Chase Rice? Seriously?

Warning: This is a rant. 

One of the co-writers of "Cruise," country music's "biggest song ever" is now here and ready to prove to the world that not only can he write ridiculous, immature, frat boy country songs, but he can sing them too. His new EP titled Ready Set Roll already reached number 1 on iTunes. It was his second release after his two previous records Country As Me and Dirt Road Communion. Obviously you already know what you're getting into when you're listening to this, but his EP is honestly one of the worst things I've heard ever. Every single song is a stupid party anthem or one about a truck. It's pop, it's rap it's anything but country. You know what? I don't even want to call it pop or rap because it's offensive to the true fans of those genres. What it is, is bad sellout music, that's all. Songs like these are by guys who want nothing more than a year or two of money and fame until they are forgotten and never heard from again. They don't care though, they probably already made enough money to last them for years. Who cares if it's ruining a genre, who cares! I'm sorry you can call me an elitist music snob if you want, but people like this don't deserve the attention they are getting. I am a teenage girl and I can tell you I have written songs that are way more mature and have more depth than anything that comes out of this guy's mouth. In a song called "Party Up" (Featuring Colt Ford, of course) there's a line that says "Sip a little whiskey c'mon baby kiss me. Lemme get a drip of your frisky gypsy." What? There's another song that makes a seemingly obvious sexual advance "Girl when you gonna let me put some country in ya?" I can just hear the teenage girls screaming waiting to get some "country" in their oblivious selves by this ultra douchenugget. Then there's another song called "Look At My Truck." Look at it! LOOK AT IT! Do I fit in with your crowd now? DO I? Can't you see how country I am? I got this huge lifted truck covered in mud, I am the superior! I am the countryest of all countrys! I am so sick of this crap. I don't know why people still buy into it. Then there is a song about beer, the "best beer of his life" apparently. Two other songs about driving around with a hot girl in a truck. He tries to keep it all hip and modern by adding cool little vocal effects, hip hop beats, and by rapping the verses, but he fails tremendously. This album is not even just a shame to country music, it's a shame to all music. It really sucks but country is only getting worse. This is not musical evolution this is bad, soulless, stupid music. The new rapping trend is kicking in full force, and since it continues to do so well the end looks to be further and further down the road. It seems that there are a fewer number of people staying true to themselves each year. My hope is that people get sick of this stuff soon and real music can have a chance once again. 

Album Review: "Off The Beaten Path" by Justin Moore

With all the glowing reviews and the fact that many are saying this is "real country" music, I thought I'd give it a listen. It's actually quite ironic this album is named Off The Beaten Path. It makes you think it will be some different sounding album by someone who is doing what they want and going "off the beaten path" so to speak. This album is anything but, in fact it is on the old, straight, narrow, beat to death path so much it makes you sick. The typical pop country album has a few, but this album is completely made up of country cliche songs. Justin Moore was at my county fair this summer and I was bothered by a rant he made. He said something along the lines of I don't sing pop country, I don't sing rap country, I sing country country. It bothered me not only because he raps and has pop influences on this album but because he is basically telling the world that as long as you sing about beer and dirt roads you got a country song. Many people today believe that due to the amount of those songs on the radio. It really sucks because that couldn't be further from the truth.

I'm glad to see he isn't rolling with the controversial fake "Outlaw" bit like he did on his last album, but his songs still imply that he is some sort of rebel just because he is from the backwoods. In "Old Back In The New School" he wants to bring some things from the good old days into modern times. You would think there would be some sort of classic sounding approach, but other than a little steel guitar there really wasn't. There's this one line that made me laugh "Johnny rocked and Willie rolled, they just did it with a whole lot more soul." It's like no shit if you think they were great then why don't you use their musical accomplishments as an example for yourself? How do you think Johnny and Willie got that soul and heart in their music? It's because they wrote their songs and took control of their music by standing their ground. Justin Moore and all the guys in country today are making the same song and just rearranging the words. How many songs out there are about driving around with a girl in a truck? You probably can't count them all, yet songs like "Lettin' the Night Roll" and "Country Radio" keep coming to tarnish country music's reputation. Then comes the yay I'm a big tough country boy who hunts and drives trucks songs. "Point At You" "Dirt Road Kid" "Field Full of Hillbillies" and others just kept throwing out cliche after cliche to hook the casual country fan onto this obsessive countrified culture. There's a song called "One Dirt Road" that talks about how he wants heaven to have a dirt road and a place to fish and pick blackberries while his mama hangs his clothes up on a clothesline, no I'm not kidding! Another one called "This Kind of Town" talks about a town where old people gather at McDonald's and talk about the war and football. In this town "Girls out drank you and boys out Hank you." What is "Hanking" and why is it a verb? Why do unoriginal trend chasing songs like this even exist? "I don't think Hank done it that way" Justin!

There's a few super boring love songs that made you feel nothing. There was a song called "Beer" about the various ways to drink beer. One called "Off The Beaten Path" had a little vocal warp hip hop beat, surprising it came from "Mr. super country country." That wasn't even the worst. The worst song by far is "I'd Want It To Be Yours," it's about butts, big butts. In the world of ass songs this song actually makes "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" sound like "Pancho and Lefty." He sings "You're a little bit of J-Lo A little bit of Kim Kardashian It's big, it ain't tiny, I'm diggin' that hiney." then further tells the listener that even Snoop Dog would be jealous of his girl's big booty when it's all up in the bench seat of his Chevrolet yo. Then he puts the finishing touch onto the shit cake by rapping the third verse. Once again I am not stretching the truth at all! Now I'm fine with the fact that you want to record a funny feel good song. There's a fine line between cute and funny and creepy and gross. This song is so far past the line that the line can no longer be seen. It's not cute or funny it's just all around a bad, bad, song.

Now I'll admit he does have a lot more traditional sounding country elements in his music compared to others of his nature. It seemed a lot less of them though compared to his previous albums. One song called "Big Ass Heachache" was in 3/4 time and it did have a country feel. There was some steel guitar and banjo and his deep southern twang does sound genuine but it doesn't cover up the fact that a lot of the songs were heavily pop/rock influenced. Then there's the whole thing about how you feel nothing inside. Music is supposed to make you feel something, this music just doesn't. Now the best song by far was the duet "Old Habits" with Miranda Lambert. I'm not gonna lie this song is pretty good. There is a lot more thought in the lyrics and both of their voices sound really good together. It had a chance of being a really great country song. They were obviously trying to go for an old school feel and even though it is the "countriest" sounding song on the record it still sounds really modern and poppy. They could have turned it into some good genuine country song easily but they didn't. It seemed like a great song turned into a wasted opportunity.

This album is definitely not the real hard country twang album like people are making it out to be. There is so much good out there, this album is just another check mark on the laundry list. It's really sad that people buy into this. All it does is make them obsessed with a materialistic country culture. I enjoy doing a lot of the things he sings about in his songs, and if you want to sing a song every now and then about a country lifestyle that's fine. I don't want every single song to be about it though. I don't need someone to tell me what goes on in a small town, because I already know. I need someone to tell me about life, heartache, how the world works, what to expect. I need someone to tell me a story. 

Country Cliche Count:

Truck: 5

Tailgate: 1 (impressive)

Beer: 13

Chevy: 3

Dirt/Back road: 15

Somewhat decent/ listenable songs: "Old Habits" "Big Ass Headache"

Rating: F

  

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.

Song Review: "Let's Roll" by Arabella Jones

When it comes to stupid cliche truck songs, I thought we only had to worry about the guys in pop country. This girl, 17 year old Arabella Jones proved me wrong with her debut single. She got famous by posting "country" cover songs by people like Florida Georgia Line, Hunter Hayes, and Taylor Swift on YouTube. She has a decent voice but this mess of a "country girl anthem" sounds like some bad old Carrie Underwood song.

Let's first look at the obvious elephant in the room right now. Since the country culture is "in" right now, we got a girl in extremely short cutoff shorts, a tied up plaid shirt, cowboy boots, a big truck, in front of a lake, covered in mud. Please don't try to tell me this girl actually rolls around in the mud looking like that. Impressing boys with your big truck and playing in the mud is ultimately what this song is about. Gretchen Wilson, who sang similar songs like "Redneck Woman," at least lived by her redneck anthems. She was an actual redneck woman unlike this girl who, judging from her social media looks like a fake. Do people really have to try that hard to look country? Isn't country supposed to mean being yourself and not being fake to fit in? She can probably sing pop just fine instead of taking advantage of country when it's in a confused messed up state. The only thing this song does is teach people the necessities to fit in with today's wannabe hillbilly culture. It's nothing special at all but country radio will eat it up because it's very easy to market. She is currently unsigned but I'm sure some label will swoop in and pick her up soon. So many deserving real country artists out there and this girl gets attention because she sang Taylor Swift covers and has her ass hanging out of booty shorts. It's just not fair.

Rating: F

Is Today's Country Music Supporting Bad Behavior?

Back in the day, when a country song referenced getting drunk, a lot of the time it was viewed as an obstacle the singer was facing. Drinking away a past love or drinking your troubles away songs looked at alcohol as a demon and was mostly listened to by adults. These days alcohol is widely celebrated throughout country music. It is viewed as a fun good time. Since the most popular age group in country music today is teenagers some may find that especially alarming.

I'm sure other music genres have their fair share of underage drinkers too, but country music is the "hip new thing" now. And I'm sure country shows from a few decades ago had their share of drinkers, but it was never this bad. Even in my own experiences with mainstream country shows I can say the audience has gotten progressively more rowdy and disgusting. With songs like Lee Brice's "Parking Lot Party" you can see that the country singers are catering to the fact that the drinking starts way before the gates even open. I went to a Justin Moore show at my county fair this year (by force) and it was unquestionably the worst concert experience I've ever had. The parking lot was full of pseudo-rednecks in their cowboy hats and boots who probably got pre-drunk then were drinking and playing party games on the tailgate of a truck. There were many fights going on with the wannabe "tough guys" who were arguing about whose "more countrier" than who probably. Then those same people went inside and either bought alcohol or sneaked in alcohol and continued their booze fest. There were people screaming, drinking, spitting tobacco, splashing beer, taking off parts of their clothes and waving them around. There were girls crowd surfing with guys spanking their ass as they came across. One guy even threw up his beer two inches away from my feet. Not to mention the fact that there were also really little kids present at the time. Oh yeah and it was at like 2 in the afternoon, not even at night. Then those people are going to attempt to drive home. It was the first time I ever left a concert early. I've been to some crazy shows, but it was never that bad. What happen to going to a concert to well I don't know, listen to music! 

I have seen a countless amount of people being arrested for drunk driving after concerts, many of them are underage. Just last week a man was killed after a Jason Aldean concert and that's not the first time I've seen it happen either. People are actually dying after concerts because of stupid people's decisions to drink and drive. Now on top of the fact that the music is bad, it's dangerous too! I know teenagers will find their way into drinking, smoking, etc. on their own or with their friends. It doesn't need to be glorified across country radio. Since country is a trend now, everyone wants to fit into the fake redneck culture they talk about in the pop country songs. Songs about drinking an ice cold beer in your truck with your girl by your side, getting into fights with some dude in the parking lot, yeah all the stuff you see at a show is in those songs. Going to a concert is the best way to show off what they learned. How about some songs about being yourself and doing your own thing, you won't see any of that on the radio. Mostly because the singers follow the latest trends just the same way the teenagers do. Don't say what they are singing about doesn't matter, because I guarantee you won't find that behavior at a Reba or Merle Haggard show today. They go to the shows of the guys like Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Brantley Gilbert, etc. because they think oh that's country, we get to go dress up and party like rednecks for a night, how fun. As a teenager myself I can say I know for a fact that that is what the "country fans" at my school do. If you go to a concert for any non-musical reason, then just don't go. No one wants to deal with your drunk annoying ass the whole night, it ruins it for the people who actually came to see the show. Music should be loved by people who love music, not by idiots who want to party. The demand for party songs is high right now, so they make party songs. If mature, more genuine country songs hit the airwaves I bet the whole I want to be a drunk hillbilly culture will stop. All in all country music will have to decline in popularity for any change to take place. Once country concerts stop acting as a dumbass breeding ground I bet the singers would be able to have more creative control and the disgusting rowdy crowds will move on. What it comes down to is the fact that there are a lot of ways the younger generation can get into trouble, music in general, has to stop promoting it.

Album Review: "Crash My Party" by Luke Bryan

Well I will start by saying this wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It wasn't good by any means but if you survive the first two songs then you're set because that's as bad as it gets. After hearing his new single "That's My Kinda Night" I was expecting this to be painful to listen to, it really wasn't. I guess what I'm getting at here is the fact that this album sounds exactly like every other mainstream pop country album out there. I hated listening to it because every single song sounds the same. The instrumentation is barely country and the lyrics are just childish. That's the problem, it's just blah, pointless, meaningless music that's just wasting space. It's a shame that this album already sold half a million copies, there's no soul, no depth, it's not even fun to listen to. I hope people will start to get sick of stuff like this soon.

"That's My Kinda Night" is one of those cliche party in the pasture songs, but it is one of the most over the top ridiculous things I have ever heard. It starts off with him saying little fake rapper sounds like "Uh uh" over a hip hop beat. With lines like "Catch us up a little Catfish dinner, gonna sound like a winner winner" and "Put in my country, rock, hip-hop mixtape. Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain" it really makes you wonder what these songwriters are on when they are writing this trash. How could anyone be okay with destroying a genre purely because they're a greedy asshole? I would be embarrassed and ashamed to have my name on something like this, I just don't get how people are okay with it. This very well could be the worst "country" song that has ever existed. 

When you look past that vile piece of garbage the rest is like I said, blah. Ultimately out of 17 tracks there are two different topics the song could be about. The first theme is the good time "country kinda crazy" (Yes a quote from one of the songs, *rolls eyes*) loving out in a field in the mud with a girl and a truck and some beers, yeah I'm sure you heard the story. "That's My Kinda Night" "Play It Again" "Out Like That" "Shut It Down" and others are all about getting frisky with some chick in a field. The other cliche theme is I was so happy with this girl during the summer. We were drunk and crazy and in love, then she left now I'm sad. "Roller Coaster" "Goodbye Girl" "Sunburnt Lips" "Better Than My Heart" "I See You" "Your Mama Should Have Named You Whiskey" are all about driving or sitting on a tractor being like aw shit I miss this girl. That is honestly what all the songs are about except two.

"Drink A Beer" is unquestionably the best song on the album. Don't let the name fool you because it isn't a dumb getting drunk in a truck song, it's actually a song about someone who died too young. It's a little cliche the whole good ole boy didn't deserve to go so soon but God's got a plan for us both deal. I've heard it a bunch of times but that's okay. It's acoustic with get this, a steel guitar! (Holy shit I know) It really isn't that bad, I wouldn't mind listening to it. It just shows he is capable of putting out decent music. On the flip side of that the other different song is called "Blood Brothers." Of course it's a song about a group of guy friends who would do anything for each other. They do typical "bad boy" stuff like smoke, drink, and drive big trucks. It's a song that's not even worth mentioning until the line "It was one for all and all for one, a bunch of outlaws without a gun." The fake outlaw shit has to stop, it has to die a long painful death because I'm sick of it. I know all the mainstream singers think they are changing what outlaw means. They try to tell you they aren't talking about the "Waylon kind of outlaw" they mean the "bad boy outlaw." I'm sorry but there's no way around it, in country music "outlaw" means one thing, and one thing only. It doesn't mean rowdy asshole, it means someone who works their ass off to make the music they believe in, well knowing that they may never get anywhere with it because it doesn't follow "the rules" or the latest "musical trends." What it comes down to is it's just downright disrespectful to the actual outlaws who paved the way for country music today. All these singers like Justin Moore, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, and such try to "rebrand" what outlaw means but even if they are talking about the "bad boy outlaw" these pretty boys in skinny jeans sure ain't no outlaws, and all their dumb fans are like "we like beer and trucks and boobs yay were outlaws!" No, you're not. You're not outlaws, just douchebags. 

Now we have to look a little deeper at the songwriting on this album. I mean a drunk 5 year old could have written more mature sounding songs, seriously! Some of these lines are just atrocious. "I wanna feel your heart go tick tock, while the rain from your hair goes drip drop." "If you want to know the real me, just turn the page in my dirt road diary." Or my personal favorite from a song titled "Beer In The Headlights" I thought the line was "You got the beautiful, I got the coolifull." I couldn't believe anyone could have written something so dumb so I listened to it again and the line is "cooler full" not "cooliful" which is a little better but still ridiculous. Besides the fact that all the songs are about the same thing, they all sound the same too. The melodies and instrumentation are all very similar. Some have hip hop/R&B beats, some actually do have prominent steel guitar and banjo parts so that shows some country effort. Overall they all sound like bad non creative pop songs about beer and girls. I'll admit some of his songs aren't as bad as others but they aren't anything special. If he wasn't a hot guy with a nice ass no one would care about him. That goes for a lot of the pretty boys in country music. That's all it is, a big modeling show. You can make completely unoriginal music that people will forget in a couple months, but as long as you're hot, you're in! Meanwhile the people making timeless music from their heart don't receive any attention because they aren't pretty enough and they don't sing about trucks. That's the way the world works folks!

Cliche Countryisms Count:

Truck: 8

Beer: 19

Tractor: 3

Tanline: 4

Tailgate: 3

Dirt Road: 7

Semi-decent Songs:  "Drink A Beer" "Crash My Party"

Rating: F+

"Cruise" Is The Most Successful "Country" Song Ever

Congratulations everybody! You are living through a moment of country music history right now. "Cruise" by Florida Georgia Line is officially the most successful country song to ever grace our presence. It spent a total of 22 weeks at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Country songs. It beat out "In the Jailhouse Now " by Webb Pierce in 1955, "I'm Movin' On," by Hank Snow in 1950-1951, and "I'll Hold You in My Heart (Till I Can Hold You in My Arms)," by Eddy Arnold in 1947-1948. All three spent a total of 21 weeks at #1. If it wasn't for country rap crossovers and the crappy new Billboard rules all three of those guys wouldn't be rolling around repeatedly in their graves right now.

"Cruise" spent only 5 weeks at number one last year. It was so close to falling off the charts too! When you thought this song literally couldn't possibly get any worse, the ever so lovely rap version of this comes out featuring Nelly and suddenly it hits number one all over again. Now is that fair? With the new Billboard rules, song plays from internet streaming websites like Spotify, Pandora, etc. all count in the Billboard ranking. The only thing that does is boost the success of songs that have crossover appeal. How would an actual country song that only appeals to country fans beat out a song that appeals to country, pop, and rap? Do the crossover artists really need ways to be more successful? The thing is that the only reason this song has been number one for so long is because of the mainstream rap/pop version. Yet by Billboard's standards that's the reason a 58 year record for the most successful country song was broken. The most successful country song is the most successful country song because people know it as a pop rap song. Makes sense don't it?

All in all it really doesn't matter I guess. Billboard is not a correct assumption on which songs are better than others. It's only based on technical facts and God knows if we decided the best songs today based on radio play and downloads we'd end up with something sucky. I'm not turning this into another there's so much good music out there it's not fair they don't get recognition rant. Well, that is true, but this is more of a I'm concerned about country music's legacy type of thing. What if it takes another 58 years to break Florida Georgia Line's record. Picture this, it's the year 2071 and your great grandchildren start to listen to country music. (This is assuming country music is still around and music hasn't morphed into one giant pop genre) They go on the internet (or ask their robots) what the top country songs ever are, then they stumble upon Billboard. Then there at number one still is "Cruise." That probably won't be the case, more crossover songs will be up in there too I'm sure. These kids of the future will be talking about how they listen to "classic country", which will be our generations music! Today you can say you like the Honky Tonk Era of the 50's, or the Outlaw Era of the 70's. Doesn't it disgust you that in 50 years someone can say they like the Hick-Hop Era of the 2010's! 

I guess you could say the same for other types of music too, Hip hop especially. There are so many underground rappers and fans trying to bring back some sanity back into the genre they love, it's the same thing as what's happening in country. It's either someone starts paying attention to the roots artists or music in general is heading for a downfall. The terms "Country" and "Rap" are unlikely to be saved anytime soon.  It really is a shame you can't proudly say what kind of music you like without having to explain you don't mean the stuff you hear on the radio. I don't know enough about other genres to talk about their histories or futures, but I do know country. I know within the past 2 decades or so the legacy of country music is falling apart. It wasn't as bad in the 90's and early 2000's as it is today. When I say country isn't country anymore that's not my opinion, it's a fact. There's certain elements you need in order to produce a country song. Mainstream just doesn't have it, or if they do it's minimal. People like Florida Georgia Line aren't evolving country music, they're devolving it. 

Why Is Cassadee Pope In Country Music?

Reality singing competitions almost always lead to trouble.The winners of shows like The Voice and American Idol rarely are successful afterwards. That's why once they are signed to a record label it's the label's job to rush out a single for the winner while they are still relevant. If they wait too long they will be upstaged by next season's big winner and nobody will care about them anymore. With two seasons per year The Voice is realizing this now.


Cassadee Pope was the winner of  the third season of The Voice which ended in December. Her single "Wasting All These Tears" was released last month. Danielle Bradbery won the fourth season which ended in March and her single "The Heart Of Dixie" was released a few weeks ago. It seems already that the general public is paying more attention to Danielle now since Cassadee is old news. Both of them are members of some sort of branch of Big Machine Records. It's funny how quickly they released Danielle's new song and waited over 6 months to release Cassadee's. This wouldn't be as big of a deal if the two were in different genres.

Danielle was a 16 year old girl dressed in pretty little cowgirl boots and a sundress who auditioned with her idol Taylor Swift's smash "country" song "Mean." You knew right off the bat you were getting a bubblegum pop-country singer. She of course went to Team Blake. He made her sing some Carrie Underwood, and a little Sara Evans. Where they thought she really shined was when she sang what they actually referred to as "Classic Country." (AKA 90's Pam Tillis songs.) Whatever though, I get it. She's a typical teenage girl singing poppy country to appeal to other teenage girls who think they like country music. It makes me sick that that is what people my age buy into, but whatever I get why they put her in the country genre. What I don't understand is why Cassadee Pope is in there too.

Cassadee was the lead singer of pop-rock band Hey Monday. They were somewhat successful and are currently on hiatus so Cassadee could do her solo "country" thing. While on the show she sang songs by her idol Avril Lavigne, Maroon 5, Gavin DeGraw, and some grunge rock band. Her coach Blake Shelton suggested that she sing some country songs, she did, and it worked. The first thing that drew attention was when she sang Miranda Lambert's "Over You." It sold over 340,000 digital copies on ITunes, which is almost double what her current single has sold so far. She also covered songs by Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill and Keith Urban. It was reported that one of the lead destroyers of country music Scott Borchetta, who is the president of Big Machine records, was interested in Cassadee and they wanted her to permanently "go country." He was thrilled to find out Cassadee was on the same page because after singing all those "country" songs she felt like she really wanted to get back to her roots, the music she always loved, country music. How convenient it is today that once all these pop and rock singers careers turn to shit that's when they realize that they want to "return to their roots."

Her single "Wasting All These Tears" is mediocre at best. She has a really good voice but it isn't country at all. It sounds like a typical pop-rock song with a faint banjo in the background. Take that little banjo part out and add some other instrument it would be more than fine for pop. I think since mainstream rock is near dead she went country because it's easier than pop. That's what the country industry is today folks, a big melting pot. It's like one of those crappy dinners you have for the next few nights after Thanksgiving. Real country music is Thanksgiving, the pop stuff is the leftovers. It's similar to Thanksgiving but it just will never be as good of a meal. You have so much crap lined up in your freezer, why waste the time and money to go out and buy something new. You kind of just take all the leftovers and mash them all together hoping everyone else will deal with it. These singers singing different genres claiming it to be country are the three day old pieces of turkey. No one really wants it, but you just kinda deal with it because it's there. Everyone knows the big juicy steak at the supermarket would be a way better dinner, but no one is going to do anything about it. Some important person somewhere has to stand up. They have to tell the washed up pop stars to accept the fact that their careers are over because country isn't going to open it's doors anymore. Country is way too accepting of everything today. You can rap about trucks, whine about a high school crush, or sing about your rock-star days, because these days literally everything is considered "country" as long as you hide a faint little banjo run in your pop song. I'm telling you now there are so many good replacements out there that you don't have to settle for the leftovers anymore. Go to the store and buy that steak, you deserve it! Rant over! I'm kinda hungry...