How to Save Country Music by Putting a Stake Through the Heart of Bro-Country
First of all, yeah, I get it. I'm old. You kids get off my damn lawn blah-blah-blah. Tastes are subjective and everyone likes different things and I know I am not the age group being targeted by today's musicians of any genre.
Now that that is out of the way, I'm going to tell the world how to fix country music. I'm not advocating getting back to the Outlaw Movement, or resurrecting the New Country movement of the Nineties. I realize each era of music has its own style and quirks and while nostalgia is the cash cow to milk right now, aping something that has already come and gone is not the way to make country music stop sucking udders.
No, what I'm proposing will help country music find another groove, one that's less hey my girlfriend's hot and ain't Spring Break awesome?!? and more well, anything else really. Because oh my God am I sick of what it's doing now. Guys, we get it. You are all about the drinking and the bro-ing and the Spring-Breaking and you are dating the bangingest chicks in the world. But ten years of this is more than enough. Only the Beach Boys have a longer record of singing about stuff like this, and can you name any other song besides Kokomo that they've made in the last 40 years? Country music couldn't be more repetitive right now if you put the same song on repeat and let it play for however long it takes to make you Hulk-smash your iPhone. Every new single either sounds the same as the last twenty before it, or is about the same thing as the last twenty before it.
So I'm going to propose a list of things country music isn't allowed to sing about until it develops other interests and becomes a more well-rounded genre of music. It doesn't have to be divorce and dead dogs and broken down old pickup trucks, but it's old enough to have more going on with it than what it's doing right now.
On with the list.
1.) A moratorium on the subject of Spring Break.
I get it. It's awesome. It's the most wonderful time of the year for Bros. It's one week in a person's life maybe and, let's be real, you don't even remember most of it. Get some new life experiences. Don't peak when your 19. We already have a song for that. It's called Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen and it pretty much sums up the subject. You're not going to say it better than the Boss.
2.) The descriptions long blond hair, big blue eyes, and long tan legs.
Either bros have to take an oath to never bang anything that doesn't fit this checklist, or the same dude is writing every song that comes out of Nashville these days. Guys, we get it. Your girlfriend's hot. You don't date ugly chicks. Fine, whatever floats your boat. But this has been so overdone and we don't care. Personally, I'm not sleeping with this girl, so I don't care what she looks like.
3.) Name dropping major old school Nashville singers.
Don't get me wrong, Johnny Cash made some clunkers in his day, but your music has about as much to do with Johnny Cash (Waylon Jennings, whoever else) as I do with Baywatch era Pamela Anderson. It's pop-country disposable fluff, not God's Gonna Cut You Down. And there's nothing wrong with that, but jeez, you're only embarrassing yourself by pretending it is.
4.) Drinking
Okay, so I'll give you this one. You're continuing the fine old tradition of pickling your liver for your craft. Carry on.
5.) Telling us how country you are.
Stop. Just stop. If you have to tell me you're the most countriest, redneckest, red-dirt kickingest son of a bitch that ever lived, you aren't. Willie Nelson would roll you and smoke you and complain that you didn't have enough good stuff to make burning the match to light you with worth his time.
6.) Trucks
Okay, again, this is a country music staple, but where I see you going wrong is how you describe everything down to the lift kit and the bull bars on the front. It's like your girlfriend. I don't need to know her cup size and her natural hair color. Stop giving me all the stats on your truck. I don't care. Trust me, you can just say Ford, Chevy, Dodge. No one is going to think you're talking about some foreign truck.
Now that we've hammered out the big ideas, here's a list of 20 words and phrases that need to take a sabbatical because of overuse. Seriously, guys, these words are so tired. Let them go off and spend some time with their families. The English language is full of so many wonderful words you could be using right now. Hell, go steal some from another language if you have to. That's how the English language got started anyway.
Don't Let the Backdoor Hit Ya Where the Good Lord Split Ya!
1.) long blond hair
2.) big blue eyes
3.) long tan legs
4.) summer
5.) drinking
6.) tequila
7.) Johnny Cash
8.) Waylon Jennings
9.) hardcore
10.) countrified
11.) girl (seriously, stop dating teenagers. Some of you guys are in your 40's)
12.) redneck
13.) round here
14.) shake it (shaking it, shake that thing, just stop it she's going to get motion sickness and puke)
15.) cut-off jeans
16.) party
17.) whiskey
18.) Friday night
19.) hot
20.) white guy rapping (You're bad at it. Like really, really bad. I'd swat you on the nose with a newspaper and tell you to think about what you just did if I could.)
So that's my old-lady gripe about these kids today and their damn music. Again, I don't hate country music.
I just hate most of it. :)
Now that that is out of the way, I'm going to tell the world how to fix country music. I'm not advocating getting back to the Outlaw Movement, or resurrecting the New Country movement of the Nineties. I realize each era of music has its own style and quirks and while nostalgia is the cash cow to milk right now, aping something that has already come and gone is not the way to make country music stop sucking udders.
No, what I'm proposing will help country music find another groove, one that's less hey my girlfriend's hot and ain't Spring Break awesome?!? and more well, anything else really. Because oh my God am I sick of what it's doing now. Guys, we get it. You are all about the drinking and the bro-ing and the Spring-Breaking and you are dating the bangingest chicks in the world. But ten years of this is more than enough. Only the Beach Boys have a longer record of singing about stuff like this, and can you name any other song besides Kokomo that they've made in the last 40 years? Country music couldn't be more repetitive right now if you put the same song on repeat and let it play for however long it takes to make you Hulk-smash your iPhone. Every new single either sounds the same as the last twenty before it, or is about the same thing as the last twenty before it.
So I'm going to propose a list of things country music isn't allowed to sing about until it develops other interests and becomes a more well-rounded genre of music. It doesn't have to be divorce and dead dogs and broken down old pickup trucks, but it's old enough to have more going on with it than what it's doing right now.
On with the list.
1.) A moratorium on the subject of Spring Break.
I get it. It's awesome. It's the most wonderful time of the year for Bros. It's one week in a person's life maybe and, let's be real, you don't even remember most of it. Get some new life experiences. Don't peak when your 19. We already have a song for that. It's called Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen and it pretty much sums up the subject. You're not going to say it better than the Boss.
2.) The descriptions long blond hair, big blue eyes, and long tan legs.
Either bros have to take an oath to never bang anything that doesn't fit this checklist, or the same dude is writing every song that comes out of Nashville these days. Guys, we get it. Your girlfriend's hot. You don't date ugly chicks. Fine, whatever floats your boat. But this has been so overdone and we don't care. Personally, I'm not sleeping with this girl, so I don't care what she looks like.
3.) Name dropping major old school Nashville singers.
Don't get me wrong, Johnny Cash made some clunkers in his day, but your music has about as much to do with Johnny Cash (Waylon Jennings, whoever else) as I do with Baywatch era Pamela Anderson. It's pop-country disposable fluff, not God's Gonna Cut You Down. And there's nothing wrong with that, but jeez, you're only embarrassing yourself by pretending it is.
4.) Drinking
Okay, so I'll give you this one. You're continuing the fine old tradition of pickling your liver for your craft. Carry on.
5.) Telling us how country you are.
Stop. Just stop. If you have to tell me you're the most countriest, redneckest, red-dirt kickingest son of a bitch that ever lived, you aren't. Willie Nelson would roll you and smoke you and complain that you didn't have enough good stuff to make burning the match to light you with worth his time.
6.) Trucks
Okay, again, this is a country music staple, but where I see you going wrong is how you describe everything down to the lift kit and the bull bars on the front. It's like your girlfriend. I don't need to know her cup size and her natural hair color. Stop giving me all the stats on your truck. I don't care. Trust me, you can just say Ford, Chevy, Dodge. No one is going to think you're talking about some foreign truck.
Now that we've hammered out the big ideas, here's a list of 20 words and phrases that need to take a sabbatical because of overuse. Seriously, guys, these words are so tired. Let them go off and spend some time with their families. The English language is full of so many wonderful words you could be using right now. Hell, go steal some from another language if you have to. That's how the English language got started anyway.
Don't Let the Backdoor Hit Ya Where the Good Lord Split Ya!
1.) long blond hair
2.) big blue eyes
3.) long tan legs
4.) summer
5.) drinking
6.) tequila
7.) Johnny Cash
8.) Waylon Jennings
9.) hardcore
10.) countrified
11.) girl (seriously, stop dating teenagers. Some of you guys are in your 40's)
12.) redneck
13.) round here
14.) shake it (shaking it, shake that thing, just stop it she's going to get motion sickness and puke)
15.) cut-off jeans
16.) party
17.) whiskey
18.) Friday night
19.) hot
20.) white guy rapping (You're bad at it. Like really, really bad. I'd swat you on the nose with a newspaper and tell you to think about what you just did if I could.)
So that's my old-lady gripe about these kids today and their damn music. Again, I don't hate country music.
I just hate most of it. :)