Kellie Pickler Hurt By Radio Intern’s False Accusations

Hey man, don’t knock it ’til you try it.

In my mind, there are three seperate genres: country, western, and country-western. None of them is well-represented on country radio today, though country is definitely the most prevalent. I don’t think there was ever a time when country-western was the dominant genre on country radio, so I think that Country Mike’s post is premised on a misperception.

Hollern’ Ben:

I’ll provide you with a modern day and an historical example for each of the three genres. Country music represents most of the songs that are played on country radio, hence the name. In the modern day, this is every album that Alan Jackson has recorded except for the last two. Historically there are far too many to list, including most of the artists we think of as legends, George Jones, etc.

Western is currently played by only a few artists of any prominence. Riders in the Sky is the best current example that I can think of. Historically you have acts like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Tex Ritter.

Country-western is somewhere in between the two, kind of like we say country-gospel or country-bluegrass. Country Mike correctly stated that George Strait recorded many country-western songs in his early years; among his more recent material, “The Seashores of Old Mexico” would perhaps fit in this genre. Historically, I think that the best example is Marty Robbins, though he’s probably at the western end of country-western.

With the exception of rockabilly and possibly roots (really a retroactive designation), country, western, and country-western are much more identifiable genres than any of the labels that you mentioned. Alt-country and country-rock are primarily just whitewash labels invented to pilfer fans from one genre or the other. Cow-punk and psychobilly don’t have enough practitioners to bear mentioning, and in my opinion, “bad music” is a more appropriate label for those sub-sub-genres.

well historically “country rock” wasn’t really a generic term, but was used to described bands like The Byrds (sweethearts of the rodeo and beyond), The Flying Burrito Brothers and the Gram Parsons solo stuff, Poco, Commander Cody, and so on that combined country with real rock and roll (read: not just uptempo, guitar driven pop ala Garth, who I happen to like).

Naturally when I say Rock and Roll, I mean the Rock and Roll of the 50’s of 60’s, or Rock and roll that actually sounds like American roots music as opposed to like Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin or Poison or Pearl Jam or Slayer who all may “rock” but who don’t play classic “rock and roll” music.

Baron

I couldn’t agree with you more on the Americana label. Americana seems to most peolpe to be code for inaccesible music that isn’t relevant (which of course its not, the Americana chart is full of really rad people).

I also completely agree that we can’t relinquish the term “country” to the pop country coming out today. Its not as if this situation is without precedent, in the early 70’s you had people like Olivia Newton John and John Denver dominating the charts and award shows, but of course Willie and Waylon didn’t throw their hands up and abandon ship (though nowadays it seems like Willie has taken an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach)

As far as the hyphen question goes, though it would be helpful, I think its unneccesary. Country has always been able to accomadate diversity. Hank, Buck, Willie and Cash present a pretty broad range of sounds and would require quite a bit of hyphens to properly label them, but country works just fine.

Country music is not like “pop” or even “rock and roll” fundamentally in that even though like those genres it is based around a popular music industry, unlike those genres country music is a form of “folk” music, or music that emphasizes tradition. To abandon the term “country” music would be to close the book on a great musical tradition and relegate true american country music to something of a musuem piece, interesting and worthwhile, but not alive, present, and working in peoples lives today.

Jim: Acts like Wilco pretty much take the country out of Alt-country, which was my point in the first place.

Baron: You mean most of what’s being produced in mainstream country, or most of what’s being produced, including rap and hip-hop garbage? If the latter, I agree with you. However, that’s not exactly a strong endorsement of cow-punk.

Keith Urban’s Everybody is a #1 song. It is not only relatable, the way he delivers it, it finds its way into your heart. He brings this song alive in a beautiful way and makes the listener believe he is actually there for them.