Florida Georgia Line Doesn’t Know What “Bro-Country” Means
It’s been theorized that what truly defines a “douchebag” is living in a vacuum of self-awareness. When you combine that with the rather easy-to-deduce conclusion that Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley probably weren’t winning many academic decathlons during their formative years from the way the duo’s songs so deftly avoid positively anything that could be mistaken, let alone taken, as deep, substantive, intelligent, or even remotely country instead of an overly-affectated, caricaturist drawl, it only makes sense that they would be completely unable to define the very term that was crafted to describe their specific brand of vapid, soul-less, and only very slightly country-flavored dreck.
“Bro-country” is the phrase that has been on the tip of the tongue of many country music and culture writers when they try to describe the current phenomenon gripping popular country music that calls heavily on pickup trucks, beer, backroads, etc. etc., but according to Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley (the one that does all the talking off stage, and none of the singing on stage), he’s clueless to what the term stands for.
“We’ve heard the term ‘bro country’, and I don’t really know what it means,” he tells FOX411. “People like to label things I guess these days. What’s country? What’s not country?”
Deep, Mr. Kelley. Deep.
“We just call it the Florida-Georgia-Line sound,” he continues. “Our music’s got all of our influences in one.” What influences? When asked what his dream collaborations would be, Brian Kelley answered, “Within country music, Ronnie Dunn and Garth Brooks are the two top guys, and outside of country we like Drake and Rihanna,” proving that Florida Georgia Line are just the type of mono-genre monsters that make music marketeers see green.
Though the term “bro-country” has become standardized throughout media world, attempts to create negative connotations around the designation have been mixed. Recently, the term has been adopted by the very music, fans, and artists it was meant to criticize. Pandora has even set up an exclusive bro-country channel.
May 5, 2014 @ 9:47 am
What an idiot.
May 5, 2014 @ 9:52 am
I get the feeling these two don’t understand much of anything.
May 5, 2014 @ 2:16 pm
Brian Kelley: “Hey, we smart, bros!”
Tyler Hubbard: “Yeah, man! Like………we can rhyme seat-o with free throw!”
Brian Kelley: “Yeah, that was super cool! And………we know where to get the best moonshine!”
Tyler Hubbard: “Yeah! WinCo!”
(Brian punches Tyler’s arm)
Brian Kelley: “Shhhhuutttt uuuppppp! You almost gave it away!”
Tyler Hubbard: “Sorry, bro! And……….oh yeah, didn’t you hear our song “Redneck Education” before we got a major label dealio? Did we not say we’ve got a degree in redneck education?”
Brian Kelley: “Yeah, we’re……..like………the val…..dick…….whatever they call it among all redneck educators, or something!”
*
😉
May 5, 2014 @ 4:26 pm
Well, as their luck may have it, they understand how to come up with a catchy chorus. I personally think criticizing their lyrics is missing the point; the only reason these guys have a career is because they can take absolute gibberish and create a catchy melody out of it. When my brain’s on autopilot, I even find myself humming along. Then, I abruptly realize who I’m listening to and try to hide my shame. But in all seriousness, I guarantee you that almost none of their fans actually have any basic understanding of what these guys are singing, they just like it for the catchiness. Heck, I bet FGL doesn’t even know what they’re singing.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:06 am
You know, there’s a way to fix this, and maybe it’s to jettison the bro-country label altogether – because honestly, as a subgenre term, I wouldn’t argue it’s a good one. It’s something that describes the audience of the music, not the performers themselves. Luke Bryan, one of the most prominent figures in the movement, may have been part of the frat crowd a decade or so ago, but he’s older now and the term ‘bro’ doesn’t always fit cleanly.
So I propose to take a page from hip-hop’s playbook and adapt terminology that would demonstrate a similar divide across rap music. Let’s not call it bro-country, let’s call it ‘ignorant country’ – because, on some level, the music churned out by FGL and Cole Swindell and Thomas Rhett among others caters to that audience who would just as easily accept acts like Migos, YG, Young Thug, Future and 2 Chainz.
On the flip side, just as we have conscious hip-hop acts like Pharoahe Monch, Lupe Fiasco, Common, and others who speak about politics and economics and religion and serious subjects, there’s ‘conscious country’ acts as well, bands that talk about rural America and the roots and history of the genre.
And honestly, I feel the labeling makes sense, and would be a lot less comfortable for bros to latch on and ‘reclaim’ like they have with ‘bro-country’. Also, it’s more accurate, defining the genre for what it is instead of its audience, which produces a much clearer picture.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:36 am
The problem is you’re never going to be able to pick the terms that will capture the American zeitgeist and become the univerally-accepted term for anything. When “bro-country” really began to take off, I shook my little fists at it, but to no avail. My guess is bro-country is here to stay whether we like it or not, and it’s only destined to get bigger as the artists and bands it was meant to criticize adopt it into their marketing.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:52 am
Correct me if I’m wrong, the one short haired one doesn’t even sing, does he?
May 5, 2014 @ 2:21 pm
To be fair, on the recently-released deluxe edition of “Here’s To The Good Times: This Is How We Roll”, Brian Kelley contributes a bit more as a vocalist: including singing the chorus on the hick-hop stadium rock-sounding track “People Back Home”, and on portions of “Take It Out On Me”.
Before then, he was largely relegated to backup vocals only: with the exception of the coda to “Tell Me How You Like It” and the second verse of “Tip It Back”.
…………yeah, i listen to a lot of bad music too! =P
May 5, 2014 @ 10:11 am
The biggest problem with these morons is not that what they are doing is wrong-its that they are so ignorant they don’t even realize what they have become (or what they have always been).
May 5, 2014 @ 10:12 am
Is it just me or does anybody else instantly feel their blood pressure go through the roof anytime they see these fucking clowns?
May 6, 2014 @ 4:18 am
No. Please believe me when I tell you that it’s not just you.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:13 am
Who is Drake? Is he talking about the guy from Drake & Josh? If not, don’t tell me. Because if it’s true it would be really funny.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:49 am
Canadian Rapper, Eminem wanna be.
May 5, 2014 @ 9:15 pm
If he’s any kind of wannabe, I’d say he’s a Lil Wayne wannabe. I don’t really see any similarities between Drake and Em.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:03 pm
Good Point
May 5, 2014 @ 10:17 am
When the rubber meets the road…all of the air comes out of their tires.
I like “douchebillies”.
May 6, 2014 @ 4:18 am
I use the term “douche-nozzles” to describe these two ass-clowns.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:20 am
Or even worse, Mr. Vargas, it is that they don’t even care.
May 5, 2014 @ 11:37 am
These two yahoos nauseate me.
May 5, 2014 @ 11:57 am
I am starting to lean towards the view that the proliferation of the term “bro-country” is positive. Remember a few years ago when George Jones made some statement to the effect that the industry needed to come up with a new term to describe popular country music, because it was no longer country and had “stolen our identity?”
Before it was “bro-country,” it was just called country music. The “bro” prefix slightly differentiates it, and puts it in a different category. I think small variations in terminology make a big difference. For example: the connotation of the term “rock and roll” has a slightly different, more specific definition than just “rock.” Same as “country and western” as opposed to country. “Bro -country” still has the word country in it, but that is because this music is still emanating from the country infrastructure.
The only reason I’m apprehensive about the term is that it sounds like a barb directed at a specific demo, when the actual point is to criticize the quality of the music, not fraternity guys per se. It’s somewhat of an ad hominem.
FGL are mono-genre monsters, but I won’t fault them for their comment on potential collaborators. At least they differentiated between country and pop. I hope Garth will be too smart to collaborate with these two though.
May 5, 2014 @ 12:09 pm
I thought of another example: indie rock. That has a whole different set of associations attached to it than simply “rock.”
So in essence, let them call themselves “bro-country” all they want. I think as long as it is a subgenre, it is confined.
May 5, 2014 @ 2:50 pm
Now if we could move from confined to quarantined, we’d be making some progress lol
May 5, 2014 @ 3:41 pm
Good points; but I believe you’re incorrect about the terms “rock” vs “rock n roll”, and “Country” vs “Country and Western”. “Rock” is just the abbreviated term for “Rock n Roll”, and Country music dropped “western” some years ago, I guess to streamline the name.
May 6, 2014 @ 3:41 am
Fair point. I was thinking that the change from “country and western” to “country” is when western influences and cowboy songs began to dissapear from the genre, which changed its content somewhat.
These are probably better examples: As I said, I know people who like “rock” but have no interest in “indie rock.” I also know people who like jazz music but have no regard for “smooth jazz,” a cheesy subgene of jazz that is typically associated with the background music one might hear on the weather channel. Oh, and what about in the early 00’s when that crappy genre of rap/rock music known as “nu-metal” was ruling rock radio airwaves? Many metal-heads hated and excoriated “nu-metal” and said it didn’t represent true heavy metal music. (Perhaps the same was true of “hair metal.” ) That is as apt a comparison to our current predicament in country music as I can think of.
So, the same thing has now happened in country music. People are treating the current wave of laundry-list pop country music as if is a new subgenre. Fine by me, I say, now let’s go reclaim the term “country music.”
May 6, 2014 @ 4:05 am
As many other people have said, the elements of what we call “bro-country” were fermenting within the mainstream country genre for a long time. Music critic Jody Rosen coined the term “bro-country” to describe the emergence of Florida Georgia Line (specifically the song “Cruise,”) and designated Luke Bryan the reigning king of the movement.
http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/rise-of-bro-country-florida-georgia-line.html
May 6, 2014 @ 7:52 am
The reason bro-country stuck as a term is because Jody Rosen wields such a big sword in media. I love Jody Rosen, but he also comes to country very much from the outside looking in. If he had called it “laundry list country” would that have stuck? I don’t know, but I despised the term from the very beginning for the very reasons we’re seeing play out now right before our very eyes. At some point, there will probably be a “bro-country” exhibit in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
May 6, 2014 @ 4:23 am
I actually like where you’re going with your comments, and you make some great points.
When George Jones made those comments, he was at the time specifically calling out C.U. and T.S. And those two would hardly fit into the category of bro-country,,,they’re pop. So, while “bro-country” differentiates a certain group of the stuff that is not really country, it also doesn’t solve the issue of the pure pop music that has infiltrated the genre.
May 6, 2014 @ 5:38 am
I agree, Taylor especially is pure pop at this point.
I mentioned the fact that “bro-country” was made up by one particular dude, because I am curious why the term has stuck, and why now. There have been other songs / movements within the genre that have made waves or that people have objected to over the years (like “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy” for instance) and laundry list stuff has been happening for years. But I assume the term caught on because people generally feel we have reached a breaking point. Probably because the lack of variety & substance is unprecedented. Personally, my mother stopped listening to country radio in 2013 after decades of pop-country because she said the music was getting too stupid.
May 6, 2014 @ 12:35 pm
Country radio being dominated by laundry-list songs is a recent phenomenon. As recently as early 2011, bro-country was marginal.
May 5, 2014 @ 12:03 pm
While Brian Kelley is so dumb he makes the multitool in my pocket look like Albert Einstein, I don’t believe for a second that he doesn’t know exactly what “bro-country” means. And the whole “what is country” thing is the typical distraction from having to answer the question of whether the music is or isn’t country. It’s not as if it takes a multitool, er, Einstein to answer the question.
May 5, 2014 @ 12:06 pm
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it is difficult for me to get upset with these guys. I find them entertaining in the same way that Saturday Night Live is entertaining…
May 5, 2014 @ 1:42 pm
Can we just start calling bro-country “corporate country.” Or maybe “Nickelback country.” I have defended Nickelback in the past and don’t think they deserve the backlash they get but using their name kills artistic credibility to most people. FGL and Jake Owen use Nickelback’s producer, Joey Moi, anyway. I think I might start saying “Nickelback country” and see if it catches on.
May 5, 2014 @ 2:23 pm
Hey, that’s not fair to actual country! 😉
Why not call it “Douchipolitan”? 😉
May 5, 2014 @ 2:49 pm
Actual country will just be called “country.” Bad country will be called Nickelback country. I feel like FGL might be take being compared to Nickelback as a compliment though. It might also ease their relations with the Canadian people.
May 5, 2014 @ 2:59 pm
Sounds good, though I’m still partial to “douchebilly.” 😀
May 5, 2014 @ 3:33 pm
Think of it this way.
If we go with “Douchipolitan”, we can also lump the douches of other genres; including Ian Watkins of the now-defunct The Lostprophets (actually, scratch that: he belongs in a super-exclusive separate sphere of shame and evil), Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Morrissey, John Mayer, Howie Day, will.i.am, Chad Kroeger, 2 Chainz, Axl Rose, Billy Corgan, Fred Durst, Tim Lambesis (of As I Lay Dying), Ted Nugent………and of course these guys, together! 😉
We’ll afford them all their own little island, and the genres beyond will no longer how to deal with “All Douchedom, All The Time!” ever again! 😉
May 5, 2014 @ 3:54 pm
As badly as John Mayer treats his girlfriends, his music does not deserve to be grouped with the others on your list. His Continuum-era work was world-class.
May 5, 2014 @ 4:11 pm
I’ll agree with you that “Continuum” is Mayer’s best work and, on its own, is actually a worthwhile listen along with “Room For Squares”.
However, his most recent album “Born and Raised” epitomizes douchedom lyrically. Our regular featured commenter here Mark of Spectrum Pulse explained better than I could how so in dissecting each of the album’s tracks from front to back.
“Continuum” preceded the point in his career where he became especially notorious for his gaffes in interviews including the infamous Playboy Magazine interview. Nothing will ever change the fact it’s a great album despite his tarnished public personality. Ever since then, however, his artistic quality has also nosedived with his public image.
May 5, 2014 @ 7:27 pm
Ah, good thinking! 🙂
May 6, 2014 @ 9:49 pm
Anyone who puts John Mayer in the same sentence with Justin Bieber should not be taken seriously. Absolutely no comparison.
Also, “Born and Raised” is not his most recent album, and I’m confused how anyone who actually listened to it could find “douch-ness” in it.
May 7, 2014 @ 12:08 am
You’re right! I apologize, and actually confused the title of Mayer’s most recent album “Paradise Valley” with its predecessor “Born and Raised”. I was indeed meaning to refer to “Paradise Valley”. I did stream “Born and Raised” a week before its release for free, and there wasn’t much I remember from that other than that I thought the songs were more mature but only a few tracks really stood out to me either.
That said, when it comes to “Paradise Valley”, I defend my initial opinions and remarks of its songwriting. Most of the time, honestly, I just rarely buy Mayer’s sincerity as a songwriter. His efforts at appearing like a starry-eyed sadsack loser always seem blatantly calculated, and what’s especially problematic is that his passive-aggressive tendencies pop up in moments of other songs: most notably “Paper Doll”, “Badge & Gun” and “You’re No One ‘Til Someone Lets You Down”.
Note when I bundled up all of those names together, I wasn’t speaking about music quality necessarily. It’s a no-brainer John Mayer is superior to Justin Bieber, as is Axl Rose and Morrissey (though Mayer is hardly any more sincere than Bieber is, in my opinion). I was speaking about personality, and was being partially sarcastic too.
May 9, 2014 @ 3:33 pm
“As badly as John Mayer treats his girlfriends, ”
Eric, are you Taylor?
May 5, 2014 @ 4:53 pm
Or we can just call this genre (sub-genre?) “absolute fucking garbage.”
“Hot New Country 104, home of absolute fucking garbage!”
May 5, 2014 @ 2:07 pm
Florida-Georgia Line the Bill and Ted of twangy pop music! 😉
The controversy in Calgary, most notably, underscores the reality that they’re either as dumb as a bag of lead pipes, or they have the most dysfunctional management and public relations spokespeople in the music industry.
I’m inclined to think it’s both! 😉
May 5, 2014 @ 3:59 pm
Looking through Brian Kelley’s background, I have a hard time believing that he completely lacks intelligence. After all, he has a college degree. It is possible that he is just playing dumb.
May 5, 2014 @ 4:58 pm
NASCAR driver Ryan Newman has a degree in engineering from Purdue and he thinks the moon landings were faked so…
May 6, 2014 @ 4:28 am
Hell, I still can’t fathom the fact that Tyler Hubbard wrote “Black Tears.” And then relegates himself to singing bullshit like “Cruise” and “Get Your Shine On.”
May 5, 2014 @ 6:40 pm
It actually amuses me how worked up people get over Florida Georgia Line. How can you be mad at them? They’re just taking advantage of the current situation. They are a result, not the actual problem.
I personally don’t care for them. But I don’t care for a lot of popular music. I find their banal, idiotic form of drivel repulsive. But I’m not mad at them. The only people that wrath should be extended are consumers. They’re the ones buying this crap.
Good for you, FGL. Enjoy it while it lasts.
May 5, 2014 @ 8:49 pm
Florida-Georgia Line don’t get me worked up like Luke Bryan and Tim McGraw do.
Why is that? Because it is impossible to accuse Florida-Georgia Line and their spawns for selling out. How can you accuse an act of being a sellout when it has been bloody obvious from the onset that their career is predicated entirely on riding the cresting wave of a trend, and profiting off of it? Their music may still be just as horrible at the end of the day, but at least they’re not being hypocritical about it.
With artists who had track records preceding this trend, however, like Luke Bryan and Tim McGraw………..I find myself feeling much angrier in comparison towards them. Because when both of them started out, the material they were cutting had more authenticity to it. Yet, with Luke Bryan…………despite already collecting a pair of Top Ten hits off of his debut album “I’ll Stay Me” (ha, that ship sure sailed! 😉 )………that apparently wasn’t good enough for him. So, he added more polish to the production of his sophomore album and collected three Top Two hits. Apparently, that STILL wasn’t enough, so he fully genuflected to “bro-country” mediocrity just before the term became a fixture in critical circles and, later, pop culture……….and now his initial signs of promise as a prolific singer and songwriter of a “neotraditionalist” (I place quotation marks around that term because it is used too loosely) cloth were traded for shallow commercialism.
With Tim McGraw, it’s even more embarrassing. When sized up with all other performers who emerged in the mid-nineties, McGraw is rivalled only by Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith (and it can surely be argued even Keith didn’t truly breakout until the turn of the decade) in terms of longevity and influence. Tracy Byrd had a strong run out of the gate but longevity hasn’t sided with him. Trace Adkins roared out of the gate but his single performances endured a bizarre inconsistency at the turn of the decade onward. Clay Walker started out strong but also has suffered Trace Adkins Syndrome since the 2000s began. Bryan White won the 1995 ACM Top New Male Vocalist accolade and was never able to ride it beyond six #1 hits. John Michael Montgomery won the 1993 ACM Top New Male Vocalist accolade and definitely had a decent run with Montgomery Gentry, but their influence on the genre isn’t anywhere close to that of Brooks & Dunn.
McGraw is about as credible an elder statesman to the genre who emerged in the mid-nineties as anyone, and so to see him fully surrender to assembly-line mediocrity is shockingly heartaching and pathetic in the same breath. That epitomizes selling out to me.
*
Yet, with Florida-Georgia Line, what you see is what you get, take it or leave it. Their intentions are hilariously obvious and it is, to that effect, why I agree it is easy to yell at their fans…………but hard to get that worked up about them.
May 6, 2014 @ 4:36 am
In fairness “Two Lanes of Freedom” was anything but mediocre. Sure, “Truck Yeah” was complete B.S. and even “Southern Girl” was pretty weak and cliched, but beyond that, the album was brilliant. Even “Mexicoma” wasn’t that bad of a song. Give it a listen if you haven’t already:
“Friend of a Friend,” “Nashville Without You,” “Book of John,” “Number 37405,” “Annie I Owe You a Dance.” All great songs.
Really, of all the singles McGraw has released over 20 years, only three or four are deserving of severe criticism (“Looking for That Girl” included). He’s had a couple others that may have been weak, but overall, McGraw still remains out of the real “bro-country” crowd.
May 6, 2014 @ 10:19 am
I’ll agree with you on the song selections themselves. On paper, the songs you listed are quite strong.
What ruined it for me were the production choices, and the fact it feels unacceptably uneven. “Two Lanes of Freedom” was woefully overproduced by Bryan Gallimore and Tim McGraw himself.
The story songs, namely “Number 37405” and “Nashville Without You”, are the two exceptions that really work because they sound intimate……….and even while the former in particular leans a bit too heavy on middling vanilla Adult Contemporary-esque production schemes, it still retains enough intimate resonance to stand out. “Annie i Owe You A Dance” similarly succeeds for much the same reason, as does “Tinted Windows”.
The problem with the remaining tracks you list is that they’re inundated with gloss. Again, on paper, they are strong songs……..but it is as though they’re akin to bleached rice: stripped of its enzymes, germs and, thus, much of its substance……………to the extent they just appear much more forgettable on record than they should. Worse yet, they are bookended by generic to outright terrible cuts peddled by industry executives to where it’s a startlingly uneven effort that doesn’t sound like a true album more than a grab bag of songs with mixed results.
Oddly enough, there are even songs that get the production right, but have terrible lyrics. I’m willing to admit I like the sound of “Southern Girl” (minus the random Auto-Tune on McGraw’s lyrics in the latter parts of the chorus and outro). Honestly, as bad as its songwriting is, I can’t help but like the textures of that song’s production to the extent it’s halfway a guilty pleasure…………and would have liked to see more production in that vein throughout the rest of that album’s tracks, along with “Mexicoma”.
May 6, 2014 @ 4:56 pm
I’ll agree that there was a bit of over-production at points, but overall, stylistically in terms of the music itself, at least, the album had a lot more to offer than much of the mainstream crap that came out in 2013. I would never consider McGraw part of the “bro-country” trend (even as crappy as “Lookin’ for That Girl” was).
That’s just my two cents, though. I can see how over-production can ruin music for some people, but I always like to look at the substance of the music as a whole and weigh that more heavily than the production (unless the production is outlandishly bad or overdone).
Again, that’s just my two cents.
May 8, 2014 @ 12:45 am
John Michael Montgomery was never in Montgomery Gentry… that’s his much shittier brother Eddie.
May 5, 2014 @ 7:53 pm
Someone stole my answer. Call it merde. Call it mierda. Call it ca-ca. Call it whatever variation of “crap” suits you.
Seriously, these guys may or may not have the brains that the Lord gave a cabbage; I’m not suggesting that they’re dumb. Even a five-year-old will take money if someone hands it to them.
The problem is that these “artists” and label and PR people keep fooling the lemmings who consume pop culture so readily, but they’re completely unprepared and unable to handle the backlash when thinking people react to moronic garbage like the “music” and image of FGL.
Believe it or not, young people born after the 1980s, there was a time when Olivia Newton-John, an Australian, won country music awards. I recently re-listened to some of the songs she cut in Nashville back in the late 70s. There’s steel guitar, Gospel-style harmony singing, good songs… her music was Hank Sr. and Patsy Cline together compared to the crap these boys are getting paid to lip-sync.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but name-checking Drake, a stupid thug, and Rihanna, a woman who dates thugs and allows them to beat her up, is WAY more problematic than just citing them as musical interests. The decline of decent, God-fearing society that those cretins represent is nothing less than an affront to The Almighty, Who told us that the nations have their boundaries set by HIM. All this cross-pollinating of a veneer of “country” music, so called, with the animal noises and ghetto stupidity of c-rap “music” is doomed, and it’s disgusting.
Don’t worry, though… for every FGL there’s a Dale Watson and a Sturgill Simpson and a Whitey Morgan. Thank God for that.
God bless country music, America’s music, and God bless America.
May 5, 2014 @ 8:55 pm
I find several aspects of your posts to be highly problematic:
1) Calling Rihanna a “cretin” and claiming that she “allows” her boyfriends to beat her up
2) Attacking Drake’s intelligence and labeling him a “thug” without citing anything thuggish that he has done
3) Implying that country music and rap music represent different “nations”. We are all Americans, after all.
May 6, 2014 @ 6:38 am
Dear Eric, I really don’t care what you find problematic. The very idea that you would protest my characterization of those ignorant thugs speaks volumes as to your world-view. We are clearly miles apart in our understanding of what culture should consist of. By the way, when I said Rihanna “allows” herself to be assaulted by an asshole like Chris Brown, I meant ALLOWS. Why is it that the Dixie Chicks can have a hit song about defending yourself against an abuser, and this dumb broad instead just uses her abuse as a springboard for more publicity? Where were all of her handlers and bodyguards? I don’t need to tell you what would happen if I were in the same room with that woman-beating piece of shit and I was properly dressed. No amount of gang-sign waving, strutting and mumbling about what a bad guy he is would help him one bit. Yes, she ALLOWS, because that dumb bastard should have been seeing the Lawd two minutes after he raised a hand to her. That’s both her fault and the fault of those who surround her. She didn’t deserve the beatings, but she should NEVER have gone back to him. He shouldn’t be around to go back to. Anyway, I’m sure in your mind and in your fantasy world, those cretins and their kind belong in the realm of celebrity, making millions of dollars so that they can represent and encourage the idiotic and dangerous lifestyle they foster everywhere they congregate. You go ahead and enjoy what c-rap music and its effects are doing to society. I’ll pass.
Dear “Trainwreck”, the thought that you’re defending “Drake”, an imbecile who talks over electronic drum loops and calls it “music”, is hilarious. I couldn’t care less that he was on a children’s program on TV, except for the fact that children shouldn’t be exposed to c-rap music in the first place. “Least thggish rapper” is like saying “dog with a little bit of rabies”. If this clod is producing c-rap “music”, then he is surrounded by the very kinds of thug animals who make their “music” in the first place. “Drake” might be marketed to a younger, more naive suburban audience, but he associates with the woman-beating punk sissy Chris Brown, whether they are friendly or not. They and their kind go out and smash up clubs together. Real class.
Maybe you and Eric should go listen to FGL and their ignorant thug buddies together. Then you can all have a good cry over how wonderful it is that they’re all sliding into an ebonics-filled cesspool together, and taking you folks with them. Yay!
Keep defending these idiots, the throwaway “music” they make, and their “heroes” like Drake the cretin. You deserve each other.
God bless country music, America’s music, and God bless America.
May 6, 2014 @ 8:15 am
Dumb. That’s a dumb thing you just said.
May 6, 2014 @ 12:52 pm
You still have not shown a single “thuggish” act that Drake has committed. Nor have you presented any evidence to prove the contention that Rihanna used her abuse as a “springboard for more publicity”.
Believe it or not, I despise the rap musical style. Unlike you, however, I know how to criticize a musical form without personally attacking the artists who use that form. I also judge artists as individuals rather than practicing guilt by association. I would suggest that you take some time to learn those essential skills before engaging in a serious discussion about music.
May 6, 2014 @ 3:21 pm
“You have not shown a single ‘thuggish’ thing Drake has done…”
I don’t have to. He talks over electronic boops and bleeps. He associates with ignorant animal morons. The ‘rap game’, so called, is a haven for drug dealers, pimps and every other ghetto-fabulous loser lifestyle. What the hell do I care whether he pretends to act like a gangbanger or not? He identifies with morons who don’t even use proper English or refer to themselves with normal names. He’s an idiot if not a thug.
Poor Rihanna got her face bashed in by her ignoramus of a “boo”, Chris Brown. Then she was ALL OVER the radio and newspapers… you know damned well that her publicists made sure she got plenty of “face time” so she could look like a real survivor. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I hate what happened to her, and I wouldn’t wish it on Rihanna or anyone else, but hanging around with those lowlife morons was step one towards a very dangerous and pathetic lifestyle, for her and countless other nameless women and girls who idolize those savages.
You “know how to criticize a musical form”… good. This is a forum for discussing COUNTRY MUSIC, not the random noises and repetitive drum-banging that is supposed to be c-rap “music”. Try having something worthwhile to say about legitimate musical forms, not garbage lyrics mumbled over synthesized droning.
You judge “artists” as individuals? Those aren’t artists. They’re drug dealers and the friends of drug dealers. They’re gangsters and the friends of gangsters. They’re lowlife scum and they operate their business in the company of lowlife scum.
Learn those essential skills? I’ve been a performing musician for nearly 25 years. I’ve been singing in public for over 30 years now. I have all the essential skill it takes to understand music, thank you. What these cavemen keep grunting about is not music.
One last thing… despise c-rap “music” or don’t, but I’m not going any further in this debate since we’re never going to agree on the moral and ethical integrity of these beasts. I refuse to waste any more time proving what their videos and TV-news appearances already prove for me.
God bless country MUSIC, America’s music, and God bless America.
May 6, 2014 @ 5:09 pm
George Jones was a raging alcoholic, pulled a gun on, and brutally assaulted his wife, Tammy Wynette. Johnny Paycheck went to prison for shooting a man. David Allan Coe was in and out of jail for close to 20 years. Merle Haggard was also in and out of jail, eventually landing himself in San Quentin. Hank Williams,Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings were all well known drug addicts. Were these men thugs? Can you still enjoy their music despite the illegal and immoral acts they committed?
May 6, 2014 @ 10:21 pm
I’m going to pretend that I don’t understand (or remember) what “I’m through debating this” means, because it’s obvious that YOU don’t understand it. There’s an opportunity for you to learn a BIG lesson about the way society is going these days, however, so I feel a responsibility to share it with you.
Sure… I listen to the George Jones album called “Slap Yo Bitch and Wave Yo Glock” all the time. Johnny Paycheck sold out stadiums singing about how if you’re a real man, you should be in a gang and “catch bodies” (gangster-trash slang for killing people). DAC… yeah, he taught the world how to ruin the English language and become SO popular that the schools started trying to teach “Coe-bonics”. Haggard? Well, he wrote a best-seller about how to make a career out of breaking and entering. Hank Williams, Waylon and Cash all went around posing for posters with joints in their mouths and guns sticking out of their sagging pants. Ol’ Hank especially was known for throwing gang signs as he sang.
Not ONE of those people ever glorified the things they did wrong; in fact, Cash and Haggard especially have made a point of dealing honestly with how messed up their personal lives were for many years. Neither man has hidden the truth and neither man has asked to be given a pass, nor to be CELEBRATED for the kinds of things they did to hurt themselves and others.
Ignorant, savage c-rap “culcha” is just the opposite. The gangbangers, the thugs, the drug-dealing and drug-using imbeciles that fill the rosters of the labels? They are not the EXCEPTION, they are the RULE. That’s how you get “cred” in the streets, by acting like an idiot, a criminal, an addict or a deadly (and very common) combination of the three.
There was a time when the bad guy, the guy robbing and killing and flaunting a disregard for the law, was captured and dealt justice. Now, not only do murderers and pimps walk free after only weeks and months in prison, many of them are HEROES to the idiots who populate the world of c-rap “music”. These assholes get busted for drugs, for gun violations, for brawling, for every sort of base and animal behavior, and they get a “rep” that makes them “true” to their thug lifestyle. You know what one of the most popular slogans coming out of the ghetto-sewer of c-rap has been? “No Snitches”, or words to that effect. That’s right… people are supposed to deal drugs, rape, rob and kill in the name of being hardcore gangbangers, and the general public is supposed to support these monsters by not “snitching” and reporting crimes to the authorities.
THAT is what is behind your FGL friends’ love for “Drake” and all these other wastes. THAT is what goes on in their industry. That is the kind of behavior that the Rick Ross, Chris Brown and whoever of the c-rap world are being celebrated for.
They’re not creating “music” they’re grunting like savages about their savage behaviors and being paid to make these things look “cool” and glamorous to the public.
Every artist you mentioned, from Jones to Haggard to Coe and so on have realized that they had a debt to society, their families and friends and to God for the chance they were all given to amend their lives. Unfortunately, Hank Williams lost his battle to disease and addiction, but those who know his story know that he struggled his whole life to try and fight what was wrong in his life and make it right. He was just not strong enough.
Nobody should be encouraging the interaction of real, honest music with the idiotic sewer noise of c-rap. It’s not “culture”, it’s not “social commentary”, there’s no real distinction between “thugs” and those who are supposedly more “socially-conscious”. Scratch the surface of the posing, grunting rapper, no matter what he says he means, and you’ll find the ignorance, thuggery and lowbrow trash lifestyle that defines the world THEY CHOOSE TO INHABIT. THEY CHOOSE TO BE KNOWN FOR THIS GARBAGE BEHAVIOR.
None of the country artists you mentioned have ever CHOSEN to spend the rest of their lives being saluted for the stupid things they did. They have their reputations, but wrong is still wrong.
Quit trying to justify the idiocy of criminals talking over computer noises and calling them “artists” who make “music”. They are nothing of the sort.
God bless country music, America’s music, and God bless America.
May 7, 2014 @ 12:33 am
David Allan Coe’s lyrics certainly rival that of any modern rapper when it comes to violence.
May 5, 2014 @ 9:24 pm
I understand not liking Drakes music (I can’t stand it myself, and I love rap.), but Drake is probably the least thuggish rapper in mainstream music. He grew up in middle class Toronto, and was on a Nickelodeon kid’s show by the time he was 15.
May 5, 2014 @ 8:56 pm
Honestly, I would pay good money to watch a FGL music video with Merle Haggard and ask him what he thinks of them, and their flipping motorcycles and fire. It has really become quite comical, I don’t understand the chains from pocket to pocket but those bastards never lose their keys I guess.
May 5, 2014 @ 10:21 pm
Butthead: Hey Beavis, what’s bro-country? Is it like broccoli?
Beavis: I looked it up in the dictionary and it just has a picture of our CD. Hey bro, what’s country? Heheheheheheheh
Butthead: Uhhhhhhh, I dunno, let’s ask T-Pain and Nelly. Uhuhuhuhuhuhuh
Beavis and Butthead: Hey baby you a song, now gimme sum-a dat!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK-4W7c0BgE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p6MlkxfaYI
May 6, 2014 @ 10:13 am
“Pandora has even set up an exclusive bro-country channel”. To bad somebody opened that box.
May 6, 2014 @ 11:47 am
Tyler Hubbard looks like the chick from Wendy’s.
But seriously, when you combine FGL with Luke Bryan you get another version of WWE’s 3MB (3 Man Band), no talent what so ever.
May 6, 2014 @ 3:42 pm
Cable TV is currently running a live concert with Florida Georgia Line at Stagecoach in California. I’d never heard of these guys so I watched it and I have to say this is the worst band I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear or see. The two front men are the definition of posers. The music made my ears and eyes bleed. Damn…they really sucked. Ok, that’s my two cents.
May 7, 2014 @ 5:36 am
I only had to read the first two lines of this gem.
My only comment is, what does everyone think of this beaut?
A friend sent this to me, and I told him to never do that again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNVguvNE7qc&sns=em
May 7, 2014 @ 8:58 am
My guess is that there are a lot of words that they can’t define and country might be one of them.
May 8, 2014 @ 2:11 pm
I have another blogger on my mind not only will she eat this term up but sadly will promote it as well.
June 14, 2014 @ 3:02 pm
Is it bad that “Weird Al” Yankovic has music that’s more country than Florida Georgia Line?
Check out his song “Good Enough For Now”, it’s great.