A Cowboy Hat Don't Make You Country

36, Day 103 (Written Saturday March 24) ~ I hate country music. However, it hasn't always been this way. In fact, maybe I should correct that statement. I love country music, real country music, but what is played on country radio today isn't country music, and I hate that. I could count on one hand and have fingers left over, the acts in country music that are actually country. I've known for a long time that I hate modern country music, but I didn't put it all together until earlier this week when I spent an afternoon in Nashville (on Broadway) and toured the Ryman. Every other person I encountered was a tourist who had obviously just bought a brand new pair of boots and a nice, big, new cowboy hat. They wanted to look the part of Nashville. I've got no problem with that, but standing backstage, in the dressing rooms and onstage at the Ryman, contemplating the history of country music, it dawned on me that most of today's country music performers are tourists. Posers in cowboy hats and boots singing pop music.
I'm not going to go through a long list of artists and songs that illustrate what I mean, but I will cite one example of what's wrong with country and one artist who embodies what I'm talking about. The majority of songs on country radio today are caricatures of southern life. From listening to country radio you would think that all we do in the south is spend the day fencing and plowing, then head down by the river to knock back some cold ones, watch the farmers daughter dance on the hood of a pickup in cut offs and a tied up shirt, before getting in a fight. Rinse. Repeat. I'm not going to say those things don't ever happen down here, but to hear country music you would think this is what life in the south is like. It's not.
When I think of real country, I think of old country. The songs weren't steeped in fantasy, but based in reality. Patsy Cline, George Jones, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, wrote songs that they had lived. Admittedly, the content of the songs wasn't always positive, but it was always real. I can't relate to the lyrics of country songs today because they are a stereotypical, fantasy version of life that isn't reality. I know the people being sung about in those old country songs. I worked with them, I'm related to them, and in some cases, I am them. That's what makes a good country song, something I can relate to and feel.
There are a few modern country singers/songs that I think fit the mold of old country. Although I don't endorse the message of all of these songs, they affect you emotionally because of their realism. They have the ability to break your heart, even if you haven't personally experienced them. Gretchen Wilson's "When I Think About Cheating" (I just think about you leaving) is old school country at its best. Lee Ann Womack's "I May Hate Myself In The Morning" reminds me of a number of sad people who keep looking for love in all the wrong places. Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss singing "Whiskey Lullaby" breaks my heart every time I hear it. It very well may be the most old country song of the new country era.
Let me close with this. Taylor Swift is not country. They may play her on country radio and sell her albums in the country section, but she ain't country. I didn't say she isn't talented. I think she's a great songwriter, a decent performer, and average (at best) singer, but she is brilliantly marketed. She is promoted as the all American girl next door. Sweet and innocent. She could never successfully compete with the provocative pop princesses like Britny, Christina, Katy, Ga Ga and Rhianna, so her handlers put her in cowboy boots and promoted her as country, but at the end of the day she is pop because a cowboy hat don't make you country.