucking believe that anybody in their right mind can listen to this garbage. They do everything in their power to write, perform, and act in every genre except Country music, yet still wave the Country banner and welcome all the washed up rockers, and Bling Dawg motherfuckers to piss all over the Legacy layed down by the true giants of Country music. This is becoming an even bigger discrace everyday.
Heres an idea………How about the Super-Mega-Awesome-Douche-Fucking-Bro-Country artists load up there jacked up fucking trucks, take all of the dumb ass preppy boys, bitches and ho’s, drum machines, auto-tune, rappers, and get the fuck out of Country music for good!
May 12, 2014 @ 11:49 am
Actually Reba had a huge hit in the clubs with the remix of her version of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” back in the 90s as did LeAnn Rimes on several occasions. And I recall Brooks & Dunn getting a Boot Scootin’ remix and one for ‘My Maria’, Also Sherri Austin had a remix of “Put Your Heart In To It”. I understand this is slightly different, Reba’s remix was designed specifically for clubs not country radio. And the B&D remixes did not have EDM or rap is just pumped up the guitar and beat and went on longer but still… This is REALLY lame.
It is funny how people can make music that makes buckets of money and still look like the running around like a headless chicken. This species fascinates me.
May 12, 2014 @ 2:27 pm
I think this new era of remixes is completely different. I think the impact on the genre could be much more significant. There is this tendency when talking about trends in music for people to say, “Oh this is no different than when so and so did this back in the day,” and it can really discount the potential impact a trend could have. “Cruise” became the longest-charting #1 in the history of country music because of this new remix trend. That I think speaks to how significant it could be.
May 13, 2014 @ 8:11 am
You know, you’re right, Those songs I mentioned were kind of flukes and felt like “proper” remixes by known DJs of the era (in the club scene anyway). They were made specifically for the club market not part of a larger trend.
Didn’t mean to brush aside the impact. And oddly enough most of the remixes I heard in the 90s were of female singers, it now seems to be the reverse.
What I am noticing and you probably have mentioned this elsewhere is that it is not just country music that is getting hit with mediocrity and even remixes. mainstream Hip-hop has probably suffered the cliches longer than country music from this. Ever since Biggie Smalls and TuPac died it really nose dived.
But I’ve noticed even less popular genres like jazz and blues are suffering from their own issues (a big one being the rise in every kid being a prodigy thanks to YouTube and the like). Hell even salsa of all things had been suck into the sameness vortex. You could always tell Tito Puente from a Willie Colon record, Though I can’t really speak to whether they are going the cliche filled mono genre route.
My personal opinion on one factor in all of this is music education. Not band practice but theory and listening to the classic albums the way you have to read the classic books. Most younger acts have NO scope of the history or legacy or why music works the way it does because most people just don’t have the tenacity to research it themselves. It is like all those kids in my HS who “played guitar” are now on the radio as opposed to a few people I knew who were so deep into jazz they were considered uncool. But one of them could play a tight drum for his age. I don’t know if the was always true, it doesn’t seem like it.
I think if kids were educated about music and music history they would make better choices and have a forced exposure to more kinds of music and styles and acts. You’re not going to get everyone, I know (I will always hate ‘Catcher In The Rye’ no matter how many times I am forced to read it. But I bet you’ll snag a few kids who hear Pancho and Lefty or Wrecking Ball and it changes there life for ever.
May 12, 2014 @ 12:04 pm
Back in the early nineties, I worked as driver for Rent-A-Center. One of my partners was a puerto rican kid named Frankie. He was an awesome dude and anyone who gave us shit, he’d never hesitate to escalate. Great guy, really liked him. But we had some epic epic battles over the radio because he liked the crappiest of deep deep crap pop hiphop. He wouldn’t even tolerate the Beastie Boys and loved TLC. None of the alt-hiphop I suggest (wu-tang, etc) would work and since the truck only had an FM Radio, we eventually settled on one hour his / one hour mine.. I’d usually put the Sox game on if there was a day game or else classic rock, anything to get my ears to stop bleeding after the atrocious shit I was subjected to.
This song is worse then any of it. Frankie would like this. That’s the worst thing I can say about it.
May 12, 2014 @ 12:23 pm
Meh, this is the equivalent of Achy Breaky Heart-era Billy Ray Cyrus remixing with Snow.
May 12, 2014 @ 1:16 pm
Acts 17:26 tells us that God “set the boundaries of their habitations”. Whose? The nations of men, that’s who. Every nation and people-group in this world has its own unique culture that should not be diluted or tampered with.
The ignorant grunting of the cRap “musicians” simply does not belong with the music of America’s people, country music. This truth is clearly demonstrated in the fact that neither the Carter Family, nor Hank, Sr. nor any other country-music artist worth their salt EVER messed around with such foolishness as “rap” talking on their records. I know, I know… “rap” wasn’t invented back then, but the worst of minstrelsy and the foulest and most crude of lyrical ideas certainly HAVE existed for many decades.
Decent people shouldn’t discriminate based on skin color, but on the actions and attitudes of the people they meet. How, then, can any right-thinking person want to listen to or support this sort of garbage? These cRap idiots are losers in business with other losers and their kind should not be lauded as celebrities on any scale.
The sort of black-face buffoonery that is cRap “music” should be insulting to BLACK people, let alone to White people who have no business acting as though such stupidity is “cool” or an acceptable form of entertainment.
If people would be proud of their own musical and cultural heritage, there would be no danger of bullshit like this Pitbull or whoever the hell he is being associated with this so-called “bro-country” in the interest of making money.
Keep your eyes WIDE OPEN, brothers and sisters. When ignorant animals who openly boast about their filthy lifestyles and criminal activities are made into “stars”, the threat of mono-genre music is nowhere NEAR the worst thing you have to worry about. You children are being slowly but carefully indoctrinated into the worldview that says all these so-called “cultures” belong mixed together. We’re supposed to be just as satisfied with the grunting of some moron called “T Pain” as we are with the beautiful and enjoyable music of a Bob Wills or a Ray Price. Be warned. This “remix” crap is the shallowest shallow level of something MUCH deeper.
God bless country music, America’s music, and God bless America.
May 12, 2014 @ 5:57 pm
http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-1.htm
May 13, 2014 @ 4:22 am
What’s your point?
May 12, 2014 @ 7:41 pm
The human worm-pile.
May 12, 2014 @ 8:42 pm
“Camie jo”, I don’t know if your “worm-pile” comment was directed at me, but if it was, consider that what you had to say brought NOTHING to this conversation. I suppose it’s because you idolize morons like FGL and their ignoramus cRap counterparts.
As far as being directed not to “judge” by Mr. or Ms. “Lunchbox”, what you’re talking about is judgment in SPIRITUAL matters, not matters of practical, everyday life. If you honestly believe that making heroes out of drug dealers, pimps and all-around imbeciles is somehow more “loving”, then count me a very UNloving person in that regard. When I make the JUDGMENT that drug-dealing pieces of animal crap are not worth associating with, and that I won’t expose my family to their cesspool ways of life, then call me as judgmental as you please, but I won’t change my mind. “Bad company corrupts good morals” is in the Bible, too.
What astonishes me is that anyone in the 21st century could possibly have access to the entirety of resources on the Internet and still be in favor of the kind of stupidity that arises when the shallowest, basest and most disgusting examples of ghetto “culcha” are paraded down the electronic highway for our children to digest.
There’s a reason that country music has always been, and ALWAYS WILL BE, the music of decent, hard-working and God-fearing Americans. It’s because the way of life that gave birth to folk and country music in the US in the first place is the LAST bastion of decency and safety in our communities. Watch out for those mandolin-playing gangsters! Those banjo-pickers and steel guitarists are out on the streets pushing pills and shooting random people to earn their “cred”.
Seriously, if you’re going to tell me to “not judge”, then why not ask me to be open-minded about things that AREN’T filthy and morally bankrupt? Why rush to tell me that illiterate buffoons who “rap” about murder, rape, drugs and disrespect for lawful authority should be “understood” and accepted? Probably because you’ve ingested enough of the mass-media kool-aid to start believing that this bro-country crap and its attendant compromises with stupid, grunting cRap is all just “good fun”.
I, for one, and millions of others for themselves, simply refuse to believe that lie.
If that makes me a “worm-pile”, then I don’t want to know what someone who applauds the success of criminals and illiterate asshole “rappers” should be called.
God bless country music, America’s music, and God bless America.
May 12, 2014 @ 11:18 pm
Once again, you are conflating a sonic and lyrical style with the actual content of the lyrics.
For example, what is more morally upright: Tupac rapping in “Keep Ya Head Up” or David Allan Coe’s classic country songs from his X-rated album?
May 13, 2014 @ 7:39 am
Eric,
First, I don’t really consider DAC a legitimate country artist over the latter half of his career, and he barely registers on the radar of most country fans anyway, “Take This Job”, a song he wrote, being perhaps an exception. DAC is a character in a very calculated effort to be “controversial”, when his recorded output is too far out of the mainstream to cause any real conversation among the listeners of country music. He’s basically a talented writer and (at least was; I don’t know now) a solid performer but his “shtick” is manufactured. I wouldn’t recommend DAC’s music for THAT alone, lyrical content notwithstanding. Still, DAC isn’t advocating random violence against anyone so that you can join his gang. He also isn’t posing on NATIONAL and INTERNATIONAL television and Internet video throwing gang signs and sporting gang tattoos. Whatever his associations may be, he isn’t using them as a sign that he’s “legit”, in fact, he’s seemingly PROUD of the fact that millions don’t like him.
Tupac Shakur, on the other hand, no matter what he grunted about keeping “ya” head up, WAS a drug-dealing thug asshole who died in a shootout with other lowlife pieces of crap. His idea of keeping “ya” head up is imbued with the attitude that “slinging dope” on the street corners is “what you gotta do” to get by sometimes. Oh, what noble poetry! He was continually pictured waving gang-related hand signs around, constantly sported gang-related clothing and tattoos, and was frequently photographed in the company of other lowlifes who behaved the same way. Yes, let’s have our friend Tupac “sing” to us about how life can be a regular bowl of cherries if you just “keep ya head up”. Wonderful command of the English language among those boogers, isn’t there? So much so that their song titles and album titles are purposely misspelled to reflect the ghetto-ebonic mumblings of these “stars”.
Seriously… what you don’t understand about cRap music is that it’s NOT just a “musical style”. You just don’t GET to produce that cRap with any sort of hope of commercial success UNLESS you associate yourself with the dogshit that is at the “top” of that particular game. You don’t get “cred” with the “streets” unless you can prove that you’re a gangster, a slum loser, a drug dealer. Forget your “clean” dipshit “Drake”. Number one, he personally associates with the lowest losers in their industry, and number two, he was only useful to Nickelodeon until he got to be too old to be pitched to the little-girl demographic as a “boy”. Once he got old enough, the “spin” to make his image more tough began. Don’t kid yourself; there’s only one way that he’s having fist-fights with Chris Brown and not getting shot. These losers are all in league with one another to try and promote their savagery so that they can all benefit. In between album “features” for one another, they just try to keep their neighborhood “homies” from killing each other. Isn’t that nice?
To hell with their “music” and all it represents, especially when the mass-media whores out there are trying to legitimize these animals by pairing them with human-Barbie imbeciles like FGL and Niemann. It’s not only disgusting to any decent person’s sensibilities, it runs contrary to everything that America’s leaders have envisioned for this nation.
God bless country music, America’s music, and God bless America.
May 13, 2014 @ 8:00 am
Do you think Big Rig, Clint, and RD ever run into each other at Klan meetings?
May 14, 2014 @ 1:11 pm
Do you think that Macklemore is a “lowlife” too? What about the pop stars who incorporate rap into their songs, such as Lorde?
“it runs contrary to everything that America”™s leaders have envisioned for this nation.”
America’s founders envisioned a nation with freedom of expression, not one based on a narrow definition of culture, art, or lifestyle.
May 15, 2014 @ 12:39 pm
Dear Eric,
I don’t know who the hell Mackerel is, or whatever the hell you call him. I don’t have time to waste listening to people who try to co-opt “urban” music and sell it to White people, hence my refusal to listen to any of the other cRap that FGL and Sh!tbull and everyone else is making. As far as “Lorde” is concerned, I listen to ONE Lord, and it sure isn’t whoever you’re talking about.
Dear Josh,
If you don’t like the attitudes of some of the commenters on this site. then go the hell away. This site is called SAVING COUNTRY MUSIC, not “polluting country music with stupid songs and ghetto garbage”. However you feel about other types of music, or about cRap, which is NOT music, makes no difference at all and is not germane to these discussions.
Dear Trainwreck,
My profound ignorance of cRap? My friend, when I was an ignorant youth, I spent YEARS associating with people involved in the cRap music industry. I was in rebellion against the authority of my parents, my community and my Lord. I know the ins and outs of the music business very well, and I can guarantee you that the thugs who operate their “labels” are being subsidized by larger companies ONLY for the chance to make profit, NOT because they enjoy associating with those cretins.
Klan member? You wouldn’t dare say that to my face. I am a God-fearing man, and God created all men and ESTABLISHED their HABITATIONS wherein they should reside and thrive. I have friends of many races, including black. We worship in church side by side. There is a profound difference between a person of any race with the DIGNITY to recognize their individuality and a lowlife animal who wants to force their useless criminal lifestyle onto an undeserving society.
Trigger, I’d like to ask publicly that the slanderous comments referring to some of us as Klansmen be deleted and the commenters suspended or banned.
I have made comments that I am sure are uncomfortable to many who are set in their ways and addicted to mass-media swill, but I have not personally attacked anyone on here. The comments I made about the ignorant losers in the cRap business are words that I own 100%. Please remove the hateful references to an organization that promotes violence and flaunts their disregard for this country’s freedoms which are the right of every citizen.
You boys can go on cheering the decline in American culture; the relative few of us on here who disagree with your love for ghetto trash and pop garbage will continue to ruffle your official Lady Gaga feather boas.
May 15, 2014 @ 1:35 pm
Big Red,
I’m not going to delete or edit anyone’s previous comments, but I will delete ANY further comments on this particular threat. The point of making comments is not just to voice your personal opinion, but also to help foster understanding between different viewpoints, and these hardline stances, on both sides, are not helpful in doing so, and thus, really have no healthy or relevant reason to be here. And from here on, I am going to police these much more heavily to make sure we don’t have similar threads to these. At the same time understand, if you’re going to take a hardline stance, you can’t complain when someone else retaliates with a hardline stance against you.
I think I’ve made it pretty obvious over the years that I have no love for rap, and especially for rap in country. However, that doesn’t mean ALL rap is bad, or even all country rap is bad, and taking that reactionary stance just fuels the flames of people that say anyone that is opposed to country rap is closed minded, or even racist. If we want to defeat bad country rap, we have to understand that not everyone doing it is doing it poorly. What if you judged country just by what you heard on the radio? That is the reason I don’t think any country fan is in the position to say ALL of rap, or all of anything is bad. I have no doubt that there are rap artists, for who rap is their indigenous method of expression, that are being oppressed no different than independent country artists. And these artists aren’t our enemies, but our brothers in arms. I know you know that Big Red, and I know you also feel like this stuff is an abomination to rap too, as I do. So let’s look for those areas where we can find agreement and learn from each other’s opinions, and keep the back and forths for the comments sections of YouTube and CNN.
Thanks.
May 13, 2014 @ 4:26 am
Amen
May 15, 2014 @ 10:56 am
Amen to brother Big Rig! We are in 100% agreement on this. Rap is a disgrace to America!
May 15, 2014 @ 1:42 pm
Rap is not a disgrace to America. All bad music is a disgrace to America, and I can site specific lines from country songs at the very top of the charts right now that are just as bad, if not worse than lines in the most popular rap songs at the moment, just as I can cite specific rap critics that are incensed at what is happening to their music as well.
Go read how Questlove says hip-hop failed back people. We have more in common than you think.
https://savingcountrymusic.com/mono-genre-watch-questlove-says-hip-hop-failed-black-people
May 15, 2014 @ 2:20 pm
Rap is a discrace to America. All rap is bad. “Good rap” is an oxy-moron. I guess we kind of agree in a roundabout way.
I have no idea who questlove is, but I already read that article when you first wrote it.
May 14, 2014 @ 3:27 pm
Big Rig, every time you go on one of these anti- rap tirades, you illustrate your profound misunderstanding of Rap music and the people that make it. Claiming that all rappers are “ignorant, grunting thugs”, and “vicious animals” is as ludicrous as claiming all country musicians and fans of country music are wife beating, inbred alcoholics. You clearly have a vast knowledge of country music, and I’d be willing to bet that many of my favorite musicians are also favorites of yours, but your closed mindedness towards rap, EDM, pop, etc. is mildly infuriating. By the way, just because someone recognizes rap, or “bro country” as music, does not mean that they enjoy that music. While music is of course subjective, I think Florida Georgia Line makes unequivocally bad music, but the fact of the matter is it’s still music, like it or not. And I’m not one to accuse someone of being a racist when I don’t actually know them, but calling rappers, who are predominately black, animals, beasts, and illiterate buffoons, could very easily be taken as racist. But clearly, you’re just a God fearin’ American and in no way a racist.
God Bless Country music/ Blues/ Jazz/ Rock n Roll/ Soul/ Disco/ Hardcore Punk/ Hip-Hop/ Techno/ and Cajun, America’s music, and God Bless America.
May 15, 2014 @ 11:26 am
Well said and thank you for posting this. This is one issue I have with a few of the commenters on this site. The close minded attitude toward other genres. Just because I don’t like rap or EDM in my country music, doesn’t mean I don’t like either period. In face I enjoy many EDM and rap songs. Eminem’s latest album was one of the best of 2013. I couldn’t listen to country all day, every day. I enjoy rock, hip hop, pop, electronic and several different forms of music. As long as it’s well written and performed music, that’s all I care about.
May 15, 2014 @ 11:00 am
Dear Bobby,
If we did run into each other, we wouldn’t know it; you know, with the white hoods and all.
May 12, 2014 @ 3:51 pm
I’ll be astonished if “Drink To That All Night” actually becomes a crossover success, honestly.
At the very least it can be said that Florida-Georgia Line have an energetic stage presence: a vital prerequisite to garner crossover appeal to a youthful Mainstream Top 40. Jerrod Niemann, on the other hand, lacks any sort of distinctive personality or stage presence………..and it is for that reason why I still doubt “Drink To That All Night” will come anywhere close to “Cruise” in terms of crossover success, despite Pitbull’s feature.
*
What I will say is that I can EASILY see “This Is How We Roll” becoming another massive crossover hit for Florida Georgia Line, and I am shocked they haven’t already commissioned a remix for this (or for “Get Your Shine On”, for that matter). You’d figure opportunists would be, y’know………….opportunistic? 😉
I can also EASILY see “Play It Again” becoming a massive crossover hit. It has already reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 on its own merit (or lack thereof). “Play It Again” is basically a three and a half minute self-aggrandizing advertisement for radio (XM radio, after all, is name-dropped in a second verse lyric) and everyone who plays his music, so why WOULDN’T mainstream radio lap this up too?
Besides those examples, I can’t really envision any current-charting “country” singles getting a commercially successful remix treatment. I wouldn’t be the least surprised to see Jason Aldean swing further in that direction as he ramps up promotion for his forthcoming sixth studio album, however.
May 12, 2014 @ 4:22 pm
I won’t be hearing them since I don’t listen to mainstream radio. I can say with absolute certainty the radio station I listen to won’t play them.
May 12, 2014 @ 5:53 pm
I don’t see this as a big deal for a few reasons. First, it’s been 3 remixes in 4 years- not a lot. Secondly, Pitbull (and Flo Ridi) are known for flat out ripping off popular songs (mainly EDM, some hip hop) to make pure pop music, NO ONE actually likes them. Yea the song sucks, maybe it will be successful for a bit in the pop genre or clubs/bars, but long term I don’t see this as a trend.
Also, I don’t have a problem combining genres at all if it’s done in a good way (Avicii did this I thought). But when its combining by making it the most generic money driven thing, it sucks.
May 12, 2014 @ 7:19 pm
Regardless of if everyday listeners personally like Pitbull and Flo Rida or not…………..unfortunately the reality remains that they (Pitbull especially) have entrenched social media presence that work greatly in their favor and net wealth to solidify their ubiquity in pop culture.
I just checked to see that Pitbull has over 51 million “Likes” on Facebook. That’s astronomical! Pitbull’s detractors are certainly outspoken across social media as well, but I don’t see him outright fading away anytime soon despite believing his commercial career has likely peaked recently.
May 12, 2014 @ 7:21 pm
Wow, it just gets worse and worse with each passing day.
May 12, 2014 @ 7:29 pm
Oh, it could be worse. Imagine this hypothetical title:
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Insane Clown Posse: “He Stopped Loving Her Today (Featuring Luke Bryan, Chase Rice & brokenCYDE)” 😉
May 12, 2014 @ 9:03 pm
I had Jamey Johnson playing on my iPod and this crap started playing as I read the article. Needless to say I couldn’t turn it down fast enough
May 12, 2014 @ 10:37 pm
I remember the first country song I ever heard as a remix… “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” dance mix from Brooks and Dunn 2/Hard Workin’ Man… That wasn’t bad, it had a purpose and a place considering the damned near revolution “Boot Scootin Boogie” was at dancehalls and nightclubs across the country.
Then Tim McGraw and Nelly got together to do “Over and Over Again”. To be honest, as much as I hate most of the latter half of Tim McGraw’s career, this song isn’t one on my shit list. I’ve always been a fan of how clean (sonically, not verbally) Nelly’s delivery has been, and how he’s one of the few rappers who can actually sing instead of just speak on-note and in-rythym. The music video for the song, the song’s unique “two genres overlapping but not colliding” structure, this was something kind of cool, as much as I love my hip-hop and I love my country, I usually like them separate, but this was something special that I didn’t mind at all.
Then Big and Rich did one with Lil Jon… I was surprisingly okay with that because B&R and Lil Jon were both turning their respective genres on their ear without ever quite crossing the line into something outside their genre, both were a breath of fresh air to genres that were already stagnant, a little side-project like that couldn’t hurt anything.
Then Cowboy Troy came along… To be honest, I bought his first album because it was the stupidest, funniest, most absurd thing I’d ever heard. Two songs on the album were funny enough, interesting enough, or good enough to be listened to more than once, the rest was pure filler, and not even good filler at that. I knew this wasn’t going to be a thing, I just knew it. (I know these are chronologically out of order, just throwing them out there in the order of how far things had to go before it became a thing, and how, maybe, we should’ve seen these things as warning signs.)
Then these bro-country/pop-country/country rap assholes started doing collaborations with any and all hip-hop and EDM artists they could find. Most of them (the collaborations, not necessarily the artists) aren’t even remotely good, though I’ll give the gawd-awful Florida-Georgia Line credit, Nelly actually brought something to that fucktarded musical abortion that was “Cruise”.
This is officially the worst one yet. I long for the days when a single orchestra hit inserted here and there with some extra harmonica and bass was all we had to worry about.
May 13, 2014 @ 5:29 am
The only way you will ever put a stop to this is to get people to stop buying it, plain and simple. When the profit-suckers no longer have the cash rolling in, they will change their course. Unfortunately, the young masses continue to spend good money for this music, and as long as they do, we will continue to be bombarded with it.
May 13, 2014 @ 8:33 am
If you don’t oppose and dismiss this garbage outright, then don’t waste your time complaining about it. Its as much a part of my culture as a bone through the nose or rolling my phallus up with a stick. No matter how its justified or sold to me, I won’t accept it.
May 14, 2014 @ 10:22 am
Funny enough The Onion has an article titled “Report: Growing Number Of Americans Forced To Make Ends Meet By Collaborating On Song With Pitbull”. Once again real news and the Onion seem interchangeable..:
http://onion.com/1k1F2vf
May 14, 2014 @ 12:48 pm
Jerrod Niemann’s got to pay for groundskeeping on his donkey ranch somehow in this sluggish economy! 😉
Here’s my favorite paragraph, which is brilliant! 😉
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“Over the past seven years, we”™ve seen a steady decline in real median household income in the United States, which corresponds with an equally sharp rise in the number of Americans finding samples for bouncing, house-music-inspired dance hall songs, such as ”˜Don”™t Stop the Party”™ or all the singles off the Meltdown EP,” Coan said. “And given that rent payments and food and transportation costs have only risen, it appears these individuals will simply have to continue putting in full days at one job and then immediately don white linen suits and open-collar dress shirts so they can shoot a Bud Light commercial alongside Pitbull and his entourage.”
May 15, 2014 @ 10:55 am
Do these artist not realize that Pitbull is irrelevant?
May 15, 2014 @ 12:38 pm
I’m no Pitbull apologist. But coming off of a Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit earlier this year, as well as currently having a Top 15 Mainstream Top 40 airplay follow-up (“Wild Wild Love”) and an official World Cup song………..I fail to see how Pitbull is irrelevant in pop culture presently.
We’ll know he’s irrelevant when countless recording artists stop seeking him out for a quick paycheck.
Country-Rap Collaborations In The Modern Age: The Remix | For The Country Record
August 11, 2014 @ 9:01 am
[…] have been collaborating with rappers and producers to release rap/EDM remixes of their singles (SCM recently wrote about it too). Let”™s have a look at the […]
November 14, 2014 @ 11:53 pm
https://soundcloud.com/binkyman2020/jason-aldean-burnin-it-down-binkyman-2020-remix