Regardless of Your Definition, We Should All Agree That Country Music Has One
Last week, it was announced that iHeartMedia radio personality Bobby Bones would be one of the newest inductees into the National Radio Hall of Fame in November. By beating out venerable names in broadcasting such as Sean “Hollywood” Hamilton, Guy Phillips, and even Ryan Seacrest with his oodles of name recognition from American Idol, Bobby Bones will become the youngest inductee ever to the Hall of Fame under the “Music Format On-Air Personality” category at age 37.
Bobby Bones hasn’t even been in national syndication, or in his current format of “country” music for a full five years. So how did he land a spot in the Hall of Fame? First, the National Radio Hall of Fame is no Cooperstown apparently, especially if they’re electing the likes of Bobby Bones at such a young age, and with so little service time. Another reason is Bobby Bones craves attention and acceptance to an incredible, and potentially unhealthy degree, and was unabashed in lobbying for himself for the distinction.
But the main reason is because Bobby Bones is in country music.
The Nashville community and devoted country listenership rallied around Bones, encouraging people to vote for him,” says a press release announcing the Bobby Bones Hall of Fame induction to occur in November. “Artists including Kelsea Ballerini, Dierks Bentley and Little Big Town donned ‘VOTE BOBBY’ t-shirts, while many others voiced their support on social media.”
This is what separates country music from other forms of music. It’s the desire to take care of your own, and come together when the competition is with other genres and industries that is one of the reasons country music has remained so strong over the years. Bobby Bones regularly loses out on broadcast personality awards from places like the country-only ACM Awards because of his polarizing nature. But if the entire country industry only has one country personality to vote for, they’ll vote for their own every time.
All the more reason that this dogged insistence to undefine what country music is should be so alarming to everyone who identifies with country music, no matter what their definition is, or their standing in the industry. We saw Whiskey Riff—a website that makes its way in the world promoting pop country—do this a while back when they felt the need to assert, There’s No Definition To ‘Country,’ So Shut The Fuck Up.
Why would someone insist, and so vehemently, that country music shouldn’t have a definition? The answer is so that they can remake country music into whatever they wish—into their own image—and call it anything they want to make it appeal to as many people as commercially possible. If country music has a definition, then it has borders, and a certain scope sonically that acts such as Sam Hunt cannot fit into.
Recently on Twitter (6-29), in a response to another user, Bobby Bones asserted, “Anyone that tries to define what ‘country’ is, has no idea what country is. And never has.”
This is a guy that the country music community just rallied behind to place in the National Radio Hall of Fame who is now cutting the legs out from under that same industry because he doesn’t want to be bound to playing or promoting only country music on his radio show and other places.
Saving Country Music already responded in kind to the assertion made by Whiskey Riff that country music has no definition by quoting the words etched into the very cornerstones of the Country Music Hall of Fame building in Nashville, spoken by country music legends themselves.
“Country music is music with a lot of class. It’s just ordinary stories told by ordinary people in an extraordinary way.” — Dolly Parton
“You ask me what makes our kind of music successful, I’ll tell you. It can be explained in just one word: Sincerity.” —Hank Williams
“Country music isn’t a guitar, it isn’t a banjo, it isn’t a melody, it isn’t a lyric. It’s a feeling.” — Waylon Jennings
“Country songs are the dream of the working man.” —Merle Haggard
“A good country song takes a page out of somebody’s life and puts it to music.” — Conway Twitty
And these are just the beginning of the examples of how country music most certainly can be defined. Making the Bobby Bones assertion that country music has no definition that much worse is that he wants to go back and impugn these very artists and everyone else for attempting to define country music in the first place.
Without a definition for country music—without any borders or even the slightest distinguishable characteristics for country music to contrast itself with the other genres and industries in musical entertainment—then it will lose its ability to control its future. If anyone can call anything country music—which is the practice Bobby Bones wants to employ—then country music will be on the brink of implosion, hurdling towards irrelevancy because it has nothing that makes it unique in the musical marketplace.
Without a definition or defined borders around country music, Bobby Bones would never inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame at 37 years of age, if ever.
It’s not enough that folks like Bobby Bones have close to absolute control over the genre already. They must in turn rid the world of adversarial ideologies to their desire to use the term ‘country music’ to peddle whatever music or culture they choose, rewriting the history books, and making the words of past legends irrelevant. They can’t even allows us to have our stupid little true country songs and artists from both the past and present, and be happy. They must step onto our turf, and say we’re the ones who are misguided.
Country music should sound like country music. Pop music should sounds like pop music, and on down the line with hip-hop, EDM, R&B, rock, and every genre, all coming together to form the brilliant tapestry of diverse voices and contrasting forms of expression that is the vibrant American culture. Of course different genre influences can be mixed together in collaborative efforts, but only if it is done with respect to the diversity of these separate art forms to ensure the vibrancy stays in tact as opposed to diluted for the desire of mass consumption, lest music get homogenized to the point where it doesn’t matter what genre you’re listening to, all the music sounds the same, like one big nebulous monogenre.
‘Country music’ most certainly has a definition because it means something to millions of people. They identify with it. It’s their culture. It’s what gives them meaning and fulfillment. And if lost, and even worse, impugned and dragged through the mud as being irrelevant, uncool, or unwilling to evolve, it leaves them empty feeling and hollow, often with adverse things like addiction and consumerism rushing in to fill that vacuum, or their souls latching on to other cultures that are not native to their own, a.k.a. cultural appropriation. Country music is not just a format, or a genre. It is the voice of a people. And any attempt to silence that voice, or pave over it via “progress,” or render it irrelevant through words and rhetoric is an affront to all culture.
Yes, the arguments of how to define country music are endless and nauseating, and the definition is seemingly different for everyone you talk to. The fact that the definition of country music is different for everyone is not its weakness, it’s its strength. It means that country music means something personal to people. Bobby Bones tried to embody this in his comment, but at the same time discredited everyone’s definition.
We may all disagree what the definition of country music is, but we should all agree on is that there is one. Because without a definition, country music literally means nothing, and so would the desires of millions of people who for generations have identified with the music, and used its stories, sounds, and sentiments to find meaning in themselves, comfort during hard times, and spirit in the face of trouble.
July 5, 2017 @ 10:10 am
I take it Bobby Bones never walked through the Country Music HOF. For him to say the country music listeners define it is an outright lie.
July 5, 2017 @ 10:11 am
Well said, and a far better response than the plethora of expletives I hear in my head every time I see Bobby Bones’ stupid smug face.
July 5, 2017 @ 10:22 am
I realized later when Whiskey Riff shared that article again, that I commented on it when it first posted. I disagreed with them then, and I agree with you now.
July 5, 2017 @ 10:36 am
Very well said. Me along with a few others got into a little debate with Bobby recently. Basically his response was “you are douchebags, you are dumb, you are stupid.” I’m all open to discussion and hearing ones opinions, but that is not the way to go about doing it. This all stemmed from our discussion about Walker Hayes and how he count fit into the country format. That is my one gripe with Bobby is that he has a poor way of discussing opinions that he does not agree with. Other than that he does have some good things to say and I do tend to agree with a good bit of what he says.
I am all for “modernizing” country music. Times are way different than it was before and things do change. Country music does sound different today in the mainstream, but that does not mean it is still not country or not good music because it is 100% comprised of the “old” country style. There is a happy medium where the modern music still sounds authentic and sonically isn’t just a jambled mess of genres. I myself enjoy all types of country music, but to say there is no definition is just ludicrous. The whole point of a genre is for there to be a definition of the type of song you are listening to. There’s a reason why genres exists and are defined. Without their individual definitions, it would just be music with no label attached, just wouldn’t make sense. I do get that it’s an annoyance to both sides arguing over the same thing again and again, but that just goes to show that there is indeed some type of underlying issue. It is just when you try to start these discussions and are automatically shot down with sites like Whiskey Riff and Bobby just name call (which I think is funny) and say “don’t like it, don’t listen.” A real discussion is possible if both sides try to see if from one another’s perspective. As things stand it seems we are headed towards a complete rewrite of the country music scene and what the definition of the genre is, but that does not have to be a bad thing. Guess we will just have to wait and see what happens and keep this sort of discussion going.
July 5, 2017 @ 12:01 pm
Country music must evolve to survive. It also must be able to distinguish itself from other genres to survive. Pop and other genres have always been a part of country, but so has country. All we’ve ever asked for is fair representation for the millions of true country fans in the mainstream of the genre.
July 5, 2017 @ 1:15 pm
Totally agree. The harsh reality is we know this is something that most likely will never happen. Those artists will always be stuck in a sense in their repsected regions. Not necessarily a bad thing, plenty make a good living without the need for any airplay at all.
The crazy thing is if you play some of these more traditional artists on mainstream radio, I can guarantee the average mainstream listener will actually enjoy some of the songs. It is just being dominated by one specific sound, but it is tough to fault them from a business standpoint. Hopefully there will be enough talk and buzz about the subject in the future that mainstream radio starts to give more traditional artists, that may not have that radio sound, a chance.
July 5, 2017 @ 8:08 pm
And country music HAS evolved, by both being true to its traditional RURAL roots and willing to progress. It managed to evolve by surviving the deepest existential crisis in its history, the onset of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, which, by the way, was bought on in no small degree by White Southern guys like Elvis mixing country-and-western with R&B. Country music, for the next 40 years, evolved and thrived beyond its rural roots and achieved mass popularity, but it never left those rural roots, not even in that seemingly strange period in the mid-1970s, when such “furriners” as John Denver and Olivia Newton-John caused such a kerfuffle among the Nashville sect of the time.
Some would say that the Nashville/Music Row power structure made it gradually more about the money than the music with Garth Brooks’ gargantuan success in the 1990s. To a certain extent, that’s true. But the start of the genre becoming perverted, in my opinion, started actually in 2004, with Big & Rich, the whole Muzik Mafia thing, and the incorporation of rap and “hick hop” and loud screaming production; and although it was a short-lived fad, it still simmered below the surface until the Bro-Country thing exploded in 2012 and 2013.
I am a fan of 1960s/1970s rock, but I have read enough about the history of country music to know that this genre NEEDS to remember where it came from if it is to evolve and survive. And putting rap, hip-hop, and loud screaming Southern rock guitars, burying the rural and honky-tonk sounds, is not evolution, it is PERVERSION. This is going to kill the genre unless there is a very big sea change. And unless the listening public, whether by downloads or CDs, demands it, then the powers-that-be in Nashville won’t change, and that’s the ball game for country (IMHO).
July 6, 2017 @ 5:20 pm
Exceedingly well-put, Erik!
A major part of the problem (judging by a great many of Trigger’s posts and the associated comments) seems to be radio.
In fact it might therefore be the main problem. Guess I’m in the lucky position of having SCM to rely on and having practically no country radio sources at all.
Letting radio be the arbiter of public tastes seems to have also killed my other favourite genre – Heavy Metal. Unless it’s the classics (Metallica, GnR, Priest, Zeppelin, etc.), heavy music doesn’t seem to get a look-in any more – not new stuff anyway.
Best to stay away from radio and other mainstream media, who inevitably seem to homogonize everything into a machine-made Pop genre. As such, they will be out to “redefine” Country without the slightest dose of conscience or historical recognition at all.
July 6, 2017 @ 6:24 am
“Country music must evolve to survive. It also must be able to distinguish itself from other genres to survive. Pop and other genres have always been a part of country, but so has country. All we’ve ever asked for is fair representation for the millions of true country fans in the mainstream of the genre.
I agree 100% and would like to add that I have never, ever heard anyone argue that country music shouldn’t evolve. Yet that is what we are routinely accused of wanting whenever we express concerns that it has strayed too far from its roots.
July 5, 2017 @ 3:21 pm
I was part of the recent de
July 5, 2017 @ 3:22 pm
Sorry iPhone on the Frits. I was part of the most recent debate on twitter. I was the one that posted Waylon, Merle, Conway and Dolly’s etched quote in the Country Music HOF.
July 5, 2017 @ 10:40 am
Anyone that tries to define what ‘country’ is, has no idea what country is. And never has.
Then I think my logic teacher was wrong for telling us that definition reduces ambiguity. How come this loser has a show…guess I now have to subscribe to satellite radio
July 7, 2017 @ 7:08 am
The only time I listen to terrestrial radio is when my New Jersey Devils are playing. I usually either listen to whatever MP3s are on my iPhone or Willie’s Roadhouse or Enlighten on XM.
July 5, 2017 @ 10:48 am
I think the best country/folk/roots music songs (in the words of Ted Kooser) “…take ordinary people and make monuments of them…”
It’s the idea that the lives of ordinary people – and their loves, grief, hopes, fears, strengths, weaknesses –
everything, deserves to be sang about, thought about, and not condescended to.
July 5, 2017 @ 12:22 pm
… and Ted Kooser was pretty amazing himself….
July 5, 2017 @ 10:50 am
One of my jobs in college was making carry-out pizzas at a convenience store. From time to time somebody would call and ask what the special was. If it wasn’t what they wanted, they’d ask to have it modified to what they wanted. For instance, if the special was a supreme they might ask what was on it, and when I told them they might ask if they could get it with just sausage and pepperoni. I’d tell them they could, but that it would then just be a two-topping pizza which sold for $10.99 rather than the special at $13.99. Didn’t matter, they wanted the special, so I’d make them a $10.99 pizza and sell it to them for $13.99 at their request.
That’s sort of what these country music fans who don’t actually like country music remind me of.
July 5, 2017 @ 11:57 am
Tom,
Was it that they insisted on paying more? Or was it that the special for $13.99 was the only thing you were allowed to sell?
I mean, if they only wanted a 2 topping pizza, why didn’t you only charge them $10.99?
July 5, 2017 @ 12:24 pm
They insisted, because they wanted the special. Even faced with the fact that they could buy the same thing for less money by calling it what it actually was, they felt they needed to order the special. Not that we ever charged them the higher price, but on the phone when they placed the order that’s what they would insist on.
They’d do the same thing if the special was taco pizza. “Can you leave off the chips and tomatoes, and use regular pizza sauce instead of the bean sauce?” “Sure, but that would just be a hamburger pizza which is only $9.99.” “No, we want the special. Can you do that?”
Sizes were fun, too. “Is the medium on special, too?” “No, only the large.” “Well, can you just make me a medium and charge me for the large special?” “But the regular price of the medium is less than the special price on the large.” “Sure, but I want the special.”
I know all this seems bizarre to a rational person, but this probably happened at least once a week.
All that being said, I think you missed my point. That being, there are a lot of people out there who insist on shoving the square peg into the round hole when the square hole is right there easily available to them. Doesn’t matter if they’re listening to music or ordering pizza, they want to order one thing and call it something else.
July 5, 2017 @ 2:01 pm
I got your point. I just thought the pizza thing was interesting, and wanted clarification. Thanks for explaining.
July 5, 2017 @ 11:11 am
I am thankful there are folks and platforms that have taken up the fight to preserve and re-establish country music. I wish them well. Having said that, and the age of 64, I have noted that all things come to an end. In my tiny opinion, that has occurred with regard to country music. I am thankful their are plenty of sources that supply actual country music, and I am respectful of those new artists that do their best to replicate and carry forward the idea of country music. Their efforts are noble, even if their attempts are doomed to failure.
Mostly, I am thankful for all of the simply amazing music that has been a part of my life, including Country, Southern Rock, and even the other songs that weaved their way into the being of all of us of this vintage. I don’t see this type of period repeating itself anytime soon.
July 6, 2017 @ 11:01 am
I agree with you, Battery.
I am just a few years behind you, and I feel very blessed to have experienced the development of rock, country and folk music which has occurred in my lifetime.
And Broadway music and musicals, too, for that matter.
I’m not through yet, and I hope that the music isn’t through either.
July 5, 2017 @ 11:12 am
I’m going to pretend he isn’t from Arkansas.
Since he was in Texas for so long, we’ll let y’all claim him. 😉
July 5, 2017 @ 11:22 am
“It’s not enough that folks like Bobby Bones have close to absolute control over the genre already. They must in turn rid the world of adversarial ideologies to their desire to use the term ‘country music’ to peddle whatever music or culture they choose, rewriting the history books, and making the words of past legends irrelevant. They can’t even allows us to have our stupid little true country songs and artists from both the past and present, and be happy. They must step onto our turf, and say we’re the ones who are misguided.”
Sounds like the social justice warriors that want to erase history by taking down statues and such.
What a whiny little bitch Bobby Bones is.
July 5, 2017 @ 11:30 am
This is such a well written article. Country Music 100% has a definition, even if we all disagree what it is. Hopefully most people can see through the BS of a guy like Bobby Bones when its obvious he is only looking out for himself. When people like Bones get put in positions of power and clearly only look out for themselves no matter who or what it destroys thats when things change and only for the worse. Country used to be about the genre first, making money was second. Having respect for who came before them and overall keeping country true to its roots was always a priority. Its hard to watch what is happening in Nashville and Radio these days. Articles like this help the masses see the damage.
July 5, 2017 @ 11:34 am
Bobby Bones is a dick. I wouldn’t take what he says to heart. He’s obviously stupid, running his mouth about things he doesn’t know a thing about (like country music, for instance.).
July 5, 2017 @ 11:42 am
Nice article, Trigger.
How lacking in self-awareness must BB be, to tell people who’ve breathed Country Music all their lives that they don’t know what Country Music is.
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me at all, given the current state of the world, that a metrosexual, degenerate hipster dweeb, with horn-rimmed glasses, is telling rural America that we don’t know what Country Music is.
Next thing you know, they’re going to start trying to force us to eat quinoa. And when we tell them, “This isn’t biscuits and gravy.”, they’ll say, “You don’t know what biscuits and gravy is, and never have.”
July 5, 2017 @ 12:09 pm
Well, a lot of rural America is spooning this shitsoup out of a bottomless bowl. Do you think big city shittsters are BB’s core audience? Djeez.
July 5, 2017 @ 12:27 pm
I agree. I live in the heart of Rooster Poop Southeast Iowa, folks around here by-and-large are fully on board with what passes for country music today.
July 5, 2017 @ 12:43 pm
Do I think they’re his core audience?
Yes. I absolutely do. Don’t you?
July 5, 2017 @ 1:08 pm
No I do not. They listen to anything but popcountry. A lot of shit, but the crew with spraypainted jeans and cuntbeards is not the problem. You seem to be in in some airheaded state of denial.
July 5, 2017 @ 1:22 pm
Denial of what?
July 5, 2017 @ 2:07 pm
Gumslasher,
In regards to your most recent reply. I’m mostly referring to suburbia, not to the big city crowd.
Suburbia latches onto every stupid thing that comes down the line.
Also, what in the world is a cuntbeard?
Are you talking about women growing their bushes out really long?
July 5, 2017 @ 2:25 pm
Honky.
A cuntbeard is the useless beard a hipster uses years to grow and then get groomed at “barbershops”. That useless fucker do not listen to Sam Cunt.
July 5, 2017 @ 1:10 pm
Tom is right I also live in rural part of iowa and they are the people who eat it up the most. Just the pure amount of shitty summer festival that happen in pretty close proximity to me is insane and there all packed with country kids waiting to here Sam hunt rap country style about back roads.
July 5, 2017 @ 1:54 pm
Dear mr Honky. Not possible to answer your reply where I should have, so I apologize to Justin S. Please re-read your first post. The idea that people in big cities sipping overpriced coffee or very overpriced hipster beer is the root of country music’s problem boggles the mind. Have you ever been to a big city? If so where do you hear this putrid “rap”-country shit?
July 5, 2017 @ 7:33 pm
Correct. As someone who lives right in the heart of Portland, I can assure that no hipsters, or any city dwellers who I know, listen to pop “country”. I will admit that hipsters can be annoying, but when it comes to country, those of them who listen to country like the good stuff. Jinks sold out two nights here a few months ago, Sturgill is doing the same in sep, Pee Wee Moore was at the local honky tonk on Friday. The Marty Stuart show in June was right in the middle of downtown and had several hipsters in attendance. And the hipsters absolutely love guys like Townes, Guy Clark, Waylon, Merle, etc. But, you go out to rural Oregon or the burbs, and you will find pop “country” fans. This isn’t a city vs. the country thing, or hippy kale eaters vs contry thing. But if it were, the country folk would by and large fall on the side of being the real issue when it comes to driving demand for crap “country”.
July 5, 2017 @ 12:16 pm
I’m 53 y.o.,I’ve been a huge fan of many genres of music my entire life,,an aspiring musician since 9 y.o. ..NEVER even heard of Bobby Bones b4 this article,which is most likely due to the fact that I gave up listening to “Country Radio” years ago.. My Point ? I don’t give a give a rat’s ass what he or any other jack wagon has to say.. “WE” the musicians,the singers,the song writers define the music as we always have and The #1 rule has ALWAYS been,There are NO RULES for the true artist ! If someone wants to mix genres,good for them,,If you don’t like it,listen to something else.. If someone says “THIS is what “Country Music is” and you don’t agree,who cares ?
I’ve only recently come to terms with the entire issue myself.It was really pissing me off when I was hearing various artists(2 many ex. to list) calling themselves “Country Music” and I was NOT in agreement.Why I now just let it roll,especially when some no talent Fuck Like BB thinks he is somebody to tell me what is what..
July 5, 2017 @ 6:01 pm
I live in a big-city and near a bigger city and the hipsters here like to brag about music cred by claiming they like Johnny Cash because of his cover of “Hurt” and Willie because… well weed… Yeah a lot of ’em are decent poseurs with basic knowledge, some who work record store are well more well-versed, but I always like to chat ’em and say, “Man Jessi Colter was one of the greatest country outlaws ever,” just to see the puzzlement on their face.
Also Rosanne Cash, Emmylou, and Luncida did a brief residency here (at a jazz fest no less speaking of genre labels) and the older hippie crowd LOVED IT! It was soooo goood. So no… bro-country is not really big here maybe in Ukiah or Bodfish. Maybe Mumford and Sons is a name they’d lump into country…
And I think people get mad about the genre definitions because they like being able to act like they are open minded to all styles when in fact they hate country or at least the hardcore stuff with a twang like Dale Watson, Hank Williams and Jean Shepard. It has become out of fashion to have specific tastes because to only like certain things makes you a hater of other things. And being a hater is a big ol’ no-no in today’s culture (among the younger naive crowd). Also a lack of music history education isn’t helping either.
The best we can is try to educate people by playing what we love as loud and proud as they play their “country”. I’ve gotten some great looks with Nanci Griffith or Heather Myles cranked up coming out of the car as I sing and “dance” along or a boombox at a park. In the end we can only affect what is in our circle of control so turn it to 11 and enjoy wherever you are and it might rub off on others. God I just sounded like a self help nut job.
July 5, 2017 @ 2:52 pm
Bobby Bones says country music doesn’t have a definition, huh? Fuck that Top 40 carpetbagger piece of shit.
July 5, 2017 @ 4:13 pm
I stopped listening to country radio several years ago because even when stations do play classics, so many also play modern country. There’s a nice station near where I live, located in Childress, Texas, that does play the classics, but you have to swim though FGL and Sam Hunt to hear the classics. I eventually gave up. I can’t tell you how many people have told me they think Rascal Flatts is country, simply because they heard them on a “country” station. For many, it seems like the radio and industry is dictating to them what country is, instead of doing their own homework. Thank goodness for Pandora Radio, as I can listen to a Hank Williams channel and hear nothing but the classics.
But I also understand it’s not the same thing today. It must evolve, and many modern artists don’t know what the legends went through. Merle and Buck grew up in poverty in the Great Depression, and Merle himself spent time in prison. These are subjects modern artists don’t know about, thankfully. So it must evolve, but while the lyrics change, the music should stay the same. It used to be that Country music told stories about common people. Living in a small town in Oklahoma, I cannot find any common ground with modern artists, because they don’t seem to reflect true rural life.
July 5, 2017 @ 5:45 pm
I would recommend Slacker the exact same idea but with more songs and artists, so you hear less repeats.
July 6, 2017 @ 8:45 am
Everett: It’s not just rural America that wants moving touching music. Alan Jackson’s “Remembet when” grabs the heart of city people just as much as rural folks. Garth Brooks “If tomorrow never comes”‘ does the same thing. I could go on and on naming country songs that resonate in the cities as well as In the country. But I agree with you that the classics are special. My personal favorite performer is Patsy Cline, and except for You Tube and Pandora you can never hear her on radio. So, I agree with everything you are saying, except that it is not limited to Oklahoma, or Texas, or rural areas generally. I live in Philly, Pa., and LOVE country music, particularly old (1970’s – 1980’s) classics.
July 5, 2017 @ 5:44 pm
I know this is wrong but I couldn’t get past the first paragraph. One of MY HEROES is a radio DJ and to see Bobby Bones anywhere near a hall of fame of anything…
Is this not something you kind of let simmer and seen how time and history treats you before you get such a n honour?
Of course that said look how long it the Roch and Roll hall of Fame to induct Linda Ronstadt. She got in after Green Day.. Ugh. And I don’t even care if it was because of the stupid rule to get inducted you had to induct somebody, she should’ve been in before round 5 IMO.
July 5, 2017 @ 6:03 pm
Also I am just disgusted because at this point such awards and recognition do not mean anything if anyone can get one. Just like participation ribbons or trophies. I mean the Starlight Vocal Band has a Grammy…
July 6, 2017 @ 10:27 am
One of my radio heroes is Bob Kingsley, who JUST got into the radio hall of fame last year after hosting American Country Countdown/CT 40 for 40 friggin’ years. The fact that it took him that long and this douche got in so quickly is completely insulting. And what about Eddie Stubbs? Where’s his recognition for his decades of service to country music and radio?
July 7, 2017 @ 2:31 pm
See you and I now recognize that these awards do not mean shit really anymore. But young people they will bring them up as proof of quality. Similar to hey the song was #1. Yeah… So was Disco Duck.
July 5, 2017 @ 6:53 pm
I’ve always struggled with this idea of pop country. I can’t fathom in my mind how a person could sit down and choose to listen to a Sam Hunt-esque album. I don’t know anybody that does except for middle school girls. The difference between somebody like Thomas Rhett and a talent like Sturgill is astronomically high- not just musical skills, but intellectually, emotionally, and most importantly authenticity. But the problem is that more people listen to Thomas than SS. People actually like his music. My favorite analogy for this is types of food. Pop country songs with shallow lyrics that are catchy and fun to listen to after a long day or during a party are like skittles. Everybody loves skittles. They are fruity and delicious, but lack any kind of real nutritional value. They are good to enjoy every now and then, but there not something you can live off of. That’s not just Bro country, it can be any kind of song that lacks lyrical depth that gets listened to for its catchy hooks or beats. Happens all the time in the TX scene. The greats do it from time to time.
But Songs not trying to do anything other than pulling a piece of their soul and writing it on paper are the substantive, lasting foods. These songs present the listener with a challenge, a solution, or most importantly the feeling that they are not alone in their struggles. These are the steak and potatoes, the vegetables, the bread. This is what keeps you living, and sometimes what you would give everything in your life to have. People are begging for something real! The problem is that the radio keeps serving happy meals to people that ordered steaks. Im not a person that gets angry at things I can’t control, but I’m also not gonna sit by and listen to Bobby Bones shit on something I stand for. And I may not know how the “music business” works but I do know basic economics, and his employers 8.3 billion dollar debt isn’t looking like it’s going to get payed off with Bobby shoveling horseshit commentary into people’s speakers.
In the end, people have the right to listen to whatever they want to, but there is a line in this genre, and at some point people need to be able to call out those people without being labeled as a hippocrit or talked down to like a child.
In the end
July 5, 2017 @ 7:38 pm
Agreed. But, you also have to realize that there are millions and millions of Americans who have little interest in good, touching music and just approach it as something “fun” to put on in the background at so party, or something to put on and sing along to on their commute. This will always be the majority of listeners, and the reason that crappy, shallow pop music will always be a money maker for those putting it out and those playing it on the radio.
July 5, 2017 @ 10:19 pm
How sad that the Radio Hall of Fame is basically a popularity contest & not given to DJs who have spent decades doing their craft.
July 6, 2017 @ 1:46 am
“Regardless of your definition, we should all agree that country music has a definition.”
Amen and thank you Trig. I disagree with some of your argument for it, but this thesis is vitally important in conversations surrounding the existence and/or locations of genre boundaries.
The fallacy that “because X is hard to ascertain (and because reasonable people disagree on it), X doesn’t exist” is nearly always harmful, and its place in this debate is no different.
July 6, 2017 @ 2:11 am
As my grandpa said, “If something means everything, it means nothing.”
The paragraph beginning “It’s not enough that folks like Bobby Bones …” seems to imply some sort of agenda is being pushed from on high. Obviously there is some interdependence, but how much of the current mess do you think is a product of suits and tastemakers, and how much is it a product of millions of listeners’ taste in music?
July 6, 2017 @ 5:04 am
So, is it a bad thing that I don’t even know who the hell this Bobby Bones is?
July 6, 2017 @ 6:42 am
I think a lot of us didn’t know who he was until Trig reported on the whole Lindsey Ell thing a week or two ago. And to be honest, I still don’t have a firm grasp on what Bobby Bones does.
July 6, 2017 @ 2:43 pm
OK, I don’t know who Lindsey Ell is either. Maybe I need to lay off the bourbon.
July 6, 2017 @ 6:27 am
I’m 69. One of the reasons I stopped listening to commercial radio was because of the DJ’s desperately trying to be more important than the music they played. I tuned in for the music not how cute (or smarmy) an alleged personality believed themselves to be. I guess I had DJ influence in what I listened to years ago, but, one thing I NEVER did was let anyone talk down to me. In my youth I liked some DJ’s on air personality better than others, but I don’t remember them “telling” their audience (with a few exceptions) what they should like. The one “few exceptions” I remember was the local morning DJ on KIKK in Houston went on a rant about “Midnight Cowboy” (the movie) being degenerate…. the DJ’s I listened to (mostly country) were entertaining without being over bearing or obnoxious. I guess Howard Stern and Imus changed all that.
There’s a saying in racing; “You can be in the show, or you can be the show”. It seems DJ’s believe they’re in a race and try (desperately) to be THE show not understanding they are to be IN the show only.
July 6, 2017 @ 11:07 am
I haven’t listened to any radio in decades.
I buy and play my own music.
I may get Sirius sometime soon, though.
July 6, 2017 @ 7:17 am
“people who for generations have identified with the music, and used its stories, sounds, and sentiments to find meaning in themselves, comfort during hard times, and spirit in the face of trouble.”
…. so well put but there lies the issue; the Bobby Bones version of country does none of that….
July 6, 2017 @ 8:19 am
My definition of Country Music is simple and perfect: “You know it when you hear it, you like it, and you want to hear it again” AND, “it’s music that comes from people to people”. I am a city guy, but I love country music – it talks to me !! Other music, – Rock, R&B, Rap, Jazz, have their fans, but they do not talk to ME !! So don’t let anyone say it’s not different- it is. And please save it’s unique character. Thanks. !!!!
July 6, 2017 @ 10:17 am
The Radio Hall of Fame has zero credibility now. Enshrinement into such a place should be based on a lifetime of hard work, achievement and respect amongst your peers, not garnering a bunch of online votes from the brain dead rednecks who listen to your shitty, watered down, corporately programed national radio show because its the only thing on in their market. Shows like his are helping to kill local radio by stripping it of its individuality.
While we’re at it, why not just put Aaron Judge in the baseball Hall of Fame now? He’s led the league in home runs for half a season.
July 6, 2017 @ 3:58 pm
Kinda ironic that the country music community rallied around Bobby Bones to beat Ryan Seacrest. Bobby is single-handedly killing the country genre, while Seacrest helped launch Carrie Underwood, who is arguably the best possible version of “country pop” today in the tradition of Reba and 80s Dolly, and someone who always shows respect for country music heritage.
July 6, 2017 @ 5:58 pm
Great article, Trigger.
One of your best ever.
July 8, 2017 @ 11:05 am
Apologies for the tardiness here, but I just dug up an old Peter Cooper piece from 2001 that touches on the themes discussed here; change the names and it’s every bit as relevant now as it was 15 years ago.
American Music Awards featured “country” acts, not country music
By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer
published: January 14, 2001
The American Music Awards were televised last week, which meant we had the opportunity to witness:
Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears lip-syncing (badly). If dancing is a musical skill, why isn’t Mikhail Baryshnikov ever up for a Grammy?
One of the guys from The Sopranos introducing Aerosmith as “the most explosive force in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.” Really, that’s what he said.
3 Doors Down lead singer Brad Arnold talking like an excited, drawling Mississippian from the podium, then singing with a pronounced European accent from the stage.
Three performances from country radio stars, but not one note of country music.
Let’s place the first three above incidents in the “someone else’s problem” category and think long and hard about the fourth.
Look, each of the acts did quite well:
Martina McBride was the show’s most impressive performer of any genre, delivering an open-throated, powerhouse vocal on adult rocker It’s My Time. An ever-enthusiastic Billy Gilman drew a standing ovation after nailing the last high note on One Voice. The third “country” act, SHeDAISY, employed heavy metal guitars and scratching, hip-hop flourishes and proved much more believable and interesting than on last year’s Country Music Association awards.
But watching the show and calling any of these performances “country” is like eating a steak and calling it asparagus. We’re not talking about pop-country or progressive country or anything of the sort. A hound dog couldn’t sniff country on these folks.
Shock Goth rocker Marilyn Manson followed SHeDAISY. He was no less country than they were.
The sucking sound you hear is Music Row execs drawing in a collective breath before saying, “Yes, but…”:
“Yes, but, what’s the harm in presenting country artists to a national audience of youngsters in such a way that the music doesn’t sound grating or ultra-rural? The AMAs are so youth-oriented that Celine Dion’s win in the adult-contemporary category didn’t even make the telecast.”
Industry insiders often note the need to attract new listeners to country music, but what we’re talking about here is blatant misrepresentation. If we attract new listeners to country music by offering them pop music, the newbies will be none-too-impressed when they hear an Alan Jackson song. It’s like the scene from Casablanca where Captain Louis Renault asks what brought Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) why he came to the city of Casablanca.
“I came to Casablanca for the waters,” Bogart replies.
Confused, and well aware that Casablanca has no waters, Renault exclaims that the city is smack dab in the middle of the desert. Bogart dryly answers, “I was misinformed.”
In Nashville, we have a Country Music Association and a country music industry. Yet we seem to blindly accept that Shania Twain’s Def Leppardish drums or Billy Gilman’s Star Search-y One Voice are country, merely because the songs are played on country radio and a portion of the retail proceeds end up in Tennessee wallets.
“But isn’t this really just a matter of innovation, like the symphonic pop string arrangments that sounded awfully pretty on Patsy Cline’s records? Wasn’t the fuzz-toned rock guitar a good thing on Marty Robbins’ Don’t Worry? Doesn’t it sound good when contemporary artist Clay Davidson lets his Southern Rock roots show?”
The difference is that Cline, Robbins, Davidson and scores of others have successfully tweaked the genre’s commonly accepted norms. Innovation in country music sometimes means helping the tree to grow new branches.
At the AMAs, though, the tree was chopped and chipped and the roots were removed. Then someone put an aluminum pole where the tree once was and called it … a tree.
The country music industry is faced with an important choice: offer some sort of discretion about what it promotes as “country,” or allow the term to become nothing but a catch-all phrase vaguely defined as “anything that suburban radio listeners ages 25-54 won’t immediately turn off upon hearing.”
Some will still argue, “So what?” So what if country artists are allowed enough creative elbow room to try out new sounds and influences? Wasn’t SHeDAISY just having fun by presenting a fresh new arrangment of their I Will, But … song?
Certainly, musicians have every right to make whatever sort of music they choose, as evidenced by excellent recent pop albums by country legend Emmylou Harris and ex-Nashville vocalist Shelby Lynne. Judging by the trio’s AMA performance, SHeDAISY might be a whiz-bang pop act.
But if country means “whatever,” it really means nothing at all. It’s nothing more than an asparagus steak, or Bogart’s mythical desert seaside, and the fan base is likely to further recede. No one goes to an Italian restaurant hoping for tacos.
July 8, 2017 @ 2:18 pm
Good find!
The country music industry has had a giant inferiority complex for going on 30 years now. My theory is that with the explosion in sales brought on by Garth Brooks and others around 1990 came much more interest from LA and NY types in Nashville and when that happened suddenly all these people who had been perfectly content in the country music business were now suddenly obsessed with fitting in with the cool kids. And that has led us down the path of failed rock acts as country and unknown pop/R & B producers as the hottest things in ‘country’ music.
July 8, 2017 @ 2:33 pm
Yep, to all of this. See, again, Alan Jackson’s “Gone Country” and Sammy Kershaw’s observation about “country music hat(ing) itself.”
I know these arguments have gone on for a while, and that they have ebbed and flowed, but that doesn’t make Bobby Bones any less wrong.
July 8, 2017 @ 2:44 pm
Yeah I always thought that ‘Gone Country’ had a mirror version where not only the guy from the ‘the Valley’ or hanging out in the ‘Village’ but there was the people in Nashville that went the other way too. Because there have always been people like Conway Twitty that have ‘gone country’ so to speak but what we never really had was the country industry giving itself over to outsiders like we have seen. This is really what has led us to Sam Hunt.
July 12, 2017 @ 2:56 pm
We live in a devolving, confused culture where anybody can “self-identify” as anything they want to be on any given day. So it shouldn’t come as a shock when pop acts “self-identify” as country. Kind of like Madonna and Rappers being inducted into the rock-n-roll all of fame before Rush, Kiss, or Van Halen was ever considered. I guess the $64,000 is this: Just “who” in whatever music genre controls the narrative. Who determines what genre a particular song will be released in? Is it the record companies executives?