You could see this all unfolding when Scotty McCreery first released the ridiculous single “Southern Belle.” Even he knew it was well outside of the style he’d been known for previously. “This is probably about as far left as we’ll go,” McCreery said about it at the time. In a last ditch effort to salvage the song, Mercury Nashville released an equally embarrassing video for the song.
Whenever you’re out in front of a release apologizing for it, it’s never a good sign. “This is probably about as far left as we’ll go,” McCreery announced ahead of “Southern Belle,” tipping listeners off that this was going to be the moment the 22-year-old tried to make a big splash on radio in lieu of sticking to sometimes more traditional-leaning material that compliments his deep country tone.
Goodness, can we just kill off mainstream country music with one final shotgun blast to the noggin instead of watching this long, suffering, painful smothering at the hands of the proprietors of pop who have positively no idea what country music is supposed to be, and are willing to slowly strew its disemboweled innards all across the public sidewalks in victory? Don’t these bastards have any compassion?