Pop Country is all the same song

Egads.

http://digg.com/video/think-country-music-sounds-the-same-youre-absolutely-right

This is the stuff I have to sit through when Mrs Witchfinder makes me go to country shows with her.

Wow!  That's pretty amazing.

I actually don't find the music itself all that objectionable; I much prefer it to "twangy" traditional country.  But that mashup is pretty telling; it sure does all sound the same.

Modern Country music is basically poppy Southern Rock. It incorporates a huge helping of Hard Rock as well. When Rock music went in the crapper in the mid 90s Country labels/artists were wise enough to alter their sound to try and grab as many disaffected Rock fans as possible. It worked fantastically and hugely to their benefit. Traditional Country fans hate how much Rock is in Modern Country and complain about it to no end. Unfortunately for them, the formula is too successful to go back to the twang.

Yeah, I say that all the time.  A lot of the "modern country" I hear would have been called southern rock back in my day.  And being a big southern rock fan, I'm fine with that.  A lot of the modern country I hear reminds me of something .38 Special might have done.

tohostudios wrote:

Yeah, I say that all the time.  A lot of the "modern country" I hear would have been called southern rock back in my day.  And being a big southern rock fan, I'm fine with that.  A lot of the modern country I hear reminds me of something .38 Special might have done.

Exactly.

And since I never liked country OR southern rock I can continue happily ignoring all of it.

I saw this on another board yesterday evening. Pretty funny stuff.

I don't need a mash-up to tell me that. My wife listens to country radio in the car all the time. Most of the songs by female performers sound like Taylor Swift fronting Def Leppard, and the ones by guys sound like Nickelback with some added pedal-steel guitar and fiddle.

Fat Freddy wrote:

I don't need a mash-up to tell me that. My wife listens to country radio in the car all the time. Most of the songs by female performers sound like Taylor Swift fronting Def Leppard, and the ones by guys sound like Nickelback with some added pedal-steel guitar and fiddle.

That all works for me but I admit that after an hour or so of every song sounding alike (or at least "similar") I'd get tired of the station.

Witchfinder wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Yeah, I say that all the time.  A lot of the "modern country" I hear would have been called southern rock back in my day.  And being a big southern rock fan, I'm fine with that.  A lot of the modern country I hear reminds me of something .38 Special might have done.

Exactly.

To me it all sounds like the Blaze of Glory – Young Guns II Soundtrack.

That video is pretty illuminating. If somebody played that without me knowing that it was mashed together I would think it's just one song with different (possibly guest) vocalists. Amazing.

I'm an Outlaw Country fan, this new stuff mostly sucks though for some reason, I can handle Kenny Chesny

I got into country for something like six months mostly because I really liked a girl at the time (this was around 2001) who wanted a 'cowboy' for a boyfriend so I emulated that all I could. I figured, heck I live in the foothills so this shouldn't be too hard. I did enjoy the music--for six months. Seriously some of that writing back then was great in the semantics department and very memorable. But it seems they really ran out of ideas and now we get this.

I do still dig Garth Brooks and Chris Ledoux. As for the old guard, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard kick ass.

Witchfinder wrote:

Egads.

http://digg.com/video/think-country-music-sounds-the-same-youre-absolutely-right

This is the stuff I have to sit through when Mrs Witchfinder makes me go to country shows with her.

Isn't Mrs Witchfinder English? We really don't usually go in for this kind of nonsense!

Not a fan of modern country music..if its going to be country them break out those 70s outlaw albums..Waylon, Willie, Hank Jr. and Haggard...

Since this was brought up though Garth Brooks sold out 7 nights in a row here in Tulsa this week..each show is 17,800 people... So I guess his sound is alive and well...

Back in the early 90's, during the big boom of "young country" I was a part time/weekend DJ at a Rock/Top 40 Station. They made the switch over to country without telling any of us it was going to happen. I still had a job but had no clue about any of the music. One of the guys there told me "you'll get used to it... It slowly grows on you.... Like a fungus". He was right, at least at the time, I began to enjoy some of the tunes by Martina McBride (mainly because she was and is still hot), Wade Hayes, Terri Clark and some of the other "hat" acts. However I burned the candle at both ends and tired of it very quickly. During this time period country was set up like Top 40 radio and mainly stuck to the hits rotating them every couple of hours (and I don't know if they still do I no longer listen to the radio, any format). They started adding country versions of Casey's Top 40 (Crook & Chase, etc). Then I got a full time gig at a Classic Rock station and I got to where I absolutely HATED country music. Before then it was at least tolerable, but once I got out of the format and went to Rock I loathed it.

About all I can handle these days is The Good Ole Boys by Waylon, a few Eddie Rabbit tunes and that's it.

Boris2008 wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

Egads.

http://digg.com/video/think-country-music-sounds-the-same-youre-absolutely-right

This is the stuff I have to sit through when Mrs Witchfinder makes me go to country shows with her.

Isn't Mrs Witchfinder English? We really don't usually go in for this kind of nonsense!

She is. I think she's the only English person every to like Country. Baffling!

That is so funny yet so so sad...

Here is another video pertaining to modern pop-country you guys might find funny:

Wow, that was crazy scary, but hilarious. I wonder if you took the time, could you do that with other genres? I'm sure it's not exclusive to modern country.

My father told me for years that all that heavy metal sounds the same. Time to put that theory to the test.

I am listening to this now. Just puked some. Ok, time out. I am gonna smack my dog with a pot pie. He wagged his tail all over my blue jeans. Boom Boom.

Eh. Find the right songs and you can do this with any genre of music.

But popular country music is a manufactured industry. Writing these songs is a day job for a lot of people. They wake up every morning, head to the studio, and attempt to pen hit songs based on a proven formula.

Eyesore wrote:

Eh. Find the right songs and you can do this with any genre of music.

But popular country music is a manufactured industry. Writing these songs is a day job for a lot of people. They wake up every morning, head to the studio, and attempt to pen hit songs based on a proven formula.

Yes. The vast majority of Country artists use outside songwriters. I've always wondered why Metal bands don't do this more. I know Judas Priest and Halford used Bob Halligan Jr. infrequently, but I am drawing a blank on other artists that have done this.

Witchfinder wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

Eh. Find the right songs and you can do this with any genre of music.

But popular country music is a manufactured industry. Writing these songs is a day job for a lot of people. They wake up every morning, head to the studio, and attempt to pen hit songs based on a proven formula.

Yes. The vast majority of Country artists use outside songwriters.  I've always wondered why Metal bands don't do this more.  I know Judas Priest and Halford used Bob Halligan Jr. infrequently, but I am drawing a blank on other artists that have done this.

Bon Jovi has done it quite a bit. And he's done it for others as well. Def Leppard did it with X, which is why it pretty much sucked. A lot of bands on Frontiers Records have songs penned by other songwriters. Queensryche did, of course.

On the last two In This Moment albums they worked with Kevin Churko, which accounts for the very different music style on each. It's got a bit of that djent/dubstep shit going on. He also produced the upcoming Papa Roach album, which sadly has the same stylistic approach. Obviously going for a more modern, mainstream-friendly style. Sadly.

Alice Cooper has used outside songwriters quite a bit throughout his career.

Of course, you might be talking about straight up metal bands, which kind of makes this reply irrelevant. Haha.