Do pop-country songwriters know the score???

[Hollerin Ben]

some interesting things have come to the surface, though my initial question hasn't been addressed.

instead we have this line of thinking

I think the sub-text of your argument is that if it's popular, it must be bad. Popularity (or lack of) and quality (or lack of) aren't the same thing, but nor are they mutually exclusive.

which is not my sub-text. What's popular right now is bad, whereas in the past good country music was popular (i.e. there are no current equivalents to Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Geroge Jones, etc)

which leads us to this line of thinking

"As far as comparing what's happening now with the past, "now" is always at a disadvantage, because with the passage of time, only the best from the past survives...some people will be looking back nostalgically to the days when Rascal Flatts, Kenny Chesney and Carrie Uderwood ruled the country airwaves and saying how much better things were back then and let's bring back real country music."

which is a "don't believe those lying eyes of yours" sort of argument that, instead of answering my question, tries to convince me that things actually weren't as good before and they are not as bad now, after all someone will be nostalgic for this season's run of bad country music. The problem is that I actually trust my judgment. I'm not waxing nostalgically for the country music of my youth. I worked my way backwards from Garth Brooks. I use to think Phil Vassar was really awesome. but as I worked my way back and began listening to these artists that everyone was paying lip service to, I began to realize just how good country music could be, which made me enraged at how bad the industry has allowed it to become.

Was there bad music before? Of course, but it lived next to good music. Where is the good stuff now? I'd have to be pretty dishonest with myself to try to say that country music's quality has remained constant and that Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson = Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.

I just don't get the refusal to admit that country music is worse today that it has been in the past. Look at the top artists, and their top songs, and compare them to the top artists and the top songs of the past. I'm losing my mind with all of this "well, we can't compare this to Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller and Buck Owens and Lefty Frizell and etc etc, because those guys are the best of all time" In the words of Toke from Metalocalypse "Is I's crazies?" These are precisely the guys we should be comparing people to. They don't exist in some mythical realm, the before time, the long long ago. They were the most popular guys of their day. When someone said "I'm a country music fan" that's what they meant. Now, I can't tell people, especially people who are serious about music, that I'm into country music without a caveat that I don't mean that schlock on the radio.

So, assuming that I can trust my lying eyes and that we can all bring ourselves to admit that the pop-country of today is actually bad, is the consensus here that the songwriters know better? Do these guys write these and say "yeah, this one is stupid as all get-up, but it sounds like a hit to me" or are they all vapid or self-delusional enough to think that these are significant works?

[Razor X]

So, assuming that I can trust my lying eyes and that we can all bring ourselves to admit that the pop-country of today is actually bad, is the consensus here that the songwriters know better? Do these guys write these and say "yeah, this one is stupid as all get-up, but it sounds like a hit to me" or are they all vapid or self-delusional enough to think that these are significant works?

You bring up some interesting points. To be perfectly honest, in looking for someone to blame for the sad state of contemporary country music (and I wholeheartedly agree with you -- it is bad), I never actually thought to blame the songwriters. To be sure, they deserve to shoulder some of the blame, but I tend to blame radio and the record labels more, because they are the driving forces behind what gets recorded and played. The songwriters are just reacting by writing what they think will be successful. Since writing a song is not a mindless activity (even the "Badonkadonk" lyrics had to be thought of, discussed, and written down), I'm inclined to think that they do know better.

[ccdixon]

An interesting post from Craig Bickhardt - not specifically about country, but about whether songwriters in general are actually working hard enough:

http://ninetymilewind.blogspot.com/2008 ... rence.html

[chromehead]

As the previous poster mentions, my blog at Ninety Mile Wind is about this topic, particularly in the comments section to this week's post, which is titled "Finding The Reverence".

To address a point or two here; first of all, I was a staff writer in Nashville for 24 years so I can speak from some experience. The argument that we won't know what's good until another decade or two has passed is simply not true for most of us. The moment I heard Tony Arata sing "The Dance" (he was sitting across from me at the Bluebird doing an ITR show with me) I knew it was a great song. I didn't require posterity to confirm that opinion, although it has. There really are certain songwriting "absolutes", whether everyone can immediately recognize them or not. A great song is, and always will be recognized by those who really study the craft of songwriting. I also recall owning a scratchy copy of Jimmy Webb's "Land's End" LP in 1982. I used to cover "The Highwayman" in my live sets back then, long before Johnny, Waylon et al verified that it was a great song. It's possible to judge songs in the here and now IF you really know what the standards are (study).

I also don't think writers ever intentionally set out to lower the bar, but imitation of the weak only begets weaker songs. That's why it's so important to go beyond trends, to study the past, to have an informed opinion, and to judge songs on merits that have nothing to do with pure popularity. Currently there's a rather large school of writers who are only inches deep in country music and songwriting history. They are under pressure to compete with current trends like never before. When I was on staff I had three year contracts, and my publishers knew I'd be artistic, there'd be experiments that would yield some of my best songs. Today writers get 18 month deals, they're underpaid, and experimentation isn't tolerated as much. Am I letting the writers off the hook? Of course not. Pushing the trend upward is our duty no matter how hard it is. (Read my comments on Ninety Mile Wind for more elaboration).

I don't believe we'll be looking back nostalgically at this era unless it gets much worse in the future. There were better songs in the past, and country radio allowed for far more diversity. It isn't that there's anything essentially wrong with some of these silly songs taken in the spirit of fun, it's that the trend has been to exclude diversity and what has suffered is the art of songwriting. When I was hitting my peak in Nashville the other HIT, or highly covered songwriters were: Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Don Schlitz, Janis Ian, Thom Schuyler, Dave Loggins, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rodney Crowell, Tony Arata, Nanci Griffith, Don Henry, Beth Chapman, Paul Overstreet, Dennis Linde, and other artistic visionary writers. I don't think I'm wrong when I say that the above list would not survive very well in the current community of Music Row. Some, in fact, are still trying and having a hard time of it. I left Nashville, not in defeat, but to go back to performing where there's more work (the NE USA).

There will always be an audience for whatever the media delivers, that's why Reality TV is so popular. But those of us who care about more than greed and ratings have a duty to be able to judge the art on it's merits and to insure that even while commerce thrives in the market, the art isn't lost or diminished due to lack of education.

-Craig Bickhardt

[Razor X]

Craig,

Thanks for the insight and thanks for all those great songs you wrote for the Judds, Martina and Pam Tillis. "Where I Used To Have A Heart" is one of my all-time favorites.