From the people who brought you "Truck Yeah" and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" here is their latest masterpiece. I think in order to move forward you have to accept how far back you really are. How are people going to think of country as anything other than a joke when they see stuff like this on TV? Laura Bell Bundy recently switched to Big Machine records. Big Machine is home to Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, and Rascal Flatts. Branches of Big Machine Records like Valory Music and Republic Nashville are in charge of wannabe outlaws Justin Moore and Brantley Gilbert, as well as the ultimate douchenuggets Florida Georgia Line. Needless to say Big Machine is a death trap. They market image so much that any ounce of originality you have is stripped down until you are just a tiny puppet who does exactly what they tell you to.
Laura Bell Bundy only had one other song that did somewhat decent. It was "Giddy On Up" back in 2010. This song is literally its ugly cousin. By looking at this picture from the video I'm sure you can tell you got a honky tonkin', air-humpin', fist-bumpin' good time going on. Her broadway background is dominant in all of her music videos. They look like they are a cross between dance instruction videos and bad plays in a church basement, but videos aside, it's the music that really bothers me. "Giddy On Up" isn't a song I would ever choose to listen to, but I wouldn't write a full length rant about it either. In addition to fiddles and banjos being played throughout the song, it actually has a direction, unlike "Two Step." It's about a woman confronting her cheating "cowboy" husband. The song and video actually do have many themes that try to be country. Fast forward three years and boy what a difference. Unlike "Giddy On Up," "Two Step" barely even tries to be country song except for faint country instruments in the background. Lyrically the song is near pointless, just a bad attempt to get mainstream attention. The beginning sounds like a typical women empowerment song. "I'm gonna wear what I want to cause I want to I don't need no man. I'm gonna drink what I want to cause I want to just because I can. Gonna spend my money cause it's mine, down on SoCo and lime. Cause it's girls' night out." The video of course starts off with a bunch of Rosie the Riveter type girls working in a factory like they just stepped out of World War II. They are so done with their jobs so they pull out their flasks, start drinking, and get all glamed up to go down dancing at some trashy Redneck Hip Hop club apparently. The chorus is just ridiculous "I'm gonna do my two step, do my, do my two step tonight. I'm doing my two step, watch where you step put you two steps behind. Hard to get but you want me ride that donkey straight to the back of the line. Gonna do my two step, do my, do my two step." Then she goes in to explain how to do this so called "Two Step" dance she sings about. "Slide, slide slide, two steps." "Grind, grind, grind, switch" Really? Do I really want to know how to do a dance when I hear a song on the radio. She left broadway behind to pursue a career in country music. If she really wanted to do that she should stop making all of her songs into little musicals. Knowing Big Machine they will market the hell out of this like they do everything else. I don't think people are going to get up and start dancing in their car or while they are sitting watching the video on their couch. The main outlet for this would be for people wanting fun dance songs for their "Country Themed" party or bar. This song goes to radio August 5th. The question is will the general population of mainstream country fans care about some trashy dance song enough to want to hear it on the radio? Knowing some stuff I hear I wouldn't be surprised if they did, but that's not even the worst part.
Country rap! I hate seeing those two words together more so then any other two words in the world. Colt Ford is perhaps to blame for the mainstream success of country rap. He wrote "Dirt Road Anthem" a few years ago which was covered by Jason Aldean. Since that song in 2010 rap made it's way through the crevices of mainstream country music. Too many male country artists feel like they need to produce some sort of rap in their songs these days. It's never meaningful rap either. I don't like regular rap music at all but I could at least respect it if it has some sort of meaning. Like mainstream rap rapping about naked ladies and money, all mainstream country rap just talks about back roads, trucks, beer, and all that other stuff you need to "be country." Country rap has gotten so bad it probably actually removes brain cells as you listen. The only other thing that these new "rappers" rap about is hot girls. Which leads me into Colt Ford's little cameo in "Two Step."
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Woaaah! No woman has ever showed me one of these before!
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Laura Bell sings "I'm gonna rock my cowboy hat and pink stilettos. We're gonna stomp and kick until they make us all go home. You wanna see if a little country girl can get down, let me show you how." Then she is magically transported into ghettoville with spray painted walls, sideways flat bill hats, and booty shorts. This is all still country though of course because Colt Ford is wearing a cowboy hat. He raps "Hey little lady maybe you and me could possibly get together for a shot of Jack D and take a little spinner by the dance floor, tell me do you want more? All you gotta do is just say so. I can line dance, baby I can buck dance. Take you down a dirt road, back of a truck dance." (umm no thanks) Of course even though it's a hitting up a woman at a bar song they still have to mention a truck and a dirt road somehow. So much for this being a "I'm a strong woman and I don't need no man" song.
Really country music? Really! Have you really stooped down this low. Besides the fact that I personally don't want to see a bunch of half naked women on my TV, I don't think it's appropriate for the new younger country fanbase. Compared to mainstream pop, mainstream country used to be fairly innocent. Mama's would be okay with their kids watching country music videos because there wasn't any nudity or other "naughty things" frequently found in mainstream rap or pop. Today there are no filters for what they show on TV. Things like this are just "The Norm" for country today. Now don't get me wrong I don't mind bad language or themes in a song if the purpose is to accurately convey the emotion the writer was feeling. I feel like some people dumb down their music because they are worried other people will be offended. I'd prefer artists to write what they really feel and not care about radio play. Mainstream music has a problem with people saying "bad words," but they have no problem showing half naked ladies in their videos, makes sense right? It all is such cheap marketing that has nothing to do with the music. Am I gonna watch this? No! Will a teenage boy sit and watch this whole video? Oh yeah! Songs like these just really get me angry. Country used to be a more mature respected genre. Now since so many other influences from other genres are muddled into country, there is no way to tell what country is anymore.
Rating: D-
(only D- because unfortunately somehow there are worse things.)
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