Country Music Isn’t Country Any More? Who Says?
Almost everywhere you look, there’s somebody saying Country Music isn’t Country any more. Problem with that claim is somebody somewhere has been saying that for years and years.
As the story goes, even Hank Williams Sr., as legendary as they get in Country, was accused of something like heresy when he put some simple drums in his band. Many of the legends of the 50’s and 60’s were accused of ruining Country when they invented the Nashville Sound, a move that revitalized Country Music and made it bigger than ever.
Radio too has been accused of ruining things by playing too much “pop.” But if radio is killing anything, you couldn’t tell by the success of Country Radio. It’s the biggest format on radio these days, with more stations playing Nashville’s brand than any other genre.
So does that make “New Country” real Country? That’s an individual choice. It’s all up to the people who listen. And most people who listen seem to love it more than ever. Oh yeh, the gripers get more attention. Always have, always will.
But the fact is, all music genres change because people change. Somebody new like Taylor Swift or Zac Brown comes along with something new. It’s different, but keeps a lot of Country traits. It attracts a new audience, invigorates an old audience, and Country Music rolls on.
Could it really get killed someday? Yeh, maybe. When the industry starts making only records that most people hate. So far, despite what the doomsayers have been predicting for generations, that hasn’t happened. And since nobody in the business likes the thought of suicide, they’re not about to abandon their senses and totally go off the deep end. And they’re not about to take music back to the 1930’s to prove they’re “Real Country.”
It’s all about the songs, folks. And Nashville is the greatest songwriting town in the world. The writers just keep getting better, including those who work here and those around the world who submit work to us for our free evaluation.
What makes it all so great and keeps it on track is that Country still says something with meaning to the people who listen. And that’s how it got here to begin with, isn’t it?
Get used to it, folks. Country Music is here to stay. It changes, but doesn’t everything that survives?
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