The debate about what is country music and what isn’t is an eternal one. But a 1:53-long viral “song” that is really nothing more than an internet meme entitled “Old Town Road” by rapper “Lil Nas X” has rekindled the debate anew, with critical implications behind it.
It’s said that time is the harshest critic of all. If that’s the case, time has not been very kind to the music of Florida Georgia Line at all. The title of their new album ‘Can’t Say I Ain’t Country’ isn’t fooling anybody, and apparently the fickle pop country music fan has moved on en masse to the likes of Luke Combs and others.
When it comes to popular music, every generation has its goat. And no, we’re not talking about the hip social media acronym for the “Greatest of All Time.” We’re talking about the sacrificial kind—the one synonymous with an ornery horned land animal that eats your garden and shits everywhere.
Pop star turned country music carpetbagger Bebe Rexha made headlines last Thursday evening (2-7) during a Spotify party held in Los Angeles to honor all of the women up for the Grammy’s New Artist of the Year award, when she stopped down her performance of “Meant To Be,” and went on an expletive-fueled tirade.
All the information about the 2019, 61st Annual Grammy Awards you need in one place, including the performers, the presenters, the nominees, and the important narratives the night will present in country and roots music, and beyond.
You shouldn’t have to tell anybody how country you are. It should be patently obvious in the first few bars of a song that an artist or song is country. Unfortunately though, with the loss of country instrumentation, the pervasiveness of electronic beats, performers feel the need to explain how they’re country.
Here we are with a nice, tidy little bow wrapped around 2018, with the barrage of end-of-year lists finally published and in the past, the confetti from New Year’s celebrations all swept up, and the promise of an exciting new year of country music on the way. But how good or bad really was country music in 2018?
Florida Georgia Line has a new album coming out in February. The title is Can’t Say I Ain’t Country. The band says it’s their most country record yet. It has 19 total songs. Here is the track list.
Of course people are different. We learn that at six-years-old. Of course everyone should be respectful to each other, and try to see other people’s perspectives. But this is the premise for a nursery rhyme, not a country song. Adults use subtly, nuance, and story to get important points across they wish to convey in music.
Cute, Florida Georgia Line, cute. Call your latest album Can’t Say I Ain’t Country and act as if this somehow insulates you against what any country music fan worth their salt already knows inherently. I can, and will say you ain’t country if I damn well please, as will the rest of us.
That’s right, I’m going here. And no, it’s never cool to put your hands on another man’s shit, so don’t @ me because that’s not what I’m getting at. But the idea that somehow Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line and his wife Brittney are victims is ridiculous.
Written by none other than Bro-Country Godfather Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line, along with mainstream country also-ran Canaan Smith, and Cory Crowder, “Tailgate” is about as terrible as you conceive simply from seeing the title.
It’s now been two months since purely pop star Bebe Rexha eclipsed the all-time record on the 70-year-old Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for consecutive weeks at #1, and there is still no end in sight for the song’s reign. 43 weeks now the song has remained in the top spot, with challengers coming and going with no real threat.
Kane Brown and Luke Combs couldn’t be more different. But they are both a new style of country star who made their ascent into mainstream stardom 100% during the streaming era, and due to the streaming era specifically. Last week, both artists announced their own arena tours.
If you’ve ever doubted the existence of a higher power, or the ability in all of its supreme benevolence to summon the forces of nature and impose its will upon the crust of the Earth, perhaps you now have a reason to hit your knees.
Now that the 2018 CMA Awards nominations have been announced, the people who care about the awards can pour over the lists and find things to complain about, while the people who complain about the awards can pour over the lists while professing to not care. This is the way of things, and what happens every year.
Country isn’t the only music community scratching its head while a fairly innocuous and forgettable pop song rewrites history by hitting record marks for its time at #1 on a genre specific chart, or a performer or group who doesn’t even seem to belong in the genre dominates that genre’s most important chart metrics.
Any proper country music fan should know and love the rock band Ween’s foray into country music in the mid 90’s called 1’2 Golden Country Greats.’ Recorded at Owen Bradley’s legendary Bradley’s Barn studio at his farm just outside of Nashville, the album featured a stable of notable Nashville musicians dubbed “The Shit Creek Boys.”
Game over. All efforts to stave off the irrelevancy of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart in the face of installing a pop star in the history books as the owner of the most successful single in the genre’s history ultimately failed. This week, the song “Meant To Be” by pop star Bebe Rexha with Florida […]
“Meant To Be” recently helped Florida Georgia Line shatter what once was thought a bulletproof record—George Strait’s cumulative frames for songs cresting a week at #1. With a whopping 45 total #1’s spanning over a quarter century in the business, there’s a reason Strait earned the nickname “King” George over his Hall of Fame career.
Nelly was originally arrested October 7th, 2017 in Auburn, Washington after he was accused of sexual assault by a local woman. Since then two more accusations have emerged. Yet, the rapper continues to be welcomed at mainstream country music functions unabated, including at the upcoming FGL Fest.
In the last 73 weeks of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, there have only been five total songs to crest the chart. That means that over the past 1 1/2 years, two songs have occupied the chart’s top spot 89% of the time. And those two artists very specifically benefit from pop attention.
Ragingly relevant to 2012, the latest Florida Georgia Line reboot goes full-blown Mumford & Sons on our asses as part of their big, multi-year rehabilitation campaign to save their skins from certain doom as a laughing stock of country music history. And when I say Mumford and Sons, I’m talking about the whole damn motif.
Can you imagine having the #1 song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the last six months—something Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, George Strait, and Kenny Chesney never came close to doing—and not even knowing about the massive present-day pop country band you collaborated with to pull it off?