Yes ladies and gentlemen, Joe Diffie—the mulleted, cop mustached 90’s semi-star—has released an “answer” song to what many consider the worst song in country music history, Jason Aldean’s country rap “1994.” Diffie’s new song is called “Girl Ridin’ Shotgun,” and it is as embarrassing as puberty. This is a prayer for relevancy guaranteed to go unanswered.
These dudes are on the mother of all tears. Their song “Cruise” threatens to be the biggest country song in 2013, and has already set multiple records, including spending 12 weeks at the top of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart—the first time this has happened by a duo in the 69-year history of the chart. “Cruise” has already been certified triple-platinum.
When it comes to country music, it is the best of times, and the worst of times depending on if you’re talking about male or female artists. While it’s easy to focus on the awful, inane music from mainstream country’s male-dominated ruling class, there is an inspiring sect of female performers attempting to emerge from the heavy shadows of towering males and their tiring musical pap. So why the gender gap?
I don’t care what the intentions of this song are. And I’ll give you that it’s well-written, including LL Cool J’s rapping parts. And I’m not just saying that as a positioning point. Because despite the optimism this song attempts to convey, “Accidental Racist” also conveys a level of judgementalism and reaffirmation of stereotypes that many people don’t appreciate.
Just when we thought the American public was finally getting wise to the fact that country rap is a Cancer of Western Civilization, needing to be cut out and radiated like the grapefruit-sized, puss-filled tumor it is, here it comes roaring back like a raging case of bleeding hemorrhoids. It’s the audio equivalent of sneaking out of your mom’s house to smoke pot behind a Pizza Hut.
I know a lot of folks are going to roll up on this review hoping to see a crime scene unfold, hoping that I show no mercy and draw blood on this embarrassment of American country music. But the truth is, I don’t have much to say about it. I’ve got no dry powder here. What could be said that hasn’t been said many times before to the point of being redundant, or that isn’t obvious to the clear-minded listener?
Since music no longer holds any intrinsic value to the American consumer and they’d rather steal a song than have it be sold to them for less than a pack of gum, merch, MERCH is where all the money is now. Major labels manufacture merch in the textile industry’s version of puppy mills somewhere in southeast Asia. Here’s some country music T Shirts you won’t see for sale anytime soon.
If you’ve found you’re eyeballs affixed to these very words, you’ve likely found yourself at some point trying to explain that you like country, but not that type of country. Once many artists get to the very top of country pop, they seem to lose all self-awareness and begin to make fools of themselves, and by proxy, the genre that holds the same name as the music we love. He are some of the worst offenses.
White Buffalo is a journey through the South. And no, not in Jason Aldean’s king cab with air conditioning and buckets seats, but in an old beater with panty hose and coat hangers procured for spare parts. With song titles like “Hatchie Bottom” and “Fake Hex,” you know you’re in for an interesting trip, and you’re glad to have a local as your guide.
The Mono-Genre Theory in short states that all popular music is coalescing into one big genre where influences and styles from country, rap, rock, blues etc. coexist without any true lines defining their differences. At the end of every year when the sales numbers are released by Nielsen Soundscan, it usually reveals evidence of this mono-genre coagulation. 2012 was no different.
es, Aaron Lewis, the ultra-emotional singer from Staind that done “gone country” a couple of years back has a new album called The Road, and I have to say, this was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. The Road is a hard country, steel guitar, half-time, waltz beat, honest-to-goodness honky tonk album with some surprisingly good moments.
If you had any doubt in your mind–if the positively awful, both misogynistic and metrosexually-stimulated songs from Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan hadn’t clued you in already–then this should leave no doubt in your mind that these two knuckleheads don’t just fit the term “douchebag,” they define it. The tattoo design is for a company that they both share an endorsement deal with.
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.
When President Obama won re-election last Tuesday, he said in his speech that what makes America strong is not that it has the greatest wealth in the world, or because it has the strongest military, or because its culture is the “envy of the world.” Obama cited America’s diversity, and the bonds that hold that diversity together as the reason the United States remains the most powerful nation on the planet.
So here are some specific thoughts on the songs of Taylor Swift’s album Red. This is meant to be an addendum to the more broad album review posted, so please read that first or in addition to this for the context of these reviews. As a general thought on the songs overall, I thought there were too many of them. If you are going to release an album of 16 tracks, they need to be solid. Instead, Red has some fat.
Just when you thought you’d seen it all, a feminine products company out of North Carolina called “Ocean Breeze” announced Thursday they are launching a new line of products pandering to the country world. Yes, country music is officially going….there. “This ain’t your grandmother’s douche, so to speak. Put the fiddles, steel guitars, vinegar and water mixes, and bulky, awkward applicators away.”
Texas Country music star Aaron Watson just released his 11th album Real Good Time on October 9th, and on the album the Amarillo native makes a good, healthy jab at the “country rap” phenomenon infecting country music’s airwaves. Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw, and the rest of the laundry list country rap crowd are lampooned by a song that is so well written in the country rap vein…
When Billboard announced new rules on how the songs on their “Hot 100” country chart would be tabulated, it caused a tizzy amongst folks who pay attention to these sorts of things. But the average Joe fans out there may have a little trouble understanding why the issue is something they should care about, and how it could negatively effect the music they enjoy.
I normally would steer clear of stories like this, but every time I’ve headed down to the general store for provisions for the hideout over the last month I’ve had to stare at a People Magazine cover story all about Jason Aldean showing off his “softer, romantic side” and his “daddy skills,” I thought it would be apropos to point out that TMZ just caught Aldean red handed cheating on his wife.
When I first proposed the theory that all popular music was coalescing into one big mono-genre where even the two traditionally polarized genres of country and hip-hop would be living side by side, even I didn’t think the conversion would happen so quickly and be so indisputable. Looking at country music, the top albums, the top songs, and the top artists all have ties to the merging of all popular music.
A few days ago, CMT launched a new format and website called CMT Edge with the intent of covering artists outside the norm of mainstream country music. Since then I’ve been asked many times what I think of it, and my stock answer has been that I don’t exactly know what I think of it yet. Having said that, I see no reason at this point not to stay positive about it.
What a banner year it has been for bad songs in country music. After 2011’s “Red Solo Cup” by Toby Keith and Jason Aldean’s country/rap “Dirt Road Anthem” the bar has been raised for how low you must go to get attention for your twilighting music career. Put a clothesline clip on your nose, a paper bag on your knee, and dive in…if you dare.
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, your hero, the lord of underground roots, the savior of independent music, Shooter Jennings, is releasing a duet single and video with the most pop-ity pop of pop country uber doches, the “Nickelback of Country Music”, American Idol’s Bucky Covington. The song is called “Drinking Side of Country” and all indications is that it will suck hard enough to send a golf ball through a garden hose.
Oh how independent music nerds love to puff their chest out and pontificate about what’s wrong with the mainstream music industry, how it’s creatively bankrupt and was too slow to evolve to the onset of the digital format. What none of these nerds and experts seem to be willing to recognizing though is that over the last 18 months, music sales have increased. So what happened?