I abandoned radio country music a long time ago, nearly twenty years ago now. It’s hard to pin down an exact date, but in hindsight the drift started as early as 2000. In the moment the shift was subtle, kind of a drip-drip-drip that lasted several years before the dam finally burst in 2007. Nothing big happened in 2007, but that was the year that I just stopped relating to the music that was on country music radio.
The warning signs were there as early as the ascension of Garth Brooks and Shania Twain in the 90’s. The warning light grew brighter with the ever increasingly profane patriotism songs that followed 9/11. There is a chasm of character difference between the faith, love, and community message of Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning” and Toby Keith’s jingoistic patriot porn violence fantasy, “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue”. Within two years, the biggest act in country music (The Dixie Chicks) was removed from the radio for having the audacity to exercise the most patriotic right of all — free speech (I thought we — conservatives — were against “Cancel Culture”?). It’s as if Y2K country music radio fans didn’t grow up on Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Merle Haggard — men who were proudly patriotic and publicly, vocally critical of their country when it wasn’t living out the values it was founded upon.
The next wave to wash over country music was the rising tide of Caribbean country. If you’ve read anything I’ve written before you likely know I am a lifelong Parrothead, which creates a cognitive dissonance in me when it comes to this era of country music. In the wake of the massively successful “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” — featuring Jimmy Buffett — a steady stream of beach music took over the airwaves and opened the door for more salt air and sand crossovers (Kenny Chesney/Uncle Kracker). Soon after came the beginning of the “Hick Hop” era (which has only grown) as artists like Big & Rich mixed country with rock and hip hop and had Cowboy Troy rap on their songs. The financial success of these crossover endeavors gave rise to other broader marketing approaches like American Idol country artists and artists from other genres “going country” — to borrow from Alan Jackson. By this stage the Cash was out of the studio, but the cash was filling the bags. And then came the vulgar caricature of Southern life that is “Bro Country”. I don’t have enough words to plumb the depths of how much I hate what they did to country music. I feel like Vito Corleone in The Godfather, “Look how they massacred my boy!” The bro-country that has dominated country airwaves for nearly two decades is an abomination as far as I’m concerned. You may not agree — and that’s fine — just remember, if you’re reading this you’re standing on my front lawn, so don’t be surprised when the grumpy old man on the porch starts ranting.
By 2012, it was more than I didn’t relate, I was fully repulsed. Fourteen years ago I wrote this https:// brandonbritton.blogspot.com/2012/03/cowboy-hat-dont-make-you-country.html and though I was clearly wrong that Taylor Swift couldn’t compete with Britney, Christian, GaGa, Rihanna, et al, I still stand by what I wrote. Six years later I wrote my first foray into satire as I tried to laugh through the tears of witnessing the death of country music https://brandonbritton.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-garth-brooks-concerts-shania-twain.html Now, eight years since this last venture into the subject, I find myself compelled to revisit this old subject in the form of a remastered reissue of the subject, but if you stick around to the end of the album you will find I actually have a serious point to make.
I’m not “done” with country music, I just can’t find it on the radio anymore. I have found quite a bit of sorta country music that I love, though most of it gets labeled Outlaw Country or Roots Music or Americana — think Jason Isbell, Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, Adeem the Artist. I’ll leave it to the experts to decide if these are country artists or not. All I know is they sound more like the country I used to love than the country I’ve grown to loathe, and they tell stories that I can relate to.
All of this brings me to Charlie Crockett. Full disclosure, if I’ve ever listened to a Charlie Crockett song I don’t know it, though I am going to check him out simply because of his recent comments following the Grammy’s. “When I was at the Grammys the other night I saw a guy get up and talk about Jesus, and then I saw Bad Bunny get up there and talk like Jesus.” I don’t know if he meant that as a shot at Jelly Roll and his speech or not — you’ll have to ask him. I didn’t hear it that way myself. What I heard was more a shot at those who celebrated what Jelly Roll said, but were disgusted by Bad Bunny.
Before I go any further, I could’t name you a single song by either one of these artists. I’m sure I’ve heard some of their music, but I didn’t realize it when I did. Jelly Roll seems to have been in a bad way for a long time and seems to be trying to be a different person today and I hope he succeeds and follows wherever Jesus leads, but I know where Jesus will lead anyone who follows Him is to the place that Bad Bunny spoke of in his speech. What did Bad Bunny say?
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he said in English, before an impassioned call to remember that hatred will only breed more hate. “The only thing that's more powerful than hate is love,” he said. “So, please, we need to be different. If we fight, we have to do it with love. We don’t hate them. We love our people. We love our family and there's a way to do it, with love, and don't forget that.”
I don’t have social media, but I am surrounded by media in general, and a lot of people who have social media, and I can tell you that I saw plenty of references from Christians to what Jelly Roll had to say — praising it, supporting it, echoing it — but not a single one of those same Christians had a positive word to say about Bad Bunny’s speech — in fact, many were critical because he was critical of ICE. I wonder why? What he said directly echoed what Jesus said.
Hate only breeds more hate.
Love is more powerful than hate.
We have to be different.
We have to fight hate with love.
We don’t hate those who hate us.
This isn’t an endorsement of Bad Bunny, but an endorsement of what he said in his acceptance speech. I do not understand much of what he says in the song clips I’ve heard because I don’t speak his language, so I can’t really speak to his lyrics, but I can speak to his message on that particular night. One man spoke about Jesus and another spoke like Jesus. One man was celebrated by people who look like me and one man was criticized by people who look like me. It’s odd to witness this, because the man celebrated by “my kind” is covered in tattoos, including a cross tattoo on his face (I remember a time not too long ago when I listened to sermons strongly suggesting it was a sin to get a tattoo). But that’s what so many of the leading voices in the Christian world seem to be doing — figuratively tattooing a cross to their face as if to say “look at me, I’m a Christian” while completely disregarding almost everything Jesus ever said related to current events. They remind me of a modern day equivalent to the Pharisees with their broad phylacteries, blowing their trumpets and shouting their prayers in the public square while Jesus rebuked them as hypocrites. They have their reward.
Listening to a lot of “Christian leaders” (and Christians in general), especially the ones who are the most chronically online, I’m not hearing a lot that I can relate to anymore. I’m not hearing much Jesus in their message and it reminds me of how I started feeling when I turned on country radio twenty plus years ago. Their message is not like the ones I grew up with. I was raised to love my neighbor, but they speak about fearing anyone who doesn’t look or sound like “us” and to be suspicious of them and assume the worst about them. I was raised to welcome the stranger, but they champion denying them the right to due process under the law. I was raised to believe it was a blessing to suffer persecution for following Jesus, but they are ok with making causing others suffering now that they are in power. I was raised to be a peacemaker, but they gleefully endorse violence in the name of “security”. They prefer a Jesus with a gun in His hand instead of a nail. They want a Jesus wearing a MAGA hat instead of a crown of thorns. This list could go on and on but I don’t want to sound like a broken record. The bottom line is their message is a vulgar caricature of Jesus, scraped together from bits and pieces of scriptures out of context from across the bible to build a faith that looks more like Frankenstein’s monster than the resurrected Christ.
I realize commenting on this today is “old news” by now, but I’m not really into hot takes. I go more for slow simmered statements. Before I speak, I prefer to stop and think, so forgive me if I’m 20 news cycles too late, but a cowboy hat don’t make you country and a cross necklace — or tattoo — don’t make you Christian.
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