Re: Country music hasn't been the same since Ernest Tubb introduced drums to the Grand Ole Opry
> > I really appreciate your feedback.
> >
> > I am not from the Buck Owens era. When I was born, it
> wasn't
> > long after Elvis died. "Here you come again" from Dolly
> > Parton was number one about the time I saw the light of
> day.
> > When I was entering High School, COuntry music sounded
> good.
> > Randy Travis led the revolution back to the Country sound,
>
> > and good artists like Vern Gosdin, George Strait, Highway
>
> > 101, Holly Dunn, and Kathy Matea could regularly be heard.
>
> > It was going downhill, as Garth's popularity, ego, and
> stage
> > antics started to become huge. By the time I graduated
> > college,he was doing this wierd Chris Gaines routine and
> > Nashville was filled with Garth wannabes. I'm still
> waiting
> > for the Garth wannabes to be chased out of town. It would
> be
> > nice if Country Music could enjoy an era like the late
> 80's
> > and early 90's again.
> You're not a typical radio listener and if I wasn't in
> radio, I wouldn't be one either. I've grown accustomed to
> having radio stations I really enjoy listening to, changing
> formats because I've realized along the way that any radio
> station that targets ME as a listener will go bankrupt.
>
> Like him or not, you really can't argue that Garth Brooks
> was very popular and sold a lot of CDs. Wbether or not he's
> truly country is only part of controversy that has existed
> in the format for the last half century...and because of the
> constant change that exists with music, that in a half
> century from now country music will sound so radically
> different that old timers will lament that the format has
> strayed away from the good ole days when we had legends like
> Garth Brooks around.
>
>
Must be time to throw my two cents in.... Hope you don't mind a '75 and a '79
As a few have noticed on this thread, country music is always changing, the influences of the artists change.. The target demos influences change.... and time passing seems to polish the old to the point that people who hated it then will accept it now it seems
I came up right about the time of the outlaw movement and the late 80's music (then called Young country) movements.
Each time it's was the death of country music as we knew it blah blah... I can tell it's changed, but has it really changed?
Hell if memory serves correct, some of the songs coming out in the 1960's and 1970s were sometimes banned from radio due to their content. I think one of the songs that had some controversy behind it was "Harper Valley PTA" the Tom T hall pinned song due to the descriptions in the song were considered Racy at the time..now a classic country staple...
Well we do have some more a/c influenced music on country radio right now with groups like Rascall Flatts, and we do have rock influenced country by groups like Montgomery Gentry, But we also have stone cold country that's played the same way since the 1960's by people like Alan Jackson and George Strait.
Country always had it's innovators pushing the limits,more so at times in the public forefront that rock and pop.....just that time polishes the crappy ones away
For example, on NWSide's 80's and 90's music...That was about the time of young country..stations giving up the old to play the new artists and songs coming up that was different than the Urban cowboy crap of the early 1980s..Kind of funny how the same stations now are called "new country" and they still are hated cause they play the newer artists and songs, and what was crap then is considered "classic" now.
I love my classics, as well as today's product... Actually wish country PD's would get better ideas when programming a classics station. I think personally it takes as much research to make a classic country station flow right for multiple age group listeners as it does say a new country station. But I find a few stations take the Jack idea to them (since most are on am), throw a 500 song library at the station and hope the ratings come.
Country is definitely weird and getting weirder... Who would have thought that Some Alternative rock and AAA listeners would take after artist so far out of their genre as Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard? That a alternative rocker would produce a record for Loretta Lynn ..WTF?!?!?!?!?
On Classics playing too much newer stuff, I do agree that possibly it should be 10 years old or older than the standard 5 that most Classic stations go by (more in the lines with classic rock stations who are usually about 10-15 years behind).. Most of the stuff becoming classics are still in pretty good rotation at modern country stations but I think you can sort of blame the classic stations trying to get more listeners to their stations and broaden listenership..can't blame them for that.
Right now, in my personal listening, I'm more into the 1950's-1970s classic country (I got burned out on anything newer as of late)..I'm also into finding the lost classics (from just the 90's that never got to stick with people as Keith talked about) that country radio seems to forget cause it doesn't test well (cause if it doesn't test well, they don't want to take chances and actually play it, even though it might have been a great song ).
and one final cent before I sign off..... Garth Brooks didn't bring his pop routine to country until "friends in Low places" made him a superstar and he could both get away with a rock star attitude, as well as the pop crossover fans were expecting it IMO..and since Friends sold tons, Nashville wisdom filled the market with wanna be's that just like the urban cowboy craze, just brought one hit wonders and people who never made it past albumn one.
Check out Garth's first self titled album and No fences which are pre superstardom (other than "thunder rolls" which is sort of a rock flavored country song, is still more country than some of the newer stuff) and you can see that change, after Friends kicked it with every other album after that.
So If garth screwed up country or just a song about getting drunk and telling your ex to go screw herself that just happened to hit it for millions of people, and Nashville just preppied for it.. we may never really get a true idea or consensus on who or what "screwed up" country I think... It changed country... But it just brought it kicking and screaming into line with the other formats that had been going specialized for years IMO
RFLA
