Are Mainstream Country Stars Happy With The State Of Country Music?

When it comes to mainstream pop country, a question I always wonder is if the singers are really happy about the so called "evolution." I don't mean happy because it makes them a lot of money, I'm talking truly proud of the state of country music today. Many of them don't care about upsetting the traditionalists because they just want to make fun music that appeals to a large audience. That's fine up to a point, but you can't tell me some of these singers who claim they are hardcore country fans are actually proud of the fact that they cater to the needs of teenage girls instead of preserving the genre. This so called "fun music" is all that is on country radio. It's not exploring a variety of new sounds or some crap they call it because every song on the radio is the same thing written a million different ways. Some singers just take their paychecks and shut up about it, but recently these outspoken few have had enough rapping about trucks songs and said publicly what thousands of real country fans have been thinking for the past two decades.

Kacey Musgraves in American Songwriter:

"My voice is undeniably country, and I love country. Do I love what it’s turned into? No, not all the way. It’s a little embarrassing when people outside of the genre ask what I sing and I say country. You automatically get a negative response, a cheese factor. My favorite compliment ever is when someone says, “I hate country music but I love your music.”

Again, this time in GQ Kacey said what many songwriters these days need to hear.

"Anyone singing about trucks, in any form, in any song, anywhere. Literally just stop nobody cares! It’s not fun to listen to."

Alan Jackson in The Baltimore Sun:

"Right now, it seems like it’s gone. It’s not that I’m against all that’s out there. There’s some good music good songwriting and good artists out there, but there’s really no country stuff left. It’s always been that constant pop-country battle. I don’t think it’s ever going to change. What makes me sad today is that I think the real country, real rootsy traditional stuff, may be gone. I don’t know if it’ll ever be back on mainstream radio. You can’t get it played anymore."

Gary Allan got asked if he thinks Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood are country artists in an interview with Larry King:

“You know, I would say no. I would say they’re pop artists making a living in the country genre. I also feel like we lost our genre. I don’t feel like I make music for a genre anymore, and I did, you know, 15 years ago. But I think since the Clear Channel’s and the Cumulus’s and the big companies bought up all the chains, now it’s about a demographic. You know, so they've kind of sliced everything up, feeding it to the public in demographics. Like if you want to get to the young kids, you put it on the alternative station. We've sort of ended up in this… we’re nicknamed the soccer mom, like 35 to 45 year-old woman I think is what our demographic is. So it’s very different. You used to be able to turn on the radio and you knew instantly it was the country station just by listening to it, and now you've got to leave it there for a second to figure it out.”

Zac Brown on Luke Bryan's new single and the current state of country music on a Canadian country station:

"I love Luke Bryan and he’s had some great songs, but this new song is the worst song I’ve ever heard. I know Luke, he’s a friend. ‘My Kind Of Night’ is one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. I see it being commercially successful, in what is called country music these days, but I also feel like that the people deserve something better than that. Country fans and country listeners deserve to have something better than that, a song that really has something to say, something that makes you feel something. Good music makes you feel something. When songs make me wanna throw up, it makes me ashamed to even be in the same genre as those songs."

"If I hear one more tailgate in the moonlight, daisy duke song, I’m gonna throw up. There’s songs out there on the radio right now that make me be ashamed to be even in the same format as some other artists. You can look and see some of the same songwriters on every one of the songs. There’s been like 10 number one songs in the last two or three years that were written by the same people and it’s the exact same words, just arranged different ways."

"What we do is not necessarily traditional country, but we play all of our own instruments, we write the best songs that we can, and we put harmony on the songs, we have a real band…a lot of it’s just about subject matter. We really write about real life, songs that come from life and our heart. To me country music has always been the home for a great song."

We aren't talking about what people say in the underground roots world, because artists say things like that every day. These are bold statements from artists who have found success from the modern country circuit, and that really says something. The fact that successful mainstream singers want to keep fighting to save country music from extinction makes me really excited for the future. There are always going to be the ones who say country needs to evolve and making music with soul and depth will only bring it to a downfall. That's partially true. If a roots movement came about country music wouldn't be as popular in the mainstream, but who cares? Country music isn't popular now, pop music disguised as country is. It's like these so called professional songwriters sit around in an office building and have a contest on who can write the most ridiculous song, it's disgusting. What's even worse is they trick people's minds into believing their dumb song about a tailgate party is good music. Someone out there just has to stand up and say no, enough is enough we aren't taking this anymore. I think it can happen. Zac, Kacey, Gary, Alan, and others proved that no matter what, there will always be people out there who still genuinely care about the music. If anything ever changes that's what it has to be about, the music. There's a thing as enough effing money and as long as people keep fighting for real music anything can happen. Singers should be proud to associate with the music they love. Country singers shouldn't feel ashamed to be country singers, and that's the bottom line.