When The Chicago Tribune interviewed Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley earlier this week, his ability to laugh at himself, or Maddie & Tae’s “Girl In A Country Song” specifically, seemed quite elusive. Writer Allison Stewart characterized Maddie & Tae questions to Kelley as “…the only ones Kelley, in a recent phoner, doesn’t sound happy to answer.”
Because this song is from Florida Georgia Line is not the reason to hate it. It’s the exact reason to love it. Today, the 8th of July, 2014, is a victory for country music, and for the individuals and entities who wish to see a measure of balance restored back to the format—not based on taste, but on the theory of finding less divisive music that we can all enjoy together as country music fans.
Southern twang is back in a big way baby, as bro-country dominates the format, and female performers try and turn up the sass to compete. As opposed to trying to apologize for their Southern roots, today’s country artists can’t shut the hell up about them, regularly reinforcing all things country in laundry list form with elongated drawls. This has seen the rise of the Southern accent once again.
“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, he’s clueless to what the term stands for.
For the first time ever, two high-powered country and rap acts will tour together, as fast-rising country duo Florida Georgia Line will be paired up with hip-hop artist Nelly in an upcoming summer tour of American Ballparks. The cross-genre pairing first happened when a remix of Florida Georgia Line’s smash hit “Cruise” featuring Nelly was released to radio in April of 2013.
Like one of those stationary rides in the front of Wal-Mart for toddlers, “This Is How We Roll” makes a lot of noise, has a bunch of flashing lights, bumps up and down a little bit, but in the end, goes absolutely fucking nowhere. The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers soundtrack has more sincerity, depth, and nutritional value than this explosion of diarrhea in country music’s bikini cut man briefs.
So many of pop country’s celebrities have such a vacuous amount of life skills, without being propped up as pretty faces by the country music industry, they’d be clueless in the real world. Others probably have some skills outside of singing into Auto-tuners at concerts, and that’s probably what they should be doing instead of trying to be artists.
If a truly good country song is represented by a delicate pair of supple female breasts, then Montgomery Gentry’s “Titty’s Beer” would be a rack of cellulose-addled man boobs replete with coarse and graying disheveled chest hair, pock marked with skin Cancer and bisected by a grizzly double bypass scar. This isn’t a cry for relevancy folks, this is a blood-curdling scream.
The question that often comes up about the duo is what exactly does the short, blond-haired Brian Kelley do in the band? The longer-haired Tyler Hubbard seems to be the only voice you hear prominently in the vocal mix, and though Brian Kelley is commonly seen holding a guitar, he doesn’t appear to be handling any of the guitar solos, or really fulfilling any significant function of the Florida Georgia Line sound.
The Country Music Anti-Christ Scott Borchetta has decided to unleash a new wave of pestilence on the human eardrum, this time in the form of the glorified boy band Florida Georgia Line; a horrible combination of Rascal Flatts pretty boy hyper-pop, and designer jeans Jason Aldean “backroad” laundry list bullshit. They are everything bad about quotation mark “country” in 2012.