The Killing Of Musical Culture, One Chord At A Time

This is an excerpt from a column I post periodically called the Friday Nite Sermon. It's kind of my take on the way a lot of things that I used to love or respect or believe in have changed into stuff that I either don't or can't anymore.
It's highly editorial, mercifully short and right to the point. You should be able to read it in less than 2 minutes. I will be publishing one of these every so often, because, well variety is the spice of life and if you have been following me at all, you know what I am about from a business perspective. This will help round out my profile a bit.
I Used To Believe In Country Music...But Things Have Changed.
I was raised on Hank Snow and Hank Williams and Buck Owens and Gene Autrey and The Sons of The Pioneers and Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette and Brenda Lee and Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. When I got older I loved Dwight Yoakam and The Judds and Sawyer Brown and Alan Jackson and Sammy Kershaw and George Strait and Patty Loveless, even Brooks & Dunn.
Then along came Garth Brooks and Shania Twain, and all of a sudden country music as I had come to know and love it seemed to fade away into the background and crossover became all the rage.
Crossover is kinda like somebody who doesn't know they are hetero or homosexual. It wasn't quite country enough to interest me, and yet it wasn't quite rock enough to interest me either.
The other thing that happened was that all of a sudden everybody was pretty. The guys all looked like Calvin Klein models as opposed to what they used to look like (although Alan Jackson is a pretty good lookin' dude). The girls all lacked that glimmer of roadhouse sluttiness and vocal urgency that made real country female singers so appealing. The new pretty people all had the same sort of voices, all sang the same kinds of songs and, to a real country music fan, all induced the same level of coma.
This was coincident with the rest of the music business going to hell in a hand basket, because except for very few people (Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, The Eagles, Robbie Robertson, Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen) the rock and pop world became pretty homogenized as well. But I love country music the most, so that's what hit me the hardest.
Today, there's very little that interests me about music in general. I do like what guys like Tim Thorney and John Legend are doing, but they have always been pretty much their own dogs. But the rest of it, you can have.
I know I sound like somebody who doesn't want to let go of the past. But then again, compared to the present, the past was pretty great. Too bad about country music though. I kinda miss it. Amen.

I am a communications professional, primarily a strategist & writer. I work with B to B clients, large and small, graphic designers, art directors and marketing consultants to create hard working strategically focused communications in all on & offline media. I am a prolific blogger who likes to provoke thought and wake up the comatose.

If you have a marketing or communications challenge you would like to discuss, (no obligation), there are three ways you can contact me
Direct Line: 416 463-3475
Email: onandup3@gmail.com
Skype: jimbobmur61

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All content copyright Jim Murray, Onwords & Upwords Inc 2016

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