Song Review – Shaboozey’s “A Bar (Tipsy)”
Alright. So it goes without saying that this really isn’t a “good” song, and that it’s not especially “country” either, aside from a few tokenary and surface inferences. But regardless, according to Billboard, it’s the #1 song in country music at the moment, replacing Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” now at #2. Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything” feat. Kacey Musgraves is at #3, and is actually the most streamed song in country per volume.
Is the success of Shaboozey’s “A Bar (Tipsy)” symbolic of the deepening success of Black performers in country in the wake of the release of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter? After all, Shaboozey appears on Cowboy Carter twice. Perhaps this is the case, but it’s not conclusive just yet since just like Beyoncé, “A Bar” is being bolstered significantly by streaming activity and downloads from people well beyond the country realm. But that doesn’t mean it’s not resonating with country audiences either. It likely is.
“A Bar (Tipsy)” starts off in some respects like Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” attempting to present a sad story about trying and failing to make it in America. But instead of continuing in that potentially enriching and timely direction as inflation continues to dog so many, the song only briefly presents the specter of substance before descending into a revolving cycle of radio-friendly buzzwords and phrases in a mindless singalong.
Rhyming “whiskey” with “tipsy” isn’t exactly Townes Van Zandt, and the counting verse “One, here comes the two to the three to the four” is fit for the vampire muppet on Sesame Street, or an early 90s hip-hop rehash. Word to your mother. The insanely intrusive T-Pain enhancements on Shaboozey’s vocal signal belie and injure an otherwise curiously organic-sounding track for a dance song. Hand claps are also a cliché for a song like this, but aren’t especially cumbersome in this instance.
For a derivative, commercially ambitious and formulaic song grasping for low-hanging fruit, “A Bar” is not bad. Compare this to Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” or Blanco Brown’s “The Git Up,” and “A Bar” is probably more country-sounding, and perhaps, better overall. It relies more on melody than rhythm and the fiddle is welcome, even though you could never two-step to this song, only bounce around to it mindlessly like the characters in the song’s video.
The devilish ingredient, and perhaps the quiet genius of this song is how it deftly taps into the whole Zach Bryan appeal in the way the song is structured. To the right ear, this comes screaming out from its blatant obviousness. “A Bar (Tipsy)” is a Zach Bryan song dumbed down for the masses, which may sound ironic to some Zach Bryan opponents who consider him a dumbed down version of Tyler Childers.
By taking the melancholic structure of a typical Zach Bryan song, adding Shaboozey’s savvy at incorporating zeitgeist signifiers (Birkin, Jack Daniels, whiskey, tipsy), he creates a viral hit. As unnerving as this all might be for some country traditionalists, it’s also somewhat genius. Sometimes you have to tip your hat at the mad scientist moves behind a song, sort of like with Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise.” Criticize it all you want, but you could tell from jump that “Cruise” was going to be a monster song. “A Bar (Tipsy)” feels similar.
Perhaps this Shaboozey song does symbolize the opening up of country to Black performers. You definitely would rather hear this than Walker Hayes and the Applebee’s song. It undoubtedly speaks to the blatant influence of Zach Bryan on the direction of country and all popular music. For a bad song, is not especially bad. Which is good, because we might have to live with it pursuing us in life at every turn for a long, long time.
1 1/2 Guns Down (3.5/10)
May 2, 2024 @ 10:35 am
You know I’ve actually been listening to country radio in the mornings on my way to work for the past few weeks and Ive never heard of this song til now
May 2, 2024 @ 11:17 am
This song isn’t impacting radio at all at the moment, which once again speaks to the irrelevance of country radio. At some point they’ll start playing it, and it will go #1 in February of 2025 after Shaboozy has released two more hip-hop records.
November 20, 2024 @ 6:44 pm
Country music is a ghost of its past. A hip hop singer 17 weeks at #1 for a very AVERAGE song.
May 2, 2024 @ 2:47 pm
I just watched a Rick Beato video on the top 10 Spotify songs and this was in there somewhere. When he played a clip, he didn’t mention anything about country and I certainly didn’t think country, so was surprised seeing it here right after. I thought it fit in with all the pop stuff that made up the top 10 list.
May 3, 2024 @ 4:43 am
Rick Beato does a good job with a lot of his stuff, but from what I’ve seen, his knowledge of country music is almost non existent, and definitely focussed on the country pop and country radio side of things.
He did a video about “new” country in the last year or so and I clicked on it hoping to see something about the new independent artists we love here, It was really focussed on the production values and excellent studio playing on the newest country radio stuff. Of course production vand playing are really his interests, so that fit, and he does a good job with that stuff.
May 2, 2024 @ 10:37 am
I like the song, and I’ve liked Shaboozey for awhile. It’s not country music at all, but just so everyone is clear the man himself doesn’t call it country! All of his music is always labeled as hip hop (at least on Apple Music that I use) I assume it’s just the effect of him being on the falsely labeled Beyoncé album, so they took it upon themselves again to make this call again against the artist’s wish.
May 3, 2024 @ 4:59 am
It is not a bad song at all. I kind like it! Def not country, but whatever.
May 3, 2024 @ 5:54 am
Most of Shaboozey’s recently released music is listed as Country on Apple Music.
May 3, 2024 @ 8:29 am
You’re right, just noticed after you said that all those singles are labeled as country. I had just looked at all of his three albums, they are all labeled “hip hop/rap”, and his music hasn’t really changed. So I’d be curious if this metadata change is from his people or if it’s like the Beyoncé situation where they’ve took it upon themselves after he appeared on Cowboy Carter
May 3, 2024 @ 8:58 am
I think this is why it was so monumental when Billboard decided to label “Cowboy Carter” country when Beyonce herself was saying it wasn’t. Now, all of these songs and albums will be slotted in country, though I think this will continue to parallel the expanding cultural irrelevance of charts that don’t measure the interests of the people they were formed to serve. And now that Billboard has put all of their charts behind paywalls, most folks can’t even access them anymore.
Remember, when the first two singles from “Cowboy Carter” were released, they were marked “pop” by the label. They were later changed, likely due to public pressure of people calling Apple Music and Beyonce’s own label “racist.”
May 2, 2024 @ 10:38 am
This song also proves your point further about how much TikToK is influencing music popularity and the decreased reliance on Music Row influences.
This song has blown up on TikTok and is what really pushed it to the top of popularity. You are going to see this more and more.
May 2, 2024 @ 3:54 pm
100% – further proof if you get a viral tiktok song, you’ve got a hit
This song is everywhere on tiktok right now
May 2, 2024 @ 10:42 am
If I had to gander a guess, the counting line is a direct reference to J-Kwon’s 2004 hip-hop hit “Tipsy,” a.k.a. “Everybody in the Club Gettin’ Tipsy.” That song starts off with that exact line. In fact, the chorus of this song seems very referential to J-Kwon’s. I’m not saying that “Tipsy” was the height of hip-hop artistry in the aughts, but it was a big hit.
May 6, 2024 @ 8:12 am
As well as “everybody at the bar gettin’ tipsy” in the chorus. Definitely the first thing I thought of.
February 3, 2025 @ 2:32 pm
It 100% is. J-Kown is referenced as a songwriter on this.
May 2, 2024 @ 10:50 am
Oh wow, it is a Zach Bryan song! I would not have otherwise put that together as I’m not particularly musical. I just like what I like and I happen to like Zach Bryan.
May 16, 2024 @ 11:14 am
I know, right? It’s insane how much this sounds like a Zach Bryan song. Remove the auto tune, and have Zach sing it, and it would fit right into any of his albums.
May 2, 2024 @ 12:24 pm
The strange thing is this I like this much better than Cruise, Truck Yeah, Truck Bed, Git Up, or anything made by Little Big Town, Parmalee, Lady A, etc. I wouldn’t consider it country but what really is country music anymore? This is typical Pop country nowadays.
May 2, 2024 @ 1:39 pm
The timing is the interesting thing to me.
The first time I heard of Blanco Brown was when he showed up on the CMA Fest app, booked on a large stage. After that, “The Git Up” blew up, with an official release about a month before CMA Fest, shortly followed by a video with Lainey Wilson that was perhaps a bigger part of her rise to fame than most realize.
The first time I heard of Shaboozey was when he showed up on the CMA Fest app, booked on a good sized stage. The next thing you know, he’s on the Beyonce’ album and his own song is suddenly huge, also about a month before CMA Fest.
I wonder how far ahead of time the industry knows what is going to blow up huge and when, and what goes into that process?
May 2, 2024 @ 3:27 pm
Not sure how much CMA Fest figures into this. Publicists/managers do like to roll things out around festivals or conferences. That’s why we have weeks in September where there are 38 albums being released in a single because it’s around Americanafest. I honestly think this is bad for projects, not good.
I think there’s a much greater chance Shaboozey rolled this out to coincide with the Beyonce release, and he happens to be part of CMA Fest as well. Like we saw with Blanco Brown, he got a lot of attention, and quickly faded away. It will be interesting to see if the same happens with Shaboozey. I think there’s a bit more actual, real world experience behind his career.
May 2, 2024 @ 1:41 pm
I can listen to it, sounds great for a rodeo after party.
At least he isn’t pretending to be super emotional and deep like ZB.
I hear a lot of lumineers in it.
Good luck to the guy, seems pretty harmless.
May 2, 2024 @ 1:47 pm
It is what it is. I find it funny the video has cowbow hats, boots, girls, drinking, and a truck. LOL.
May 2, 2024 @ 1:52 pm
I think, m’learned friend, the ‘one to the two’ part is from Tipsy, a beloved jam by J-kwon.
May 2, 2024 @ 2:03 pm
Does anyone really pay attention to the charts anymore? Do they have any real relevance? Beyoncé says her music is NOT country, yet she is no.2. Never heard this song before or of the artist. Some might like it, it’s not for me. I do like Zach Bryan. Wyatt Flores is also very good. Are either really country? More country than Beyoncé and this artist by some way but country?
May 7, 2024 @ 5:44 pm
The band Alabama once said, If You’re Gonna Play in Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band). Sounds like a fiddle is in the band.
May 2, 2024 @ 2:03 pm
I echo the above commenter who mentioned this is likely deliberately paying homage to 2000’s-era rapper one-hit wonder J-Kwon with his hit “Tipsy” (most evidently in the “One to the two to the three to the four!” cadence)
“Tipsy” was a guilty pleasure of mine from that era I’ll still get down to time to time today. I can’t say I like this as much as “A Bar (Tipsy)” because it’s gravely lacking the former’s energy and pulse, but I get to an extent that’s precisely the point: this was perhaps intended to present the more pensive, sobering side of the can as to what drives many of us to get tipsy at the end of each given work week and how dystopian the grind can often be in the lead-up to each weekend. Because if Shaboozey somehow did record this with the goal of having something that lives up to J-Kwon’s cult classic in terms of energy, he failed seeing that this is, indeed, dumbed-down Zach Bryan, hahahahaha!
So I don’t think this song is worth hating on any level. It’s just………….there for me. I also won’t be surprised if this ultimately charts on country radio, although I think it’ll peak somewhere in the 25-30 range at best.
May 2, 2024 @ 2:20 pm
Country becoming “cool” again has it’s consequences.
May 2, 2024 @ 2:35 pm
I noted media reports that this artist did some innovative self-promotion at Stagecoach and was well-received. Also, Billboard states that this song is making real inroads on country radio: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/sabrina-carpenter-espresso-taylor-swift-fortnight-number-one-contenders-1235670879/ “and beginning to get a foothold in country radio (as it hits No. 1 on the multimetric Hot Country Songs chart)” though they have a much more positive view of this song’s staying power than I do.
By the way, I am going to have to do a mea culpa here. Not a complete one. But looks like I was at least somewhat wrong: https://www.billboard.com/music/country/t-pain-country-music-fans-hate-ghostwriting-1235672252/
Note that Billboard isn’t Rolling Stone, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, The Ringer etc or even Deadline (who either plays it straight or veers into left field depending on the writer). They aren’t nearly as agenda-driven.
I wouldn’t be so fast about crediting Beyonce for this though. Need to see if Tanner Adell – also at Stagecoach but didn’t make nearly as many waves – and the other female acts on Cowboy Carter also get a boost, particularly since those were the ones that Beyonce made a point of emphasizing. So did the mainstream media by the way …. it is funny how Shaboozey was at best an afterthought in their coverage – most articles didn’t mention him at all and only mentioned Adell and the other female country artists – but now they are falling over themselves to give her credit.
May 2, 2024 @ 2:50 pm
In unrelated news, Randy Travis has a “teaser” that he will be releasing some “new” music soon!
May 2, 2024 @ 2:53 pm
I’ve been cautioning everyone to not read too much into this until we hear what it is, and read the explanation. I am sure I will be reporting on it once all of this is in place.
May 2, 2024 @ 3:00 pm
I’m still just trying to wrap my head around how Zach fits into this conversation. Is there ANY discussion he doesn’t fit into? I admit I’m slow. Maybe I will catch up some day.
May 2, 2024 @ 3:31 pm
When I first heard this song, I heard a Zach Bryan song. You’re seeing other make this comment as well, including in this very comments section. This isn’t trying to shoehorn Zach Bryan into this discussion. He’s the 2nd most popular artist in country as a non radio artist, he’s arguably the most influential artist in country at the moment (hence, this song), and so his name is going to come up. I have written all of ONE dedicated Zach Bryan article on Saving Country Music in the last EIGHT MONTHS. Yet whenever I mention his name, gripes go up.
May 2, 2024 @ 3:08 pm
I’m usually cynical about songs like this but I actually find it to be a really fun song even if its not country. I quite like the music video too
May 2, 2024 @ 3:41 pm
Makes me embarrassed to say I like country music because legions of poisonous hammerheads think this is within 10000099990000 miles of country. This is such a sad thing and I will mourne.
May 2, 2024 @ 3:45 pm
Trig – I am forever a warrior for folks that come at you, but the only reason to bring Zach Bryan into this article as well as many others is for SEO and the world that surrounds it. I know he is popular, but please don’t forget the real fans that are the foundation of your following!
May 2, 2024 @ 4:30 pm
RJ,
I appreciate you being a warrior for me. But by saying the only reason I brought Zach Bryan into this conversation is for the “SEO” is calling into question my integrity as a writer and critic, and I don’t appreciate it. I brought up Zach Bryan because the structure of the song works very similar to a Zach Bryan song. If I wanted to capitalize off of Zach Bryan’s name, I would have written an article about Zach Bryan, or at least put his actual name in the headline. Again, I have written ONE ARTICLE about Zach Bryan in the last EIGHT MONTHS, and that when as a stadium act, he played a last minute show 20 minutes from headquarters in an important venue in the Austin scene. Dozens of outlets covered how Zach Bryan was helping with tornado cleanup earlier this week. If I wanted to write about Zach Bryan, I would have written about him then.
Also, Zach Bryan gets NO SEO lift. Anyone in publishing will tell you that. Neither do Wyatt Flores, The Red Clay Strays, or any of these other artists because their fans do not read articles about them. They get all of their info direct on social media. This is one of the reasons I don’t break an ankle rushing to write about Zach. And when I do, all people want to do is reef me and Zach in the nuts.
Really, what your comment and Wayne’s comment prove is that YOU are the ones that are obsessed with Zach Bryan.
This is ridiculous.
May 3, 2024 @ 3:08 am
You got me, I was wrong, and I apoligize.
May 2, 2024 @ 3:46 pm
This is nothing more than bro country.
Easy pablum for who you call, the elite.
The stagecoach and coachella, burning man, land rapists.
May 3, 2024 @ 6:13 am
the festivals are the land rapists? not the people trying to repeal epa oversight and regulations or the people building pipelines? fracking?
May 3, 2024 @ 8:35 am
Let’s please keep this on the topic of music. I’m always impressed when festivals put forth the effort to make sure they’re good stewards of the land like Pickathon. But big festivals do often have a big impact on the land in ways that deserve discussion.
May 3, 2024 @ 9:32 am
typical trig, allows off topic comment, doesn’t like when it’s challenged. anyways, we all know how di harris feels about rape. i guess the land didn’t try hard enough not to have a festival?
May 3, 2024 @ 12:50 pm
Defamation.
Look it up.
May 3, 2024 @ 1:52 pm
No more comments on this thread. And if you want to complain about having comments deleted Gentile, compare receipts with Di Harris. Trust me, she has you beat.
May 2, 2024 @ 3:52 pm
Chart positions mean nothing to me. I guess I decided a long time ago that anything I really liked would not be in a Top 10 anyway. Probably not even in a Top 100.
This song isn’t as bad as some I’ve heard, although I think it would be better without the hip-hop tropes (e.g., Autotune, synthetic handclaps, digital percussion, etc.). I’m sure that only goes to show I’m not in the target audience. Still, I could probably listen to it more than once.
BTW, I perceive there are two Bryans in Country Music, which is causing me momentary confusion every time the name comes up. Am I right about that?
May 6, 2024 @ 7:25 am
Did anyone else think Di was a dude?
May 2, 2024 @ 4:40 pm
It’s not terrible or very original for that matter. I would consider it more of a hip hop song though they obviously have slowed it down a bit to make it sound closer to country. Though never a big rap fan I have enjoyed some hip hop songs. I always looked at hip hop kind of like early rock n roll. It’s fun and anyone can dance to it. I don’t expect to hear it on the radio but if it came on, I wouldn’t turn it.
May 2, 2024 @ 5:49 pm
This sounds like stomp clap folk aka Lumineers/Mumford or something, not country. I imagine if you’re into that you’ll be into this. Some hip hop candences in the vocal rhythms, but that’s all that’s really hip hop about it (and having the autotune out front). It’s not bad, like I’ve heard waaaayyyyyyyyyy worse. But it’s definitely in that stomp clap folk zone more than anything.
May 2, 2024 @ 6:55 pm
I have an Amazon playlist named County. The playlist includes Jamie Lin Wilson, Eady, Turnpike, and artists such as Jackson Straight and Chesnutt. Sometimes I stroll to the bottom of the playlist and look at what Amazon suggests I add. Sometimes I find at least one good suggestion to add. Since Beyoncé released Texas Hold ‘Em songs from that album keep being suggested. I could understand her music being suggested if there was an ounce of pop country on the playlist. But there isn’t a song that would suggest I’m remotely interested in her music. I just don’t understand the logic of trying to force her music on me. Artists like Shaboozey and Beyoncé have no idea what country music is. They are just plucking buzz words that sound country to them to put on top of an electronic beat. I think it was Trig who once said popularity doesn’t always equal quality.
May 2, 2024 @ 8:11 pm
Zero the song. ????
May 3, 2024 @ 3:50 am
…another cat’s crashing among the pidgeons – and the birds jump on it. we all are predictable from time to time – but all the time? really?
May 3, 2024 @ 6:02 am
This is usually where I say I have never heard of this guy before this article. Unfortunately, I have heard of this guy as I have seen three of four posts from independent/americana artists on Instagram with this song as the background music. Some are very popular artists here. This is not the first time a popular, but not particularly country artist has been highlighted by country/americana artists on social media. Beyonce is another popular background music selection. They are only giving credence to this being accepted as actual country music.
May 3, 2024 @ 6:15 am
Gotta say, I really like this song, and I think it’s smarter than you give it credit for. It sounds like getting tipsy feels, and it’s using the structure of the song to help tell that story of drowning your frustrations. He only talks about his financial woes initially because that’s the sober and thinking straight part. The counting line doubles as a reference to an earlier song and as counting the number of drinks that get the buzz on. And the farther into the song you go, the deeper the narrator is in his drink, so the more he’s repeating himself, as drunk folks do, and the more those difficulties fade from the lyrics, like the way they leave your mind when you drink.
May 3, 2024 @ 6:45 am
It’s pop country, and honestly, as you said Trig, it’s not bad for pop country. It does the job as one might say. My only gripe is I wish he didn’t auto tune, just let his voice come out and it’d still have a fun sound to it.
May 3, 2024 @ 8:15 am
I don’t hate it. It’s pop country. Actually less irritating than most pop country. A little heavy handed with the signifiers.
May 3, 2024 @ 9:11 am
I listened to this song, and then ‘Miles on It’ by Kane Brown and Marshmello came on…. Holy moly. What a pile of hot trash. Snaps track and all. Just terrible. Makes a Bar Song (Tipsy) sound not to bad.
May 3, 2024 @ 9:48 am
I take this whole “song” and video as a satire or mockery of Country music. Watch the people in the background and the over the top goofiness they are projecting. Its like they went for the stereotypes so as to mock it all. The ” singer” in the video with the heavily robotic auto- tune voice also is dancing super awkwardly like a white guy. Literally, it’s all screaming satire. It’s over the top noticeable. Yet here we have folks clamoring to say how it’s great art. I say if it’s art, it’s satirical art. Really doubt that anything here is sincere. And no, it ain’t Country music.
Compare this to Tony Jackson, or even Nuke Bushner. No comparison at all.
May 21, 2024 @ 7:51 pm
Agreed, but mote like “toxic” smarmy satire utilizing tired stereotypical “bro country” tropes from one of the new Beyoncé-fied PC “reimagined” country gatekeepers – imagine the outrage if the shoe was on the other foot. Tired of privileged, sanctimonious, self righteous Gen Y preaching and reinvention.
May 3, 2024 @ 2:52 pm
Great two-step beat! Can’t wait to two-step to it.
May 4, 2024 @ 5:49 am
Perhaps the Supreme Court and the 102nd Airborne will make us like this stuff. It worked the first time!
May 5, 2024 @ 1:08 pm
I found out about shaboozey from the seager clothing company. I think he was in some of the ads for the Waylon collection they were doing, and then of course he’s featured on the Beyoncé album. Not a big fan, but we have more to celebrate now with the current state of country music since the 90s, que sera sera
May 7, 2024 @ 6:56 am
I learned of this song through tik tok. I like it, its fun. I knew from the get go what it was. Reminded me of Old Town Road, a real summertime banger. I don’t know the ZB references, never really delved into his catalog. I also like the saddest songs a person could strum on a guitar. BOTH can co-exist. Let’s not get too worked up over the regality of a song. If it makes me dance in the kitchen with my children, what is wrong with that?
Also- Look up Jeff Daniels singing a little porch song on the Kelly Clarkson show. What a treat. That is what music is supposed to do.
May 9, 2024 @ 5:38 am
I actually love the song and most of what traditionalists consider… “Country-Pop”. Walker Hayes is my favorite COUNTRY artist. And yes, he makes country music, period. Who decides what country music is and what it’s not? Is it the artists themselves? Is it the labels? Is it Radio? Is it the Venues? Is it the fans/consumers? Social Media? I’m gonna go with fans/consumers because they’re the ones who buy and… well consume it. Everything else mentioned above is predicated by the consumption.
But I “strongly dislike” Beyonce’s so-called country album. And I think the difference is that Beyonce is trying to make a political statement and negatively infiltrate the genre. I truly believe that. I don’t believe there’s a country bone in her body. Everything about her move feels decidedly orchestrated. Having said that, I don’t get that vibe from Shaboozey, Walker Hayes, Kane Brown, FGL, etc.. Listening to various interviews, he loves all kinds of different music and I feel he comes from a genuine love for the genre. His music doesn’t feel disrespectful like Beyonce’s does.
I guess my thing is – Is it ok to like multiple styles of country music? Is that allowed? What is this narrative that country music can only sound one way? Where is the law (and its various amendments) written that states all music produced under the “country” banner must resemble Conway Twitty’s twangy, ear-seizor sound? I’m overjoyed (emphatically even) that today’s country doesn’t sound like 70s/80s/90s/00s country. Music ALWAYS changes from generation to generation and country music is not immune to that FACT. I’m old enough to remember when ????Achey Brakey Heart???? came out. All of the so-called traditionalists of the time derided it, shamed it, and called it Blasphemy to country music. Yet in 2024 it’s considered a Country Music classic and a staple of the genre????????♂️????????♂️. It’s a tale as old as time – people who grew up on 80s country music, hated 90s country music. People who grew up on 90s country music hated 00s country music, and on and on it goes. Obviously, I’m generalizing here but you get the point. If it’s “ok” not to like something it’s equally “ok” to like something and I don’t think one outshines or is more relevant than the other in the case of today’s country music. At least that’s my two cents.
May 9, 2024 @ 7:09 am
this song is bad. not because it’s bad sounding, but it’s the cultural influence. this is just more activist infiltration designed to blow country music up from the inside. in a few years, the country music I was raised on won’t exist. The term country music will exist, but every artist is going to look like Shaboozy, Beyoncé’, Kane Brown, Jimmy Allen, Blanco Brown, Breland, with a few token urban appropriators like Jelly Roll and Post Malone thrown in for good measure. As far as pop songs go, that are easy to bounce around to, this isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard. But, as far as viruses go, this has the ability to be more damaging to country music than Covid ever was to an obese 85 year old with an auto immune disorder.
May 9, 2024 @ 7:38 am
This is exactly what the political propagandists want you to believe, and you’ve bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Meanwhile, country has never been more country in the last 20 years, and you won’t find anyone in the industry who will disagree with you. The careers of Blanco Brown and Breland are meaningless and virtually invisible. Jimmy Allen’s career is outright over. And Shaboozy and Beyonce are finding their success not with country fans, but with pop/hip-hop fans while being slotted in country by Billboard. Country music has never been better in the 16 years I’ve been operating Saving Country Music, and it’s trending toward the positive.
May 9, 2024 @ 8:19 am
nah, i figured this out on my own. All you have to do is look at pop culture as a whole and see what’s happening. Go find the the Seinfeld quote about modern day comedy and TV sitcoms and simply apply the same thing to the institution of Country Music. I’m not suggesting it’s working as well in Country music as it is in other forms of pop culture, but I believe it’s real. I’ve even seen you mention on several occasions about how it’s the activists that demanded that Beyoncé’s record be labeled as country instead of pop. it’s more of the same with this guy. Will it work? hard to tell. But I’ll be expecting an apology next year if this cat wins an ACM for song of the year or best new Artist. I hope you’re right, I really do, but this dude gives me a bad feeling.
May 9, 2024 @ 8:37 am
Funny you bring up the Seinfeld thing, because as political commentators picked up on it for culture war fodder, actual comedians cast it off as extremely dated, and more relevant to 2019-2020 than 2024. Just like country music, comedy is in a massive resurgence thanks to podcasting, and has never been doing better.
Culture warriors on both sides try to portray things as dire because that’s how you can draw attention. If Beyonce had released “Cowboy Carter” in 2019-202 as she initially intended to, perhaps it could have enacted a wave started with Lil Nas X and carried with the Black Lives Matter movement to fundamentally change country. But that didn’t happen. As it turns out, it was basically a popcorn fart with no follow through.
May 10, 2024 @ 8:38 am
I don’t agree. I think Seinfeld’s quote is as valid and poignant now is would have been five years ago. Maybe it comes off sounding a little late because of the way our media consuming habits have changed over the last half decade, but he’s still on to something. There is no way a program like All In The Family or even slightly newer shows like the Office, Friends or How I Met Your Mother would be able flourish in today’s cultural landscape as a new show designed for streaming or otherwise. Not to mention the fact that a large portion of comedians have stopped playing college campuses because of extreme PC culture. I also believe the same Cultural Marxist that are destroying other forms of pop culture and long standing American institutions have set their sites on Country Music. If it’s not currently working, it’s only because they have very little understanding of what makes county music really tic. What most of these progressive types know about country music is what they see on award shows and hear on the radio, never realizing that real country music is still being made from people from the country. But make no mistake about, cultural Marxism is real, and they are coming for country music as we speak. Anyways, if you end up coming into ATL for the Brit Turner tribute show at Chastain Park, let me know. I’ll be there. we can grab a beer an talk politics and pop culture.
May 21, 2024 @ 7:36 pm
More of the Beyoncé-fied ” reimagined country” onslaught, with more to come. I’ll pass….
June 1, 2024 @ 7:22 am
This critique falls victim to what I call the “rolling stone school” of music reviews, where its more important to the reviewer what the Artist says lyrically than the melody, groove, catchiness and sing ability of the song. This is a great song on all those measures, and the fact that the lyrics are basic and not inspired means nothing whatsoever. Every great song in rock and country shares one thing-do you want to sing it out loud at the concert. Yes, it if also has great lyrics with those measures then that makes it a classic. But great lyrics are not necessary to make a great song.
June 18, 2024 @ 7:54 am
I’ve been listening to country for the past few decades, mostly the pop stuff, but I love it. This song is LIT. It makes me want to pick up my violin again. It makes me want to line dance.