Why Backing Tracks Are Frowned Upon in Country Music
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Country music is unlike most other popular music genres, and for a host of reasons. One of the things that makes country music unique, especially in the modern context is there is a natural resistance to using technology as a crutch, especially in live performance. This is due in part to the rootsy nature of the music. At the beginning, even drums and electric instruments were considered verboten in the genre. Country music is humans impressing fingers on wood and wire, and singing from the gut and soul in the beautiful imperfection of authentic expression.
Now granted, if you’ve turned on your local mainstream country radio station any time over the last 15 years or so, you’ve probably heard plenty of electronically-derived beats, Auto-tuned vocals, or other technological enhancements. But generally speaking, country music is the last bastion where it’s actual musicians playing actual music as opposed to some guy up on stage behind a console, or composing a song or album solely on their laptop.
Most people know what Auto-Tune is, meaning either software or hardware that corrects the pitch of a singer to make it sound perfect, even though it takes a sensitive ear to actually hear it being employed in music. Lip syncing is a commonly-known term too, and similarly, it might take a trained eye to see when a singer is not actually performing live.
But not as many people probably know what backing tracks are, in part because unless you’re a musician yourself, it can hard to spy their use. Long story short, backing tracks are pre-recorded music broadcast through the speakers at a live performance to mimic live players on stage, but the players aren’t actually there. Or sometimes, the players are there. But in the case of awards shows or televised performances, producers insist on perfection, and so they want players to mime to the music as opposed to perform it live.
Sometimes backing tracks are derived from the studio recordings of the song, meaning the tracks you hear when you listen on the radio or a streaming service. Sometimes they’re pre-recorded before a performance so they’re somewhat unique to the live context. But either way, just like Auto-tune and lip-syncing, backing tracks are generally discouraged in country music, because they can come across as deceptive to the audience, among a host of other dubious and concerning downstream effects.
Over the history of country music, there have been moments when the use of backing tracks has been strongly resisted by performers. When JJ Cale’s song “Crazy Mama” became his first Top 40 hit in 1971, he was invited on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand TV show to perform the song. When Cale and his band arrived at the studio and started unloading their amplifiers, the producers told them there was no need. They would just act like they were playing to the recorded single. JJ Cale refused, and despite Dick Clark’s pleadings, left the studio. The moment was chronicled in a really cool animated video produced by The New York Times shortly after Cale’s death in 2013.
In 1993, Garth Brooks played three consecutive shows at Texas Stadium for a big NBC television special. These were the shows where Garth Brooks notoriously flew over the stadium crowd on wires in one of the most polarizing moments in country history. Though the Friday and Saturday shows were ticketed and fans were charged an admission fee, the Sunday show was free.
Why would the notoriously money-driven Garth Brooks play a stadium show for free? Because during the third show, Garth was scheduled to mime to backing tracks as opposed to performing live. That way they could take footage from the 3rd night to make the NBC special look perfect. Not wanting to deceive his fans, Garth was up front with the audience, and played free of charge.
Perhaps the most notorious moment of a country artist protesting backing tracks was at the 1994 ACM Awards. Held in Los Angeles, Alan Jackson walked away that night with the Top Male Vocalist award, and co-hosted the event with Reba McEntire. But when it came to performing what would be his upcoming #1 single and one of the signature songs of the era called “Gone Country,” Alan Jackson couldn’t sit right with the charade the ACMs wanted to pull on their audience.
Before the show, producers told Alan that he had to play to a pre-recorded rhythm section track, which Jackson clearly felt was tantamount to lying to both his fans and the audience. So instead of playing along, Jackson tipped off the audience to the subterfuge by telling his drummer Bruce Rutherford to play without sticks. So as the performance transpires and everything sounds perfect, there is Alan Jackson’s drummer, swinging his arms like he’s playing the drums, but with no sticks in his hand. Trust the ACM’s never asked Alan Jackson to play to a backing track again.
But how do many country music performers feel about Auto-tune, backing tracks, and machine beats in country music in the present day? Well during the height of Bro-Country from about 2012 until about 2018, these things became way more permissive in the country mainstream. Since many of the beats in country songs were derived from drum machines to begin with, you also had to use them as backing tracks in concert.
But over the last few years, especially as the Bro-Country era has slowly faded away and a more traditional country resurgence has come to the forefront, backing tracks have been more and more discouraged and less prevalent once again. Even Morgan Wallen said in a recent interview with Theo Vonn that his last album had plenty of trap beats, but for his new album he said, “This time I was like let’s just tone that back. If I’m tired of it, they’re probably tired of hearing it.”
Meanwhile, in the independent side of country and Americana music with artists like Cody Jinks, Zach Bryan, Sierra Ferrell, The Turnpike Troubadours, and Tyler Childers, using trap beats and backing tracks is so extremely rare and deterred, it’s basically non-existent, and shocking whenever you attend a festival catering to non-radio country stars and see someone using them.
That is exactly what has happened with one particular artist named Ian Munsick, who touts himself as a Western music revivalist. Ian Munsick seems like a great dude. He also has as many skins on the wall to be able to proclaim himself a true Western artist. He grew up on ranches in Wyoming, and since the age of 10 he was singing in a Western band with his two older brothers and father.
Ian Munsick’s brothers Sam Munsick and Tris Munsick are both excellent Western traditional country artists with incredibly underrated, and under-the-radar music. But Ian moved away from the West to attend Belmont University in Nashville, graduating with a Songwriting and Music Business degree, and eventually got signed to Warner Bros. Records. Wherever Ian Munsick’s heart and perspective started, it now has been at least somewhat institutionalized in the Music Row perspective, including the use of backing tracks.
The first time Saving Country Music witnessed Ian Munsick perform live was at Mile 0 Fest in Key West, Florida in early 2023. This is when it became obvious something was very off, and he’d been worked over in Music Row’s image. As was said at that time,
“It took a matter of minutes to recognize Munsick had no bass player, or backing vocalists, or other instruments that you heard but didn’t see on stage. Playing to backing tracks does not go over well in Texas/Red Dirt music, and Munsick should have known that. Perhaps in the mainstream the practice is fine, or even par for the course. But this ain’t the mainstream, and with the way Munsick plays up his Wyoming cowboy roots, it all ultimately came across as disingenuous and out of place, even if some of the lyricism touched on Western themes.”
This is nothing personal against Ian Munsick, and this isn’t one of those “authenticity” arguments about him trying to be something that he isn’t, per se. But the fact that Ian Munsick is regularly booked at independent country festivals where fans and fellow performers are usually shocked to see backing tracks used, it felt like somebody needed to say something. And so on April 22nd, Saving Country Music did, inspired in part by a Rolling Stone profile that said about Ian Munsick, “His music is so tethered to the culture and lifestyle of his rural Wyoming upbringing that it’s likely Munsick the artist wouldn’t exist without it.”
For the record, Ian Munsick’s recorded music also uses electronic beats, Auto-tune, pop-oriented sounds and arrangements, songwriting-by-committee, and other things emblematic of the Music Row environment where his music emanates from. Do some, if not many of his songs speak about the West? Sure they do, but even some of this is in a caricaturist notion of Western themes, almost like Western hype music as opposed to the type of storytelling and thematic character study most true Western music employs.
Why does it matter if people are portraying Ian Munsick’s music as being “so tethered to the culture and lifestyle of his rural Wyoming upbringing“? First off, because it isn’t. An second, because you actually do have true Western artists like Colter Wall, Wylie & The Wild West, Noeline Hoffmann, and Ian’s own brothers Sam and Tris who risk being overlooked when a Music Row machination like Ian Munsick is presented to the public in an attempt to recapture some of the Western attention at the moment due to things like the Yellowstone TV series, and bring it back under the control of the mainstream.
For Ian Munsick’s part, he took Saving Country Music’s criticism generally in stride. Along with admitting to his use of backing tracks, Munsick said in a statement,
If spreading western music to a new audience isn’t “saving country music” then I don’t know what is. I produce my records, play on my own records and engineer my own records. That’s why it doesn’t fit in anywhere yet fits in everywhere. It’s me. Not someone else telling me who to be.
Let’s talk backing tracks during live shows. There is a right way and wrong way. I record my own backing tracks, play multiple instruments live on stage, and have a BAD ASS band behind me every single night. I’m an entertainer… I can’t just sit there and strum.
Finally, I would strongly recommend getting some fresh air. Doesn’t have to be in the mountains of Wyoming, just go touch some grass. Happy Earth Day
Though Ian Munsick is patently wrong when it comes to the use of backing tracks, especially when you’re looking to portray yourself as someone “spreading Western music to a new audience,” you have to appreciate Ian Munsick’s honesty, and his willingness to stand up for himself.
Is the fact that he records his own backing tracks—meaning he isn’t using someone else’s pre-recorded music to play to in concert—make Munsick’s use of backing tracks more forgivable? Perhaps to some very slight degree. But it in no way absolves the overall and underlying concern about the practice.
Aside from the deceptive nature of backing tracks, what are the other drawbacks to using them? If singers are performing to pre-recorded music, that means the music can’t breathe because the length and beat of the songs has been pre-determined before the performance even starts.
The musicians playing live must stay in sync with the recorded music, so they can’t decide to play the song a little bit faster or slower than normal. The guitarist can’t take an extra solo if he’s feeling it. There is less opportunity for improvisation and spontaneity, which is one of the greatest assets of live music. Folks can’t always shout out requests from the audience and have them fulfilled. Most everything is already scripted out.
Most importantly though, being permissive of the use of backing tracks is an existential threat to many professional musicians, especially bass players, drummers, backup singers, rhythm guitar players, and even lead instrumentalists. It makes it okay to replace these humans vital to the music with technology. To replace them with backing tracks is to misunderstand the magic of live music, and why millions of people go to country music concerts every year.
Think of some of the world-class side players in country music, and what they have meant over the years. Think of Joanna Cotten, who along with being a solo artist, was a backup singer for years behind Eric Church, and brought that extra soul and energy to live performances. Think of the drummer for The Red Clay Strays, John Hall, and how animated he is on stage, and how he composes the heartbeat of that band. Think of bass player Omar Oyoque of Silverada, who when brought on board, turned what was a local Austin honky tonk band into what many consider one of the best live bands in all of country music.
In the aftermath, you also had some Ian Munsick fans saying that nearly all live performers use backing tracks these days, and it’s not a big deal. But luckily, we actually have an example and a control study of how artists and the general public felt about backing tracks before the whole Ian Munsick imbroglio was ignited.
In December of 2024, so just a few months prior, viral country star Oliver Anthony had gone on a viral rant about his experiences in the country music business. Many of the things he said in the rant were actually spot on, though others highlighted his naiveté about the music business, and were things he probably should know better about.
But the biggest takeaway from the rant, and what stirred the most controversy is when Anthony basically accused every single performer in the country music industry of using backing tracks.
Oliver Anthony said, “People don’t realize that a band can make $450,000 for standing on stage for an hour, and you’re only listening to half the band because a lot of these mainstream acts, especially in country … like these country music festivals, everybody runs backing tracks. Like I’ll never forget, I won’t say who the act is. But it was at South Carolina at the Myrtle Beach one, the band who played after us, that dude had six Auto-tune modulators on a pedal board on stage just to help him with vocals pitch live. And they had backing tracks thrown in, drum loops running … they all do it.”
Now you might think that with the way backing tracks, Auto-tune, and drum loops are so polarizing among country music purists, traditionalists, and independent fans, folks aligned on that side of country would be pumping their fists at Oliver Anthony’s rebuke of performers using technology to fool their audiences. But this isn’t what happened at all. Since Oliver Anthony concluded his quote with “They all do it,” he basically implicated all of country music’s performers, including the non-radio artists who would never use Auto-tune, drum loops, and backing tracks.
Many country artists and their fans took it very personal that Oliver Anthony painted with such a broad brush during his rant, especially since his accusations were so off the mark. Taking Oliver Anthony’s quotes, fans also started deducing that he might be specifically talking about Parker McCollum, who performed after Anthony at the Carolina Country Music Fest in 2024.
Parker McCollum subsequently responded in a video, “100% fabricated lie. I have never ever one time used Autotune, or a drum loop, or anything fake of any kind on stage. Me and my guys are rippin’ it the real deal ever single night. There has never been one single part of our show, not one note that was not live, raw, and in the moment. 100% fabricated story.”
For the record, Oliver Anthony never named Parker McCollum. He could have meant a different performer, and it could have even been a different festival. But Parker McCollum had no choice but to respond, because the accusations could be so undermining of his credibility as a country artist. And Parker wasn’t the only one who had choice words for Oliver Anthony. Paul Cauthen also chimed in, saying,
“Oliver Anthony, shut your mouth … All you are is ruining relationships, and hurting people that actually work in our industry. Now I know you don’t get it because you’re used to being out in the mud in the holler. But here in Texas, we have songwriters and a lot of people that’ve been working in this business before you were playing your little Tik-Tok songs.
“I love that you think you’re holier than thou, but you’re really hurting people out there. So I want people to understand when you think this Oliver Anthony guy is just the best and hung the moon, he’s actually screwing people over. So keep your ass and your mouth shut!”
The aftermath of Oliver Anthony’s rant really underscores how large swaths of country performers feel about the use of backing tracks. As Saving Country Music said at that time of the Oliver Anthony rant in December 2024, referencing Ian Munsick specifically,
“When you go to an actual country music festival, or an independent music festival, you never see Autotune or backing tracks being used. And when you do, it sticks out so starkly, it’s shocking. This is some of the polarization surrounding Ian Munsick, who is the only artist you will ever see at an independent festival playing to backing tracks. So when Oliver Anthony says this practice is all over country festivals, he’s sharing an uninformed opinion.”
Rolling Stone‘s opinion was also uninformed when they touted the Western bona-fides of Ian Munsick’s music. To many, being a Western artist is embodying a raw, natural, live, and decidedly organic approach to music that backing tracks are considered the absolute antithesis of.
It’s unfortunate that despite the criticism, Ian Munsick has decided to double down on his use of backing tracks. This can and will continue to limit the audience of his music, and open him up to continued criticism. And this isn’t just one person’s opinion. This is the prevailing sentiment throughout the musicians and fandom that Ian Munsick is trying to appeal to.
Could Ian Munsick’s effort to work in some more contemporary sounds and styles broaden the appeal of Western music to a more mainstream audience? Sure it could. But adding a bass player and other live musicians to his live show will only enhance that experience, and as a popular artist, he clearly has the financial capability to do so.
Because this is country music. And as most all audio entertainment goes digital, automated, if not outright AI-generated, country music specifically and Western music especially can and should be the one place where it’s still real live humans expressing themselves through the medium of music, sweating and crying out human emotion devoid of electronic filters right there for you on stage. Like Parker McCollum says, “live, raw, and in the moment.”
That is country music.
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May 8, 2025 @ 7:40 am
A quick programming note: I will be covering the ACM Awards tonight, but there might or might not be a LIVE blog associated with it. Since the ACMs are streaming now, there’s just not as much interest in them compared to the CMAs, so I will be playing it by ear. Live blog or not, I will be offering some coverage during and/or after the awards.
May 8, 2025 @ 3:44 pm
UPDATE: There WILL be a LIVE Blog, 7:00 PM Central!
May 8, 2025 @ 3:48 pm
Cool beans
May 8, 2025 @ 8:30 am
I have a much less harsh view on backing tracks than I do of pitch-corrected vocals (especially live pitch corrected vocals). Country music has already been centered on the song and songwriting as much as the singer. I sometimes will read the comments on an obviously live unedited vocal and people will say it sucks when it objectively doesn’t, live vocals aren’t always perfect and are subject to all kinds of environmental factors – but people have stopped understanding what a live vocal should sound like vs the perfect sound of a studio recording along with the multitracking of additional vocal parts and editing to make the track sound “full”.
May 8, 2025 @ 9:00 am
The incredibly heavy handed overproduction brought to bear on mainstream major label vocal signals for recorded projects is creating an unrealistic expectation in the minds of live audiences, almost necessitating that same suite of filters must be used live as well. This is creating an arms race where the contours of human emotion usually carried on a specific vocal performance live are getting drowned out. Perfection is not what audiences crave. They crave emotion.
May 8, 2025 @ 8:31 am
Great article. Esp loved the jj cale story n video. The munsick thing obviously brings to mind the one man band thing in a more humorless type of way. Im one of those who doesnt have the ability to really notice stuff like this generally but i appreciate you calling it out. I guess its a way of saving money, not having to pay someone to play those instruments live but i still think its a bad look esp if you are trying to support western themed music as opposed to bro country where nobody would prob care since it has mostly pop leanings. On a side note, finally got to see charley crockett last night in a concert. Awesome show. Charley got even better the longer he played. After the fake close, he came out and did a couple more songs including a waylon jennings song, good hearted woman which included the guy that that opened for him as a stand in for willie. Sorry i cant think of the guys name since i had to look him up. It was kind of a funny thing. They didnt have charley listed as having an opener which is kind of a rotten thing since this article is touching upon things you shouldnt do and i think openers should get their due in the billing. But the humor was in the fact that my girlfriend, who only knows singers on the radio, thought the opener was charley crockett. I had to laugh.
May 8, 2025 @ 9:04 am
If a songwriter is touring as a one man band and wants to use a guitar looper to add a little texture to a song or two, or an electronic foot stop to put some rhythm behind them, these things are completely understandable, though can still come across as gimmicky.
Ian Munsick is getting top billing at festivals and playing large clubs. He has plenty of financial resources to pay a bass player, if not other side players to flesh out his sound and avoid backing tracks. If you’re Florida Georgia Line, most of the music is fake anyway, so who cares? Ian Munsick is self-proclaiming that he wants to bring Western music to the masses. Okay, then get a bass player.
May 8, 2025 @ 8:48 am
Regarding the statement “they can’t decide to play the song a little bit faster or slower than normal”- if you’ve gigged around a lot and been around the music scene, you know that many bands (even bands you wouldn’t expect) play to a click track live. The bpm click is preset for each song so every show will be the exact same as the previous show. Curious on your opinions about click tracks vs. backing tracks in relation to improvisation and “room to breath” during a live show.
May 8, 2025 @ 9:20 am
Once again, I think there is a massive gulf between the independent and the mainstream when it comes to the use of click tracks live. Most independent bands are not going to use click tracks live. Most mainstream bands are. The problem is that with the way non-radio country is on the dramatic rise, you have major labels signing what we would conventionally consider independent artists, and then imposing their idea that everything needs to be perfect in the live context upon them in a way that could impinge on their ability to make organic connections with independent audiences.
To me, this is exactly what is at the heart of the Ian Munsick experience. If you graduate from Bellmont University in the same neighborhood as Music Row and sign to a major label, of course you’re going to think backing tracks are okay. But you take that mess to the field at a festival that Tyler Childers is headlining, and it’s going to stick out like a sore thumb.
I recently saw Willon Avalon perform at a festival. At one point, she told the monitor man to turn the click track up. To me, this is emblematic of her music. Though some take it as being staunch traditional country, you can hear the Music Row insistence on perfection beneath the surface. I think this latest generation of performers are all getting trained to believe audiences want stuff to sound perfect, and they run the risk of not making those human connections with their audience. Willow Avalon is a young artist, so perhaps she needs the click track to stay in time, and that’s fine. But she should work to get off that.
I say these things as constrictive criticism. Zach Bryan just signed a deal for $350 million, and he can barely keep his guitar in tune. The lesson from Zach Bryan is that fans don’t want perfection. They want real, and raw. They will forgive a flub more than feeling like they’re being deceived.
May 8, 2025 @ 10:26 am
I don’t think a click track should be considered as in the same category as a backing track. Many pro drummers use click tracks and it’s the drummer that is often the most important instrument (even more so than guitar and bass) because if the drums aren’t right the entire song is screwed up. Bass and guitar and compensate for the other’s lacking but the wrong approach on drums will trainwreck the song.
May 8, 2025 @ 10:36 am
I don’t consider a click track the same as a backing track at all, and hope I didn’t imply that. There’s nothing necessarily deceptive about it. It’s a tool. But you are definitely seeing an increased use of in ear monitors and click tracks live, and I think it should be approached in the same way it’s approached in the studio, which is only used when it presents itself as necessary. I think a lot of the up-and-coming acts in Nashville are getting drilled that performing to click tracks is compulsory, and I think each artist and band should decide if it’s the best for them.
May 8, 2025 @ 10:47 am
I wasn’t sure if you meant it that way or not. I wonder if in Willow Avalon’s case that click was meant for the drummer and band more so than herself. I don’t know. I still maintain that Zach Bryan would benefit from improving his timing issues because you can hear in his live recordings, especially that Red Rocks release where the drummer just drops out at many points because he doesn’t know where Zach is going with his rhythm. Amatuer musicians who play solo acoustic frequently have the problem of changing chords on an upbeat and not coming back to the 1 beat on time. Everying Zach does doesn’t hurt his appeal with his current fan base but I can’t help taking most of his music as non-serious because it still sounds very open mic’ish. Again that is a proposed change if he wants outside respect. Backing tracks and other studio crap would hurt his established sound sure but it’s not artistic integrity to be sloppy for no other reason than lacking the ability to not be sloppy.
May 8, 2025 @ 11:54 am
Strait, I think part of an artist’s appeal is when they are pushing their own talent envelope. Watching that live is like watching a high wire act. As the music gets more complex, there’s a better chance they’ll mess up, and then when they nail it, it’s very satisfying to the musician and the fans. Imaging if Billy Strings or Eddie Van Halen just played cowboy chords – sure, they’d be perfect, but boring. Even at his relatively low talent level (not a knock, just relative to this discussion) Zach Bryan is at least pushing himself. Hopefully over time he’ll improve. Or it could be that being “low-talent” is part of his brand and it will persist. Seeing a guy like that gives us cowboy chord strummers hope! 🙂
May 8, 2025 @ 12:39 pm
I get your point but as someone on the outside of the ZB fanbase what Eddie Van Halen and Billy Strings are doing is circus-level proficiency and by comparison Zach Bryan is the slow kid trying not to trip and hit his head in a trampoline park.
There is an excitement seeing a band on the edge of holding it together and the anticipation and suspense of if they can “stick the landing” however it’s one thing to admire a master of their instrument and an innovator vs someone who is a rank amatuer who essentially won the lottery. Complete mediocrity becoming wildy successfull shouldnt be aspirational – that’s the mindset that internet social media influencer crap created.
Eddie Van Halen is probably the world’s greatest rhythm guitar player. My gosh listen to 5150 or anything live from EVH from the 90’s back it’s incredible. That’s different from ZB not fully understanding 1 2 3 4 and repeat.
May 8, 2025 @ 12:46 pm
I guess to respond more directly to your point, ZB winning the lottery and getting to skip being in the trenches and spending a decade or two learning how to play he immediately became wildy successful. None of that entitles him to respect from his peers and people who understand music to a higher level.
May 8, 2025 @ 3:26 pm
Love this comment.
May 8, 2025 @ 10:22 am
Man I’d never seen or heard about the air drumming. That’s brilliant and hilarious. Thanks for sharing that.
I know this isn’t the focus of this story but, but Rolling Stone is in a way itself a backing track. Shallow, rigid, fake, formulaic at this point….might as well be automated since it’s so predictable and NPCish. Really crazy how a once respected institution became such hot garbage and eye roll inducing. Or has it always been that way and it’s me that changed?
May 8, 2025 @ 11:08 am
If I go to a show, I would much prefer to see a real band playing music than backing tracks. Ed Sheeran (not country) is one that uses technology and performs much of his show ‘solo’. i found his show ‘clever’ but a bit boring. Having said that I might just prefer backing tracks if with a live band, the balance or mix is such you can’t hear the singer or the songs or it it is way too loud and the singer is struggling to be heard (eg….Sturgill Simpson, Miranda Lambert and others). Some artists/venues do need to pay attention to the mix. For me, a live band any day!
May 8, 2025 @ 6:54 pm
The one case where I think the use of backing tracks is OK is when your music features a full orchestra and you’re on tour. It’s a logistical nightmare to take an entire orchestra on tour with you, so I can see using a backing track in that case.
May 8, 2025 @ 7:04 pm
One of my favorite metal bands, Epica, does this. However, the backing track is only the orchestral parts. The rest of the band members actually play their parts.
May 8, 2025 @ 9:42 pm
A Saturday night in some tiny shack (Ernie’s Icehouse) where the room is packed with 30 folks getting drunk; the singer may as well support himself with backing tracks along with his guit. If he can sing, it sounds good.
A Saturday night at a packed Carnegie Hall; nope.
May 8, 2025 @ 9:47 pm
Admittedly a real sidebar question but wondering if you could recommend a book about the rise and fall of what we now call the “Countrypoltan” sound of the 70’s? There were real human beings behind those strings, horns and glossy production choices, but even as a kid, I remember critics complaining artists pursuing that sound weren’t “real” country.
May 9, 2025 @ 12:46 am
Frankly, the debate about “real country” will always be among us.
The Bakersfield boys in the 60’s? Not country, according to those steeped in early Ernest Tubb and Red Foley in the 40’s.
Jim Reeves? Absolutely not country after he became a crooner. Same with Patsy Cline.
Gram Parsons, whose first solo album sounded more country than almost anyone back in the early 70’s? He had long hair and couldn’t sing like Ray Price, so he’s a rock artist.
Olivia Newton-John? Obviously one of the best, according to the awards she got.
Robert Adam? A bright new hope for country music, according to the various magazines we shouldn’t waste time reading.
So that’s how it goes. We all prefer “our” period. I fell off during the mid-90’s. If I ever felt tempted to buy, say, a Shania Twain CD, it was because of the cover, not the music. So I went digging in the past. Floyd Tillman over Joe Diffie, anyday.
Never looked back.
May 8, 2025 @ 10:41 pm
Everyone knows what backing tracks are. Milli Vanilli.
May 9, 2025 @ 6:37 am
Maybe I’m in the minority but I don’t see any issue with using some instrumental backing tracks when performing live. I once read an interview with The Killers sound engineer and he was explaining the use of stems when performing live – The Killers sometimes use extra synth tracks, strings, or other instruments they can’t tour with. Never tracks for vocals or instruments they are playing live.
Watching old country award shows from the 80s and 90s they are all almost exclusively performing to a prerecorded instrumental track. I assume because of the difficulties of live sound mixing for TV. In my opinion if you’re up front that some of the instrumental is prerecorded then who cares. Now pitch correcting live vocals is another thing altogether…
May 9, 2025 @ 7:34 am
If you have a full band, and you have an instrument or two that you want to feature live in certain songs but don’t want to carry them on the road, there are moments when a backing track can make sense. But if you don’t have a bass player or side player at all and just swap them for a backing track, it’s lazy. Also, The Killers aren’t country. I do think the practice is more permissive in other genres.
And yes, a lot of those 80s TV shows have backing tracks, and in my opinion, it’s incredibly tacky.
May 9, 2025 @ 7:22 am
Somedays a ball player has a good game, some ball players have many more good games than others (All-stars), some even more (HOFers) but all ball players have a bad game sometimes. Same with musicians. The masters at a craft bring it almost every time – but not everyone is a master. (I think of all the bad GD bootlegs I heard but other nights…magic). As an audience, we’re getting trained that perfection is the standard, i.e. non-masters held to masters’ performance. And this drive to perfection is the enemy of music magic which happens live only. It also waters down the greatness of the masters. (As for click tracks, I brought a metronome to practice but never a recital – then again, I stunk either way. Click tracks says, “not a master”.)
Why all the demand for audio perfection? It is out own fault. We consume more recorded music than live nowadays. And, how bad does a band get hammered after one gets ass raped by Ticketmaster first and then the band has that bad ball game? Everything these days is recorded, replayed and broadcast exaggerating the point. Most performers are very self-conscious too, maybe some self-absorbed. Imagine the perceived headwinds to their own success by clicks from the pissed off after a stinker. Performers succumb to the pressure that they cannot withstand.
For me, I’ll take that live without a net band who is hitting .280 and 15 dingers naturally, has moments of brillance and admire the crap out of them. I have nothing for false perfection. I can live with occasional stinkers. Give me the masters or give me the magic – either one.
May 9, 2025 @ 10:35 am
The general topic of the article brings to mind another recent online debate about wrong/right in the music industry. Not sure if people here are familiar with the Giacomo Turra “fake guitarist” scandal, but the long story short is that the individual was passing off other youtube artists music as his own, not crediting them, and making a profit. He was recently exposed and went down, with no shortage of “think pieces” about it.
One that comes to mind is Adam Neely’s take. He make a point about “the ethics of the genre/community,” and how that affects the perception of the transgression. I’ve linked the relevant section below, and i encourage folks to check out the entire video, but he basically says; outside of the Online Instrumental Rock Community, most don’t care that Giacomo Turra is faking it.
Following his thesis it makes sense that, much like many in the mainstream don’t care that Ian Munsick is faking it, us in the Independent Country Music Community very much do care. In fact it seems downright insulting.
https://youtu.be/R1QEV9euGAg?si=fDMxRvUo4iKXCM7J&t=1768
May 9, 2025 @ 11:28 am
Yes, scene, perspective, and the values of these communities is very much at play in this topic. As I said, show up with no bass player at CMA Fest, nobody bats an eyelash. Show up to Mile 0 Fest, Two Step Inn, or Red West playing right before Colter Wall and you’re going to elicit strong negative reactions from people. The whole point of my criticism was an attempt to confer this to Ian Munsick in and effort to be constructive. He comes from the Music Row perspective that is permissive to backing tracks. Western music is even more militant about authenticity than independent country or Texas/Red Dirt.
EDM, hip-hop, and elements of pop music were built off of borrowing elements from other genres or performances, and that’s fine. But country music is organic. This is the difference.
May 9, 2025 @ 11:40 am
I saw someone mention above that the lack of perfection in live performances is something that “we” can live with and it confers to us authenticity (one of our genre/community values).
In the discussion of Giacomo Turra commenters have shed light on the opposite affect. Performances that are not perfect as seen as inferior, thus there is pressure from the genre/community to achieve a basically impossible standard.
The first half of the Neely video linked about has an interesting backstory on the “levels” of faking in the Online Instrumental Rock Community
May 9, 2025 @ 12:06 pm
All I have to say is that I am incredibly envious that the rock community can engage in such deep, intellectually stimulating discussions, while whenever I try to do the same, it’s generally ignored, or it turns into some weird conflict where it’s like how dare I name the Rolling Stone writer who said Ian Munsick embodies Western notions in his music.
This is also one of the reasons I think that genre and understanding genre is so important. Navigating these waters can be dicey, so you really have to understand the customs of where you’re going.
May 9, 2025 @ 12:56 pm
Personally, as a “semi-pro” musician (meaning I have played gigs for money in the past, but it was never my main job), I would NEVER use anything like auto-tune, backing tracks, etc. Any time I played music anywhere I always had a live band, playing and singing live. I also would never knowingly attend any music show where the “mimes” on stage were just playing with backing tracks, auto-tune, etc. Click-tracks? Um, isn’t that why bands have a drummer, to keep the band all on the same beat? If you can’t sing without using auto-tune (etc), then you don’t belong on stage, especially not to take people’s money because you are a fraud.
Instead of paying big money to see so-called “talent” on stage that is really using electronics/software to “enhance” their performance, why not just use auto-tune to correct the pitch of drunks singing karaoke at a local bar? You’d hear the same music, but it would be far less expensive to attend!
Maybe people should start class action lawsuits against the fraudulent so-called performers? You can say you paid money to hear live music, but it wasn’t live (and it wasn’t Memorex, either).
May 9, 2025 @ 2:45 pm
If musicians can’t respond to what their other musicians are doing live, the music will be lifeless. IEMs, click tracks, everything that reduces the human musician to the status of a drag-and-drop loop is easily replaceable.
There’s a guy in NYC who walks around with a sampler and keyboard and creates some amazing songs on the spot with hidden-talented people on the street. That’s a humanized use of this kind of musical technology. But trying to replicate a recording live? You deserve to be obsolete.
Bluegrass is exciting to watch because it’s a collective tightrope act. Country music used to be that way, too. Watch old videos of people doing radio. It was the wild west in the best sense.
We need interaction. We’re not machines.
May 9, 2025 @ 2:53 pm
Very good point about radio. In the early days of country radio, much of the music was performed by bands live in studio, and that’s how many artists got their start, including Hank Williams. You still had 78s, acetates, and nationally broadcast programs like The Grand Ole Opry. But there was something special about hearing a band perform live locally. There was a connection there that recorded music just couldn’t carry.
May 9, 2025 @ 3:30 pm
Had your last article related to this subject in the back of my mind as I spent the last couple weeks in the live music nirvana that is JazzFest in New Orleans. 8 days at Fest plus another show most nights seeing a mix of styles from Funk to Jazz to Country to Blues to Rock to World and so much more often blended together into something unique. And not one backing track in the bunch. Honestly using a track for a bass player is just lame and inexcusable. Perfection is not required – it’s the breathing and stretching and interaction amongst the players that gives those on stage and in front of it the magic elixir that only live music can feed us with.
May 10, 2025 @ 10:00 am
If it is a ballad or something with strings and they use a recording of a part or a sequencer( aka van halen’s jump or Aerosmith’s dream on), that doesn’t bug me for a song for two. Maybe that one famous song that has an important but in it, but doesn’t justify having extra band members on tour. I get that.
But entire pre-recorded shows is not a concert.
Some of those pop divas were basically doing fancy dance recitals.
Generally tho’, play live or stay home.
May 11, 2025 @ 5:17 am
Hey Trigger,first, thanks for hosting a fun, energetic comment section. As a longtime mostly non-country fan, I am learning a lot about the country fanbase. The thoughtfulness and humor is a welcome surprise. Can’t think of any other place to find such lively discourse by music lovers– in any genre. Love that you are committed enough to read this stuff and engage in a dialogue. Thanks for that too.
2) Many of the best drummers in the world have used a metronome for decades to ensure that they (at least) start the songs at the correct tempo. Drummers, in fact most musicians, can get excited live and songs can be wildly over-caffeinated. Further, one can go all the way back to Keith Moon with headphones because of the pre-recorded synth parts on, for instance, Won’t Get Fooled Again.