Modern country music is heavily stigmatized towards Southern-conservative culture, rife with themes of family and religion and “country activities” such as driving under the influence and killing animals for sport. These cultural touchstones of Southern-conservatism combined with painfully simplistic, repetitive pop-style songs have ruined what country music once was: music of hardworking American immigrants. Country music must push away from the cancerous mainstream industry and return to its beautiful origins of musicality.
Country music’s roots are far from what we hear today, originating from working-class European immigrants in the early 20th century who settled near the Appalachian Mountains. They sang of everyday hardship such as mining and logging, and played on homemade instruments like washtubs and mandolins. This style later collided with subgenres of New Orleans jazz and blues to create genres such as western swing, honkytonk and rockabilly. These genres contain upbeat and bluesy themes often with pop influence, but use the same cathartic elements of early Appalachian such as the song “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, which highlights a coal miner’s experience being paid a fraction of his labor value.
Later on, influential artists such as Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash made Nashville the center of country music. These artists emphasized a key theme in most classic country subgenres: the struggles of the working class and the harshness of day to day life. They promoted free thinking in a libertarian framework by divorcing morals from the law. They wrote songs of protest, self-destruction, imprisonment, forced labor and defiance to the broken system such as “Man In Black” by Cash or “Blackjack County Jail” adapted by Nelson.
It wasn’t until the early 1980s that country music began its spiral away from its original elements. Films such as Urban Cowboy romanticized the country lifestyle supposedly lived by cowboys. This new pop-culture aesthetic led to the popularization of sexist and irresponsible honkytonk influenced party music such as “Family Tradition” and “Texas Women” by Hank Williams Jr. from the album Rowdy. And while I’ll admit this music summons emotions of lawlessness, this subgenre of country music slowly consumed the entire genre as a whole, and switched the meaningful roots of country music into fantasy of Friday nights.
During this transition, country’s musical background of blues and jazz influence was erased and replaced with simple pop chord progressions and overly polished/auto-tuned vocals. Now modern country music is nearly identical to every other form of pop music, but what stigmatizes this country-pop style is its notoriously toxic and bigoted southern-conservative audience.
The country audience has become so twisted that popular country figures have capitalized off of the use of racial slurs. On the second of February, TMZ released a video of popular country star Morgan Wallen after a party trying to pick a fight. Wallen was already known for his heavy partying and destructive tendencies, but in this instance he was caught using the N-word. He was instantly removed from his radio stations and record labels, but his fanbase of white Southern-conservatives got angry that he was held accountable for his actions. “It’s just a word” or “he was drunk” were common phrases from his fanbase. Use of the hashtag #standbywallen skyrocketed. They claimed it to be an infringement of free-speech and retaliated by buying more of Wallen’s albums. Ultimately, he gained popularity from his hateful language and his sales increased 102% and downloads increased 67%.
The actions of Wallen’s fanbase shows the toxicity of country-pop’s general audience. Many who listen to country-pop identify with country-pop artists and their message so heavily, that they are willing to actively support them no matter what they do or say… synonymously with the cult-like following of our former president.
Now we continue to live in an era of aesthetics and romanticization where Blake Shelton, Mariah Carey and Wallen have remained the kings and queens of garbage for the past decade. They have dominated the country industry and have kept their watered down and unoriginal sounds popular for way too long.
I urge all of you to stop supporting these celebrity figures with their multi-million dollar studios, and instead to try listening to classic and neotraditional country music. Here are my recommendations for new artists to support:
Colter Wall- Imaginary Appalachia, Self Titled, Western Swing and Waltzes
Tyler Childers- Purgatory, Live on Red Barn Radio 1&2
Ian Noe- Between the Country
Trampled by Turtles- Songs From a Ghost Town
The Devil Makes Three- Self Titled
Brent Cobb- Shine On Rainy Day, Keep Em On They Toes
Photo: “Johnny Cash” by Dillan Stradlin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
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