So You'd Like to Like Country Music...

[strina]

Okay, country music. I loved it, I avoided it, I was forced back into it, I love it again. Let me tell you why.

1. Regional pride. The South does not have the best reputation. We're slow, violent, stupid, prejudiced, poor, and probably committing incest, according to a lot of media. Oh, we're polite, but that's often portrayed as quaint at best. Country music revels in being "hick". Nobody tries to play down their drawl so they can sound like a perfect Midwestern news anchor. People aren't afraid to call themselves trailer trash or make fun of "cowboys". We've all got a cultural context. This music speaks specifically to my personal context.

John Rich (covering Jason Aldean): Hicktown
The Lost Trailers: Holler Back
Gretchen Wilson: Redneck Woman
Montgomery Gentry: Long Line of Losers
Little Big Town: Boondocks

2. It tells a story. Look, I am very word-oriented, so I enjoy FOB's pretty if occasionally nonsensical lyrics. But country gives me a story with a beginning, middle, and end!

Also, that story? Is sometimes very close to fanfic! Like, David Allan Coe's self-insert RPF where he meets the ghost of Hank Williams, Jr., or Allison Krause & Brad Paisley's modern AU of Barbara Allen, or Marty Robbins and his El Paso trilogy (the story, then the prequel/companion from Feleena's POV, and then the meta/author commentary!).

3. Comeuppance! Country music is all about getting your own back. I can name three songs off the top of my head - Gunpowder & Lead, Goodbye Earl, and Independence Day - where women kill their abusers and they are all awesome. Actually, "murder ballads" are a whole country subgenre (and no, murdering people who done you wrong is generally not okay, but singing about doing it? A++, most cathartic; see the enduring popularity of The Night the Light Went Out in Georgia).

4. Fiddles. No, really, that should be all I have to say. Fiddling is awesome.

Zac Brown Band: The Devil Went Down to Georgia
Dixie Chicks: Lil Jack Slade

5. Awesome drinking songs.

Montgomery Gentry: One in Every Crowd
Charlie Daniels Band: Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye
Luke Bryan: All My Friends Say
Tracy Byrd: Drinkin' Bone, Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo
Blake Shelton: The More I Drink
Toby Keith: You Ain't Much Fun Since I Quit Drinkin'

6. Johnny Cash. Folsom Prison Blues is a reason in and of itself.

Johnny Cash: Boy Named Sue, Sunday Morning Coming Down, Ain't No Grave
Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings: Highwayman

7. Songs about the working class. Bitch, I don't want to hear about bling when I can barely afford gas. I want songs about shiftwork and crappy bosses and telling the man to take this job and shove it (oh, Johnny Paycheck, your name will never die as long as shitty dealing-with-morons-and/or-danger jobs are the minimum hourly wage and and awesome fun jobs are salaried).

8. Awesome ladies, being awesome. Men sing about women without it involving a romantic relationship, current or former! Women sing about ladies being awesome and independent!

Kenny Chesney: Big Star
Taylor Swift: White Horse
Jeannie C. Riley: Harper Valley PTA
Martina McBride: This One's for the Girls
Terri Clark: Better Things to Do
Miranda Lambert: New Strings

9. Songs that are about soldiers without being about politics. They are also songs that make me full-on weep (damn you, Trace Adkins!).

David Ball: Riding with Private Malone
Dixie Chicks: Traveling Soldier
Carrie Underwood: Just a Dream
Big & Rich: 8th of November
Trace Adkins: Arlington, Til the Last Shot's Fired

10. I don't know, you guys. There's just this vibe. Individualism and independence and patriotism and courtesy, and love songs and cheating songs and drinking songs and revenge songs, and an industry that's a big happy family right up 'til they're punching each other in the face.

Here, have some awesome miscellany:

David Allan Coe: You Never Even Called Me By My Name
Dolly Parton: Jolene
Trace Adkins: Marry for Money, Songs About Me
Carrie Underwood: Cowboy Casanova
Big & Rich : Save a Horse [Ride a Cowboy]
Rehab: Bartender (Sittin' at a Bar)
Jo Dee Messina: My Give a Damn's Busted
Blake Shelton: Some Beach
Dierks Bentley: What Was I Thinkin'
George Strait: All My Ex's Live in Texas
Josh Turner: Would You Go With Me
Toby Keith: I Love This Bar
Miranda Lambert: Kerosene, Dry Town
Joe Diffie: John Deere Green
Randy Travis: Diggin' Up Bones
Stoney Larue: Idabel Blues
Jerry Jeff Walker: Night Rider's Lament
Jason Aldean: Crazy Town
Marty Robbins: Ballad of the Alamo
Alan Jackson: Don't Rock the Jukebox
George Jones, Mark Chestnutt, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, Pam Tillis, T. Graham Brown: I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair

Note: Links go to YouTube for videos and Lala for streaming music; some will eventually be replaced by mp3s @ Box, but right now, the internet hates me and I've already put off this post for two days trying to get the files up, so. *hands*

Comments

[lim]

This post makes me SO happy. I love country and bluegrass and YAY YAY YAY.

[strina]

It is SO FUN and I never see anybody in fandom really do anything with it (outside of Taylor Swift and maybe some Carrie Underwood). I cannot lie, a large part of my motivation was that now maybe someone will get it when I babble about how amazing a Jack Harkness vid to Highwayman would be.

[the_wanlorn]

FUCK YEAH COUNTRY!

[ilyena_sylph]

HELL YES.

Heh. I kind of did a post about this a week, two?, ago.

[strina]

I will totally be checking that out!

[senmut]

Absolutely fabulous post and my GF did one not that long ago that is her Country Primer of sorts. Now I have two awesome go-to posts to tell people "This is Country Music" and give them recs.

here via threeweeks feed

[mllesays]

This post is amazing! I grew up with so many of these songs, and have found others since I rediscovered country a few years ago.

FUCK YEAH SOUTHERNERS.

[copracat]

6. Johnny Cash. Folsom Prison Blues is a reason in and of itself.

What you said. With bells on.

[nagasvoice]

And sad songs, nobody does angst like country.
Ballad of Ira Hayes is also a soldier song.

[strina]

Oh man, Ira Hayes, I don't know how I forgot that one; I'd never heard it until I bought a Cash compilation and then it became my most listened-to song on the whole CD.

[nagasvoice]

When he had his tv show, that was a big one. Got a big response. One-man civil rights movement all by himself.

[strina]

Just, his voice, and the things he sang about, and he was one of the forefathers of outlaw country, and and and.

JOHNNY CASH, ILU.

[killing_rose]

I'm now making my coworkers listen to these because 99% of these are my favorite songs ever. (And yes, Trace Adkins is fantastic at making me cry. On the other hand, songs like Marry for Money and Honky Tonk Badakadonk are great at lifting my mood. There is a reason I went to see him in concert.)

I love the fact that people are reccing country music. Because no one ever believes me when I say country is Awesome.

[strina]

I love Trace Adkins so much; he is just ridiculously talented.

I don't why it's such a guilty-pleasure genre! (Oh wow, I just realized that makes it totally the idfic of music.)

[nagasvoice]

I think that's because when many people do hear it, it's whatever is blasting from broadcast radio, along with associated ads and commentary. It might be different elsewhere, but most of the Central Valley and over the hills in Bakersfield, it's more the kind of stations who banned Dixie Chicks for their political views.

[killing_rose]

That's very true. I've been listening to it from cable television stations for years, on CDs, on youtube these days, and so forth. And I'm actually in a place that doesn't get more than one radio channel on a good day, so I forget what listening to the radio's like for about 8 to 9 months a year.

It doesn't help that broadcast radio plays such a narrow sampling of what's out there. (And while I love modern country, I also like more traditional country, bluegrass, and alternative country. And most broadcast radio stations don't offer that much variety.)

[exitsign]

This post, I agree 100%, country is awesome musical genre. :) My mother is the one who introduce me to country and she not even southern, she a Nuyorican. Country is lot more universal than the average American will think.

here via 3W4DW

[rivenwanderer]

I haven't heard a lot of country music, but my parents always played Nanci Griffith cassettes when we were on long road trips. I love her voice and the stories she tells:
Lone Star State of Mind
Trouble in the Fields
Outbound Plane
I Wish it Would Rain

(Anyone have suggestions for other artists to listen to if I like her?)

[queer]

I adore country music, but I don't know how well you're going to spread the love when you link to racist artists like David Allan Coe, or the giant homophobes Big & Rich.

[strina]

Other than Toby Keith and Taylor Swift, I am actually completely unfamiliar with any of the artists' personal lives/views, which is why I didn't rec them as artists and instead linked to specific, non-fail songs that a) I have enjoyed and b) illustrated the 10 points I wished to make about the genre as a whole.

[killing_rose]

When it comes to the music itself? The songs are fantastic.

I don't pay much attention to their lives, and to be honest, I don't listen to all songs by an artist. I learned a long time ago that part of listening to any music means that there will be songs that you don't like either because they're homophobic, misogynistic, classist, able-ist, racist, or a thousand other reasons.

I didn't know that Big and Rich are homophobes; it's been years since I've bought one of their CDs and they've been off of my radar for at least the past three or four years. But now that you've brought it to my attention, I'll look into it.

As for David Allan Coe...I think half the planet knows that he's racist. However, at his prime, he released good material. And while I strongly dislike what he's said and done, I still like the songs. (Dude, The Ride is fantastic.)

[bedlamsbard]

Oh, yay, country music! I love it so much, and then I feel really self-conscious about it, even though I, well...live in the country. (Yeah, I went to one of those high schools where they play "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" and "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" at every dance, including prom, and then everyone sings along.)

My favorite group is Sugarland, which is great to blast while baking.

[strina]

Me, too! And now I work at one of those stores that blasts country music and you'll catch employees and customers just randomly singing along, sometimes in groups.

Sugarland is awesome ("Joey" is amazingly fun to just wail along to).

[swingandswirl]

As someone from the other side of the world (who likely was a country girl in a previous life, judging by the number of songs in my iTunes)... hells yeah. Or should that be yee-haw? *grins*

[ceria]

Awesome post!