WARNING : LANGUAGE — What is “Vacation?” It’s the taking of two separate compositions: War’s “Low Rider,” and Jason Derulo’s “Wiggle,” smashing them together like your 4-year-old would two pats of Play-Doh, having Thomas Rhett white-boy rap imbecilic lyrics over it through an Auto-Tuner for a few minutes, and then spitting out the result on some douchebag producer’s Mac.
We bitch, we moan, we criticize, we celebrate the symbolic little victories that give us hope that a sea change for country music is imminent, or at least slowly taking hold, even though in many respects things only seem to get worse every year. And we look for ways to implement meaningful solutions to the problems plaguing country music so it can once again become a medium of creativity.
I guess my first question is why stop there? If you already have 14 songwriters on board, why not go for the world record? Throw the barn doors wide and make a party out of it. You want to contribute a word or two? Then come on in! Order some pizza. String up a piñata. Put a homeless guy on there for shits and giggles. Throw that guy that used to pick on you in high school in the songwriting credits as an inside joke.
In the continued bastardization and exploitation of the term “country music,” the second-largest media conglomerate in the world, The Disney Corporation, has announced they’re getting into the country radio business to brainwash your children and tweens into believing Kelsea Ballerini has anything remotely to do with “country.”
I know the sense is that music is always getting worse and there will never be any improvement, but the end of 2014 had some promising signs with the decline of Bro-Country. Unfortunately though, where Bro-Country ended, Metro-Politan began, and now we have a new generation of artists and songs to contend with in the effort to saving country music.
What on God’s wide creation would compel a cantankerous country music critic who normally would rear up like an infuriated grizzly bear on its hind legs whenever some washed up rocker or crumbling pop princess decides that country music is the nursing home of their career and actually call for a pop star to crossover into country?
May the ghost of the great Sam Cooke kick Thomas Rhett’s ass eternally for ripping off the iconic rhythm and cadence from the classic American standard “Chain Gang” in such an open and arrogant manner that even a villainous bystander like Vanilla Ice would give this the hairy eyeball. “Evolution” in today’s country music is simply a code word for filching something from another genre.
Here we go country music fans, it’s time to usher in the new Metro-Politan era of poorly-conceived country music hyper-trends, so turn your dirt roads and tailgates in for club hookups and cocaine mirrors because it’s Katy bar the door, here come the dance club “country” songs at you hard and fast. Bro-Country who? That was so 2014.
This is Gary Allan’s big sellout moment ladies and gentlemen. No pretenses, no qualifiers, just come out and act like you’re into what Sam Hunt and Thomas Rhett are into at the ripe age 47. This is even a bigger sellout moment than Tim McGraw with “Truck Yeah” and Jerrod Niemann with “Drink To That All Night” because you half expected those moves from those knuckleheads. But Gary Allan?
The increasingly irrelevant Academy of Country Music Awards, or ACM’s, released their annual earache of ignoble pseudo-country performers known as the semi-final “New Artist” nominees this Monday, that spellbind any beholder with an even elementary understanding of the definitions of “New” and “Artist” as to how such names were populated.
Hypothetically he does, or at least metaphorically. But depending on Tyler Farr’s proficiency at internet research (which I’m guessing is pretty sub-par) and his proximity to the Big Apple where New Yorker culture writer Jody Rosen—who coined the term “Bro-Country”—makes his bed, Farr will probably just have to settle for sending verbal daggers out towards Rosen in The Arizona Republic.
On Monday, September 22nd, the subset of American country music known to many by its nickname “Bro-Country,” died at its home in Nashville, TN. Though the specific cause of death has yet to be ruled on by the local medical examiner, preliminary findings appear to show that Bro-Country had been exhaustively over-utilized over the last few months and years until it finally passed away from overexposure.
Thomas Rhett took time away from getting hammered with Jesus and writing idiotic checklist songs to talk with Cody Alan of CMT’s After Midnite recently, and not so surprisingly, Thomas had some dumb things to say regarding his take on Bro-Country. Rhett told an eager and servile Cody Alan, “I just have never actually used the term ‘bro country’….”
On Saturday night (5-31), Valory Music Group artist Brantley Gilbert headlined the Blue Ridge Music Festival in Salem, Virginia, with Thomas Rhett, ABC Nashville actress and singer Clare Bowen, and Travis Tritt opening for him. Apparently what transpired stimulated Travis Tritt to take to Twitter to question the level of respect he and his fellow openers were treated with.
Just as I’ve been saying ever since the term “bro-country” was widely adopted by naysayers of the current male-dominated laundry list phenomenon in country music, eventually it would be co-opted by the very “bros” it was meant to call out, and be used as a term of endearment. Well now ladies and gentlemen, we have reached that point, and in a big way.
EDM, or Electronic Dance Music, is making a big move into country music with one of the world’s biggest EDM stars in Avicii, and he’s doing it with the help of none other than notorious Clear Channel syndicated DJ Bobby Bones, who’s taking credit for helping to spark the trend. Avicii is a Swedish DJ that released his first album True in 2013. His song “Hey Brother” has been a huge international hit.
Forget that Justin Moore signed to Big Machine’s Valory Music imprint in 2008, that he had a #1 single in 2009, and a #1 album in 2011; as first pointed out by Windmills Country, according to the Academy of Country Music’s specifically-stated rules of eligibility for the “New Artist” category, Justin Moore should be disqualified because he’s had not one, but two albums certified gold.
In Music Row’s everlasting quest to train all of its resources on scouring America to unearth only the finest, most purest form of audio diarrhea, they have struck the mother of all motherloads originating from the unholy bowels of Macon, Georgia’s Jason Aldean. Yes Nashville, pat yourself on the back, you have officially discovered the worst country music song to ever touch the human ear drum.
I’m not going to go as far as to call it sacrilege, but Thomas Rhett’s song “Beer With Jesus” proves that when it comes to trying to write a pop country hit, nothing is sacred. But if we’re going to say that’s okay or even creative songwriting to “have a beer with Jesus,” where do we draw the line? Here’s some suggestions of other things that might be fun to do with the Son of God.
This year in popular country music, there were some glimmers of hope. Kacey Musgraves’ “Merry Go ‘Round” found some surprising traction and success, and Kellie Pickler’s 100 Proof may go down as one of the best mainstream country albums in years. But of course this was all counter-balanced by a gaggle of the worst songs “country” music has ever seen.
Jesus may have turned the other cheek, but he also overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple where they didn’t belong. Just like the Romans of biblical times, these pop country fart tards are foreign occupiers who need to get the hell out of country. I don’t pretend to know what Jesus would do, but if I were him, I’d shove my sandal straight up Thomas Rhett’s ass and tell him he could keep his Michelob Ultra.