THE SECRET OF COUNTRY MUSIC’S SUCCESS

Country music has been around for quite some time.  In the beginning,  it was known as “Country and Western” music because of it’s obvious relation to rural areas and the music of the old west, which was primarily folk music. The early country stars were storytellers in the folk music tradition, relating stories of life’s struggles and strife.  As time passed, country music changed with the times, took on a more contemporary sound, and dropped “western” from it’s name.  In recent years, country music has seen it’s sales figures rise to unprecedented numbers, with acts such as Brooks and Dunn, Garth Brooks, and Shania Twain rivaling and even matching sales of pop legends The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel.

But to what does country music owe it’s current success?  Is it to such intellectually stimulating accomplishments as “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” and “Man, I Feel Like A Woman”?  It may come as a shock to today’s country fans, but country music’s rise to the top is not really a result of the wonderful “talent”of Nashville’s stars and songwriters, but more a product of perfect timing and changing sounds.

In the late 1980s, pop music, which had always been the dominate musical genre, was going through drastic changes.  Older pop and rock stars were  slowly being displaced by the young, up and coming stars of two new styles of music:  rap and grunge. These two new sounds proved to be divisive in their effect on the music buying public.  Young audiences  embraced  the new sounds, while older pop fans were turned off by the sheer lack of musical integrity to be found in both rap and grunge. It was during this period of transition that today’s version of country music entered the scene.

Country music had always flirted with copying pop and rock style.  In the 1970s, after denouncing the shaggy haired hippies of the 60s, many country stars began growing long hair and beards, adopting the look of the rock stars they had earlier criticized.  In the 1980s, country stars added synthesizers and electronic drums to their recordings, wore puffed up 80s hair, and copied a lot of the pop sounds of the day.  By the early 90s,  country stars like Travis Tritt and Sawyer Brown were blatantly mimicking classic rock styles and sounds.  Garth Brooks has said many times that he grew up listening to rock music, not country music.  But because of his rural Oklahoma upbringing,  he felt he could not succeed in rock,  so his idea was to perform a country version of a rock show.  Shania Twain’s first recording was a little known pop/rock album produced in the late 80s.  It failed, and she went country.  It was this type of new,  pop influenced country musician who opportunistically filled the void created by rap and grunge, giving displaced older pop and rock music fans something they could relate to, something that sounded familiar.  It was this initial shift in musical styles that led to the eventual success and popularity of today’s country music,  NOT the irresistible appeal of country twang .  Country simply moved into the space once occupied by classic pop and rock music by imitating it’s sound, and taking over it’s audience. Which is why we see classic rock acts such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Bon Jovi, The Eagles, and others appearing side by side with today’s country acts.  Rock bands like these had previously been unwelcome in Nashville during their heyday.  Many young country singers site these classic rock acts as major influences rather than old time country stars.  Country purists have bemoaned the fact that today’s country is little more than twanged up pop music with cowboy hats, but Nashville has no intentions of stopping the gravy train. So in reality, country music owes it’s current mainstream popularity and large sales numbers not so much to the incredible “talent” of today’s country singers and songwriters, but rather to the extinction of classic pop and rock music.

SO YOU WANT TO BE A COUNTRY SONGWRITER?

Unlike other forms of music which often deal with any number of diverse subjects and views,  country songwriters apparently only need four or five topics to round out their collection of songs.  There are exceptions, of course.  Some country stars such as Keith Urban (who is actually an ex-pop star from Australia, not a redneck from Tennessee) have managed to make some appealing music over the years with more interesting lyrical content than your typical Nashville product.  But the fact is most country songwriters follow a paint by numbers pattern of simplified storytelling, and country fans, oblivious to it all, don’t seem to mind.  Most likely, it’s because country fans see the world from such a limited, narrow, one dimensional viewpoint, the same repetitive song topics are actually what they expect to hear. Here is a breakdown of the typical country song topics,  male and female:

MALE SINGERS

Honky Tonk party songs

Broken heart songs

Happy love songs

Proud country “attitude” songs

Patriotic or religious songs

FEMALE SINGERS

Leavin’ songs

He cheated, is cheating, or will cheat songs

Comical, silly “the way men are” songs

Family songs (children, babies, etc.)

Religious songs

Just mix and match any of these topics with any singer and you’ve got a bonafide modern country hit.  Again, there are exceptions, and some of these topics have been expanded by creative songwriters over the years, but in general, this is all you need if you are a country songwriter.  Of course, fans of country music will say “So what if this is all that country singers sing about?  That’s what makes it country”!  But to non-country fans who prefer music with a wider scope of thought, the constant repetition of these topics, copied many times over, only exposes country music for the limited,  small minded genre that it is. The fact is country songwriters only tell narrow, one dimensional stories that reflect the views of narrow,  one dimensional rednecks.  Country star Trace Adkins said it plainly in his hit “Songs About Me”, which seeks to describe the appeal of country music to a non-fan; “It’s songs about livin’, lovin’, family, and God”,  Adkins bellows in the main chorus.  Livin’, lovin’, family, and God?  See the above list of topics.  I rest my case.

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE PRESIDENT

So, here we have the next Republican who wants working class Americans to believe that he “cares” about them.  Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign is following the same pattern as previous GOP campaigns, which is to paint his Democratic opponent (in this case Barack Obama) as a leftist liberal who’ll raise taxes, in an attempt, of course, to scare Americans into voting Republican.  And the average Joe Dumb American, who mainly resides in redneck middle America, will fall for this charade over and over again, as is evidenced by the last eight years of stupidity.  Never mind the fact that it was Dubyuh’s own daddy, George Bush senior, who made the famous campaign promise “read my lips, no new taxes”, and then proceeded to pass the largest tax hike in U.S. history.  Never mind the fact that EVERY Republican president of the last 4 decades has carelessly and recklessly increased unemployment and the national debt.  No, redneck Americans fall for Republican scare tactics every time, only to find themselves suffering through more hard times and misery courtesy of the Republican party. 

Redneck voters have their own unique way of choosing who they’ll vote for.  They do not rely on objective reasoning or factual information, common sense, or logic, or even intelligence, but rather on which of the two candidates is most redneck like them. Combine that with right wing “evil liberal” scare tactic propaganda, and you have a whole bunch of really DUMB working class rednecks in middle America voting for the party who is, in reality, actually AGAINST the working class!

This is precisely what has allowed George W. Bush to infest the White House for the last eight years.  Rednecks saw Dubyuh as one of them. He mumbles with a twang and likes to bomb people, and that’s good enough for them!  How could you possibly lose with a guy who lives by the redneck code of shoot first, lie about it later?  Unfortunately, they are finding out the hard way, along with the rest of the country, just how wrong they were.  

But rednecks have short memory spans to match their low I.Q.s.  They will fall for Republican propaganda over and over again.  And in the case of Barack Obama, it’s even easier for them to forget.  It’s a matter of historical fact that rednecks and people of African ethnicity do not get along very well, to put it mildly.  All Mr. Joe Dumb American has to do is turn on any of the right wing Nazi talk shows, such as Sean “The Idiot” Hannity,  Glenn “Blank Eyes” Beck,  or Bill “Bozo” O’Reilly,  catch a whiff of conservative mud slinging, and John McCain will have their vote hands down!  Never mind that McCain will continue on the same destructive economic path as Bush, putting working class Americans (including rednecks) in more tight, economic despair. Never mind that the Republican way throughout history is to always put the working class last behind the interests of corporate America.  Nope, all Mr. Joe Dumb American cares about is which guy looks and sounds like him, and shoots at the “bad guys”.   

Mr. Joe Dumb American never has caught on to the fact that when a Republican says that he will “keep government out of your life”, what he REALLY means is “THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WILL NOT LIFT A FINGER FOR YOU,  WORKING CLASS AMERICANS!”.  When Republicans talk about “cutting spending”, what they REALLY mean is “WE ARE GOING TO MAKE SURE THAT WE DEVOTE AS LITTLE RESOURCES AS POSSIBLE TO YOUR NEEDS,  WORKING CLASS AMERICANS”!.  And all of the tax dollars that Americans always end up paying ANYWAY will not go towards one single solitary benefit for the working middle class. 

Never before in modern times has there been such an enormous gap between the classes in America,  with the middle class fast becoming an endangered species. Under eight years of George W. Bush’s tyranny the rich have gotten richer, while the poor have become poorer. But Mr. Joe Dumb American is ready and willing to vote Republican AGAIN,  and drive the final nails into his own coffin.  Because Mr. Joe Dumb American is a complete idiot. Those are the facts people, plain and simple.  And if you’re one of the many dumbass rednecks or conservative fools out there who just doesn’t “get it”,  you are pathetic. There’s an old saying that goes, “A fool can be found on any corner, while wise men are a rare breed”. Unfortunately,  it sounds like a perfect description of the American population.

NOW DO YOU GET IT, MR. JOE DUMB AMERICAN?

 Senate GOP blocks windfall taxes on Big Oil (AP)

AP – Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.

 The above headline and news article,  which appears on yahoo’s news page, is clear, loud, undeniable proof of what it REALLY means to vote Republican! Empowering and enriching the already powerful and rich oil companies and corporations that are screwing working middle class America, that’s what a Republican does for a living.  Any working class American who sees this headline and STILL votes Republican is a complete and total MORON who deserves every misery that will eventually befall them because of it.  So go ahead rednecks, go ahead and fall for all of the usual BS that the conservative talk show hosts are spewing about “scary liberals who want to destroy America”.  Go ahead and fall for all of the usual propaganda about how the Republican party is the party of “morality” and “family values”.  Go ahead and fall for the usual Republican BS about how “liberals” want to take control of your life and take away your freedom.  Then ask yourself these questions; do you have control of anything now?  Who has been recklessly and carelessly destroying America for the last 8 years?  How “moral” is it to give oil companies this tax break while working Americans have to choose between gasoline or groceries?  Go ahead Mr. Joe Dumb American, vote Republican again, because they’re looking out for you, right?  Go ahead and vote Republican, and your stupidity will certainly be rewarded, AGAIN!

TOUGH FOR A DAY!

Country music windbag Toby Keith,  who’s song “Courtesy of The Red, White, and Blue” sparked controversy a few years ago with it’s pro war stance,  is shown in this photo actually visiting American troops in Irag.  Of course, Keith then hopped on a plane and headed back to his big, comfortable  home in Oklahoma  where he got on with the business of writing songs about how tough and manly he is,  which includes being groomed by professional hair, wardrobe, and make up artists so that he’ll look “cute” in his many promotional photos and video shoots.  Yep,  it must be pretty darn easy to sing threatening lyrics like “We’ll put a boot in your ass” when you have the luxury of knowing that thousands of soldiers will be the ones risking their lives to accomplish that ass kicking while you sit back in comfort and count your residual checks from 3000 miles away.  Just as it’s so easy for politicians to start wars which require the “ultimate sacrifice” be made by everyone else while they and their families sit back in luxury at secure, guarded retreats.  Oh yeah,  it’s REAL easy to be a tough guy when someone else has to do the fighting and dying.   If Toby Keith was on the front lines of a war zone for any length of time he would be singing a very different tune. The one and only process that would make war exstinct in this world is the day when all politicians from every country who want to start a war are REQUIRED to fight it themselves, with their own families.  Something tells me they would find an alternative solution real, real fast.

But of course, there are a lot of pathetic excuses for human beings out there who actually think war is “noble”,  and building weapons “stimulates the economy”, as if there’s no other work which can be done to accomplish that goal other than to build weapons.

In the 1950’s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower,  himself a WWII veteran,  made an ominous statement in which he warned America of what he called “An unholy  alliance of the military industrial complex”.  The message that he, a military man, was trying to convey to America is that there are those in positions of influence in Washington who consider war a business opportunity for making a profit,  with no regard for how many people die in the process.  Sound familiar?  Hey, maybe,  just maybe, a “tough” guy like Toby Keith could write a song about it!  Then maybe,  just maybe, it might sink into the pea sized brains of all the backward rednecks out there who think that war is cool so long as we’re blowing up a bunch of third world people who don’t count for anything because they don’t believe in Jesus.

HYPOCRISY IS ALIVE AND WELL IN COUNTRY MUSIC

The Academy of Country Music Awards were broadcast this past week live from Las Vegas on CBS-TV. It was a cast of the usual suspects, with stars such as Kenny Chesney and Brooks and Dunn, along with the obligatory fresh faced generic newcomers, all polished up and ready to be sold to rural America by the Nashville hit machine. But the most interesting thing about  the whole spectacle was how the fine lines between country, Hollywood, and rock n’ roll were constantly being blurred throughout the production. Anyone who listens to even a little country music will undoubtedly have heard the repetitious message proudly proclaimed by every twangster of how different and opposite country folks are from those city people out west in tinsel town, and how their down home traditional values set them apart from the rock n’ roll lifestyle.  Country stars such as Trace Adkins not only record songs about it, but also drive the point home in interviews, proudly touting the virtues of being “country”.  Yet, there were country music’s biggest names arriving in limos at the MGM grand hotel in Las Vegas like Hollywood celebs at the Oscars.  Female country singers, who normally sing about their country roots, flashed diamond earrings and designer gowns. Rock style guitar riffs echoed in almost every song, while the audience pumped fists in the air as if KISS had just taken the stage. There was even a mohawk on stage at one point. So while the nice little pretend world of country music sells itself to the redneck masses, the apparent reality is everyone wants to rock n’ roll in Hollywood!  And if you say repeatedly that you are NOT something, and then act exactly like the thing you say you are not, the word for that is HYPOCRISY!  So the next time a country singer blows air in a song about how much better and virtuous they are because they’re “country”, maybe he or she had better think twice about rocking out on stage in Vegas like a city slicker or the “H” word could be tattooed across their forehead before they go on back “down home”.