Anyway, the point is that we all have a gender. and even if we were to try to reject the concept of gender, the culture would force a label upon us. It’s the same with genres. Every song must have a genre because that is how we perceive music. Without that system of order the musical universe no longer makes sense to us.

All I know is a man is born with a tallywacker and the most common definition of gender equates it with sex which isn’t exactly arbitrary.

Before the existence of recording equipment, throughout history, how was music classified? What doesn’t make sense to me is when albums like Raising Sand are classified as country. Texas Music/Red Dirt/OKOM isn’t necessarily classifiable at the moment other than it comes from a certain region, yet it continues to exist.

What focus groups can do is narrow down the field of potential artists based on the demands of the market. That’s all.

They narrow potential artists based on a set of criteria that isn’t even related to music (looks for one) and target a particular demographic that isn’t representative of the entire “market.” Focus groups demonstrate the pursuit of profit, not organic artistic evolution.

But that doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t work.

So every artist is doing things the way they want to? I believe it was your Joanna Cotten article that you mentioned that her label wanted her to compromise her sound. She didn’t do it, but you don’t think there are artists who haven’t?

This goes back to my point, though–how do you get to decide that Lyle Lovett references the “tradition” of Jimmie Rodgers?

It’s an arbitrary association based on criteria that exists in your head. You’re including the artists who you think reference the “tradition” while excluding those who you think do not.

Also, I’d just add that “actual country music,” as a term, has a devaluing effect on anything that doesn’t fall within its constraints.

Ben Wrote: What so much of the current top 40 represents is not an expansion of the tradition, or an evolution in the tradition, because it’s reference point isn’t the tradition to begin with.

Says who?

Ben Wrote: Tradition (whether it be religious, musical, cultural) exists in a constant state of reception and transmission. One receives the tradition, and understands it, and then transmits it to the next generation, who in turn receives it themselves.

Now, coming to Lady Antebellum and the other groups in question (Rascal Flatts, Sugarland, I’ll throw in Little Big Town for good measure), the fundamental problem with them, is that judging from their transmission (their music) we have no indication whatsoever that they received the country music tradition.

There are a lot of points to argue over here, but the one I would go back to is this:

As a country music community, I think we lose when we try to define “country music” by primarily sonic criteria. That DOES lock us into a very narrow (and artificial) framework, and it will serve to marginalize our broader genre.

A much better definition of the “tradition,” in my opinion, is based on where the music comes from and what its function is.

There are certain threads that tie together all of the artists which you have previously mentioned, but very few of those threads are musical, and the ones that do exist are weak.

When you listen to the lyrics on Lady A’s record, you hear something that does not exist in pop. It’s an approach to story telling, a relationship to a certain audience, an outlook, so many things that are strongly in line with the so-called “tradition.”

Ben Wrote Saying that an artist is “not traditional country, but still country” is absurd. If they aren’t traditional, that is to say, if their starting point isn’t some aspect of the country music tradition, then how can they be called country?

As long as you insist on defining country music by primarily how a record “sounds,” while using past records as a reference point, you’re going to be locked into the logical problem of explaining exactly where the “tradition” begins, where it ends, and why some parts of it are more valuable than others.

Ben Wrote: The answer “well, they are played on ‘country’ radio, they sell cd’s in the ‘country’ aisle, so despite the fact that musically they are much more identifiable with 70’s/80’s soft rock than with anything from the country tradition…

Yeah, does Waylon Jennings sound ANYTHING like Jimmie Rodgers to you? And by your covers standard, is Norah Jones country because she convincingly covers Cash and Kris?

Ben Wrote: I don’t have a narrow view of what is or isn’t country music. To be country music, all I ask is that the music resembles, in some way, what has been called country music.

So where does country music end, Ben? That, again, is your problem here.

But it’s an arbitrary classification that facilitates a social function. I mean, a similar argument to the one you’re making is the argument that gender is an arbitrary classification.

Technically, gender doesn’t exist. It is not defined by sex but by a role within a culture.

Technically, “country music” doesn’t exist. It cannot be defined solely by its parts, just as a person with male genitalia cannot necessarily be defined as a “man”.

Anyway, the point is that we all have a gender. and even if we were to try to reject the concept of gender, the culture would force a label upon us. It’s the same with genres. Every song must have a genre because that is how we perceive music. Without that system of order the musical universe no longer makes sense to us.

Brady Wrote: That statement seems to ignore the existence of focus groups and the fact that labels are corporations that must turn a profit. If the focus groups and marketing data says the money is in slicked up pop, then what’s to keep country and pop from becoming one and the same?

What focus groups can do is narrow down the field of potential artists based on the demands of the market. That’s all.

Bray Wrote: If an artist in another genre sees that country music is the most profitable, why not crossover and bring their sound with them and call themselves country?

It will not work. You will get intermittent success. Max.

Brady Wrote: There are plenty of singers greedy for fame who will deliver whatever the record labels, and in turn, the target demographic, want. Is that organic? Perhaps in a business sense, but not in an artistic sense.

But that doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t work. Kid Rock has been trying to get played on country radio for three or four years. There are countless examples.

I guarantee you that no one at Mercury sat down with Sugarland and said, “hey, you should make a record that sounds like Juice Newton meets R.E.M..” If you go back and listen to Jennifer Nettle’s pre-Sugarland work, it’s LESS country than the first two albums.

Jason Aldean (example) is a product of the music environment he grew up in. Has he been influenced by his label? Of course. But you don’t get a horse from a chicken egg.

perhaps the most satisfying response there is.

But the artists who are simply producing pop music tend to not become a part of the tradition, by which I mean the essence of country music that is transmitted from one time to the next to ensure that the tradition is both active and informed.

For example, Olivia Newton John sold bunches of records and was even named female country vocalist of the year, and yet by and large everyone agrees that what she was doing doesn’t need to be passed down, revisited, or become an essential part of the country music tradition.

With that being said, if anyone is doing any straw-manning here Jim Malec, it is your sir.

We can’t, on one hand, complain about the state of country music, while, on the other, we dismiss it altogether
To just say, “that’s not country” is to define the term within a very narrow framework, and based on an arbitrary reference point.
we should be working to bring together these elements of the broader country music genre, not fragment them by splitting off into groups that think the genre is absolutely one way or absolutely another

I certainly did not, and didn’t hear or read anybody else, try to pigeonhole country music into any sort of narrow framework, let alone a very narrow framework. I didn’t hear anybody dismiss all the country music that is being created, purchased, or enjoyed in concert today. I didn’t hear anybody claim that country music is absolutely “one way”

Traditional country music, or as I like to call it “actual country music” is an incredibly diverse genre. Any genre that can hold Jimmie Rodgers’ yodeling tunes, Hank Sr’s country-blues, Bob Wills’ Western swing, Johnny Cash’s rockabilly, Buck Owens’ hard honky-tonk, Patsy Cline’s slick crooning, Willie Nelson’s jazz inspired pop-country laments, Kris Kristofferson’s uptown hippie country, George Jones’ nashville ballads, Johnny Paycheck’s barroom honky tonk, Gram Parson’s country rock, Waylon’s Texas country, Willie’s Red Headed Stranger album, Dwight Yoakam’s new traditionalism, Steve Earles’s country roots-rock, and Lyle Lovett’s big band country is already massively diverse.

What so much of the current top 40 represents is not an expansion of the tradition, or an evolution in the tradition, because it’s reference point isn’t the tradition to begin with.

Tradition (whether it be religious, musical, cultural) exists in a constant state of reception and transmission. One receives the tradition, and understands it, and then transmits it to the next generation, who in turn receives it themselves.

The tradition doesn’t remain static, as it’s principles are applied to the issues facing the generation at the time. In country music, the transmission would reflect trends, attitudes, and issues that are facing the people (it must after all, otherwise the tradition would be meaningless, irrelevant, anachronistic)

Now, coming to Lady Antebellum and the other groups in question (Rascal Flatts, Sugarland, I’ll throw in Little Big Town for good measure), the fundamental problem with them, is that judging from their transmission (their music) we have no indication whatsoever that they received the country music tradition.

Sugarland for instance, is trying to make a record that sounds like “Juice Newton to Rod Stewart to R.E.M.” by their own admission!

How, and more importantly why, should we call them country when they are blatantly ignoring the country music tradition?

Now I anticipate a response from you, we need to protect country music’s future by refusing to cede it to the corporate interests, which seems to mean that we must automatically extend recognition of country music status to every album that one finds in Wal-Mart’s country music aisle.

But when all is said and done, just because something sells well to the country audience, doesn’t make it country, as the Olivia Newton John example illustrates, after all, she is no longer being transmitted of received while contemporaries such as Willie and Waylon are still going strong.

Saying that an artist is “not traditional country, but still country” is absurd. If they aren’t traditional, that is to say, if their starting point isn’t some aspect of the country music tradition, then how can they be called country? They haven’t taken in what country was, they are unreconizable as country to the tradition itself, how is it that the entire tradition can be pushed aside in order to bestow the title of “country” on Sugarland or Lady Antebellum?

The answer “well, they are played on ‘country’ radio, they sell cd’s in the ‘country’ aisle, so despite the fact that musically they are much more identifiable with 70’s/80’s soft rock than with anything from the country tradition, they must be country” ignores the fact that the large corporate interests do in fact control radio, retail, and the major labels, and they are completely willing to push country music to the center to capitalize on an audience that has been left behind by a pop-music that has become incresingly hip-hop oriented, and a rock music that has become increasinly dissonant.

I don’t have a narrow view of what is or isn’t country music. To be country music, all I ask is that the music resembles, in some way, what has been called country music.

Waylon met that standard, and his convincing covers of Bob Wills’ tunes, Jimmie Rodgers tunes, and Hank Sr’s tunes illustrate that.

When an artist blatantly and flagrantly does not meet that standard, I don’t see any reason to call them country no matter when the partnership of Sony, Viacom, Clear Channel, and Wal-Mart want.

p.s. - also, it’s not as if we must only consider what is represented on Top 40 country radio when appraising country music’s state at present. There are bunches of artists that are making new country music that illustrates a reception of the tradition, as well as an artistic expression/transmission of it. These artists are not given national ad campaigns, but that shouldn’t preclude them from consideration in this conversation.

I understand what you’re getting at, though, and it’d probably be better pictured as one big circle called “Music” and a bunch of concentric circles representing the genres, each with loosely definable properties.

A musical composition can not NOT have a genre, any more than a human being cannot occupy a portion of space. It’s impossible.

Why isn’t it possible for a musical composition to not have a genre? It’s an arbitrary classification, not natural law. All the genres we have today didn’t exist before 1900. As the circles that define country, pop, and rock overlap more and more, how are we going to continue to define the music? The boundaries are going to blur until genres are synonmyous with each other.

I believe that music evolves organically, partially to meet the needs and demands of society (which, in turn, will translate to commercial viability).

That statement seems to ignore the existence of focus groups and the fact that labels are corporations that must turn a profit. If the focus groups and marketing data says the money is in slicked up pop, then what’s to keep country and pop from becoming one and the same? If an artist in another genre sees that country music is the most profitable, why not crossover and bring their sound with them and call themselves country? There are plenty of singers greedy for fame who will deliver whatever the record labels, and in turn, the target demographic, want. Is that organic? Perhaps in a business sense, but not in an artistic sense.