This Taylor Swift Shit – Country Music Is Dead
I would much rather be writing an album review, or highlighting a new artist. But since the 19-year-old Taylor Swift took home an unprecedented four CMA’s, including Entertainer of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year, this website has been flooded with traffic, similar to what Rush Limbaugh probably experienced after Obama’s win, which is ironic, because in the last few weeks, I’ve felt more and more like the Michael Moore of country music, exposing it’s corporate excesses and corruption. People are flocking here because they want some justification for how they feel. They want to find camaraderie, and hope.
I’ll tell you straight up, I’ve had a hard time since I watched Taylor take home the most important award in country music. I anticipated her winning, but I didn’t anticipate feeling this way afterward. This isn’t fun for me any more. I can’t just poke fun of these pop personalities and move on. It’s all taken an emotional turn that I don’t like. It has become personal, partly because at times the behavior of Nashville entities has become almost criminal.
Take the Milsap / Capitol Records mess. The other day I received a letter from a woman who lost her husband fighting a fire; the people Milsap is trying to help. The day after Keith Urban was exposed for operating a ticket scam, the next day Taylor Swift was implicated in a similar situation.
I don’t want to be the predictable guy at the extreme edge of the country music perspective. I want to embody the trunk where the rest of country music branches from, including the pop and mainstream elements. But the perspective has shifted so, pop is the trunk, and we are the outer branches. Some are saying country music is entering a new era, more oriented to pop, and destined to see similar acts to Taylor Swift come on the scene. Yes, they’re saying country music will become even more pop than it already is.
Forget the arguments if Taylor Swift is country or not. Forget all the talk about her songwriting being immature. Forget that her management deals in unscrupulous ticketing practices. I watched the CMA’s cover to cover, and it began with a Taylor Swift performance where she just outright did not sing in tune. She won Female Vocalist of the Year, and she can’t even sing. And don’t take my biased opinion on that, read it HERE.“. . .off-tune, a consistent characteristic of Swift’s live outings . . . Struggling for her notes but not showing any concern about it.”
And for all this talk of Taylor Swift being a good role model and her songs being wholesome: “Swift made a flurry of arena-rock moves, shaking her long, gold tresses as if she were Robert Plant and sliding down a shiny pole in what seemed like a defiant nod toward her friend Miley Cyrus, who took guff for similar gyrations on this year’s Teen Choice Awards.”. I saw with my own two eyes as she squatted spread legged in a skirt and humped the stage.
What a slap in the face to performers like Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert that the Female Vocalist of the Year can’t even hold a tune. Say what you want about many female pop country singers, there are some strong voices there. Let this sink in for a second. The girl we just gave to crown of country music to can’t even hold pitch.
In 1975 there was a backlash in country music when John Denver won Best Male Vocalist. I would kill to hear “Country Roads” coming out of my radio right now.
And part of me feels bad for Taylor Swift. I have been careful not to ever criticize her as a person. It is not her fault that this false crown has been hoisted upon her by the spoon fed American consumer, she just has to deal with the repercussions. She said that winning Entertainer of the Year was all that she ever wanted. Well when you achieve that at nineteen, there is a good possibility the rest of life is filled with letdown, and holes can open up in your life; holes that you can fall into, or that need to be fed.
Maybe in the end this will be the beginning of the end for pop country as I surmised earlier. But right now I have a very uneasy feeling. The game has changed, and I don’t like it. I want to go back to just enjoying the music. Part of me feels that all hope is lost and I should just hang up the spurs, but another part of me wants to redouble my efforts to offer support to the true country artists still left.
Regardless, the simple fact is country music is dead, in the estimation of me and many others. The circle is broken. It’s done, period. There is no more saving country music, there is only the glimmer of possibility of resurrecting it someday, by gathering up the pieces of the circle that still live in the hearts of the true country fan and reuniting them into the grace and soul that is REAL country music.
I will continue to do the work to reunite the circle, because apparently nobody else will. But right now what is called for is brutal honesty.
Leave an epitaph below if you wish.
November 13, 2009 @ 11:59 pm
Don’t say that. Country in Nashville may be dead,but it’s alive and well in Tx. Minn.and other parts of the world(Europe mostly).As long as we keep supporting our local and out of town underground bands we can keep it alive. It’s our duty as music lovers to see this through and make sure these other bands are heard.
November 15, 2009 @ 7:45 am
Taylor has “swift-throated” country music.
November 16, 2009 @ 11:29 am
Country is dead, but hey rock and roll is dead too. Just listen to what is played on rock radio stations these days. Like you say, just enjoy the music. There’s no point in getting pissed about what’s getting radio play or who’s winning awards when you know the whole thing is a joke anyway.. The whole thing is rigged, so who cares?
You mentioned the trunk of the tree, well think of it this way, it’s easy to be in the middle. Enjoy the music, embrace the underground and support the true country musicians that are still out there. Sorry for the long comment! ROCK
November 16, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
perhaps you should just say “fuck it” and walk away from country altogether….start a movement and call it anti-country….sort of like the folk/antifolk thing.
November 17, 2009 @ 5:22 am
It’s only a matter of time before the revolution begins. I started playing in an outlaw band a while back, i’ve been lucky enough to do shows with Lonesome Wyatt, Rachel Brooke, Joe Buck and the Calamity Cubes. We Have the performers, many people are fed up with pop country, but they think that’s all there is. Corprate radio is killing us. How many independent stations are left? We have a few pod casters.
We need to spread the word. Spread the music, and support the artists, buy CD’s.
November 17, 2009 @ 9:38 am
Taylor Swift is the anti-christ
November 17, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
yeah, i agree….. look at this crap it only confirms it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm5j1_ghoP0
November 17, 2009 @ 11:03 pm
To be fair, Miley and Taylor (probably) aren’t friends any more, and the pole thing was a nod to Joe Jonas, not Miley. LMAO, I know too much about this shit. I hate that I know this; it’s embarrassing. >.> That writer at the L.A. Times obviously has more of a life than I do. I’m envious.
The thing that frustrates me most about her, besides the abhorrent way she treats men, is that she didn’t really earn any of this. How much did her father pay to Borchetta to get her a record deal? A million dollars, wasn’t it? Well, he definitely got his investment back and then some. It ended up being a smart move on his part. I guess it just shows you should believe in your children’s dreams, even if they dream of being a tone deaf singer.
Anyway, if it’s over, it’s over. There’s nothing I can do about it expect whine on Twitter and buy the albums of good country artists, and I already do that. I just hope it will work itself out eventually.
December 7, 2009 @ 12:06 am
Why don’t they just seperate singers like Taylor Swift and play her music on pop not county because she isn’t a country singer plus many others.If it’s country play it on a country station, if its not play it on a pop station. Go to Amazon and buy the true country from the past!! thats what I’m doing.
Saving Country Music » Blog Archive » I Told You Taylor Swift Can’t Sing
February 1, 2010 @ 10:28 am
[…] –Triggerman out. From This Taylor Swift Shit – Country Music Is Dead Nov. 13th 2009: […]
February 7, 2010 @ 6:27 am
I don’t think country music is dead but I do feel that there has been a brainwash as far as Taylor Swift is concerned – I just don’t get it! I mean – if she is so deserving of grammy accolades – why can’t she hold a note and write a classic song that will stand the test of time? I cannot even remember her songs after hearing them because the whole package is so unremarkable – her market is pop for the under 18’s girls I feel. Save the big accolades for artists with true gravitas like Brad Paisley, Sugarland, Carrie Underwood etc. I wanna see a new artist have the impact that Carole King did with “Tapestry”. Now that would be something!
Saving Country Music » Blog Archive » Your Opinion: Anti-Country
March 30, 2010 @ 11:36 am
[…] idea really took hold for me when Taylor Swift won the CMA for Entertainer of the Year, and I proclaimed country music was dead. Autopsy IV from ninebullets.net left a comment: “perhaps you should just say “fuck it” […]
Saving Country Music » Blog Archive » Signs Country Has Lost Its Way
April 16, 2010 @ 10:18 am
[…] back when Taylor Swift won the CMA for Entertainer of the Year? We thought it couldn’t get worse for country music. There was a lot of surmising of where […]
November 25, 2010 @ 12:21 am
I am so glad I randomly found this website while I was googling Alan Jackson. I pretty much cried when I read this article. I’m so glad me and my family are not the only ones who feel this way about today’s “Country” music! I’m 19 and I LOVE TRADITIONAL COUNTRY. Taylor Swift and Keith Urban give me the shits! I could handle some rock in my country, but NOT POP. And yes, I agree, Taylor can’t sing at all! I don’t understand how people don’t hear it, I don’t see how they still like her, I just don’t get it! I enjoy reading your blogs, and will do so in the future. I just wonder what we Traditional Country Lovers are going to do about it, I guess there isn’t much- which is down right shame. Long live George Strait, Alan Jackson, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and many more! Listen to Jone’s “Who’s gonna fill their shoes?” song, I cry every time I hear it!
August 15, 2011 @ 4:10 pm
I’ve never thought she could sing worth a damn either, but she actually sounded pretty good on the CMA Music Festival last night, so I’m assuming that her performance must have been auto-tuned or lipsynced.
June 22, 2012 @ 10:19 am
This sounds like what the Nashville big-bugs said when Waylon Jennings started playing. Not saying the two are especially comparable but hey, something good is bound to come out of this eventually, you know? Country music is a constantly evolving and wonderful genre.
May 31, 2013 @ 2:12 pm
Your uneasy feeling was very prescient. I think country music will live on but Nashville is dead. The market base is too dumb and the corporate hooks too deep. In the end, I think this may be good though, since it will return the music back to the people and, considering its roots, it should be a grassroots operation anyway. In other words, you can’t make the masses care about something they do not care about so the people who do care ought to have the opportunity to carry the torch for a generation or two. Replant the roots and carry on.
December 22, 2023 @ 6:12 pm
So here we are at the end of 2023. Nearly 15 years later and Taylor Swift has dominated the music world with her Eras tour.
It appears to me country music is fine and Taylor has obviously navigated an industry that typically will tear down most who attempt to be a musician.
Would be interesting to get an update from folks on this subject so many years later!!!