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Zac Brown Rags on Country Music


Potts

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Guess I'll have to make sure to announce that at our camp pa before he plays at wefest next summer (www.wefest.com). Kinda funny he's the headliner, probably good Luke Bryan won't be there. I have yet to hear that song that you mention, have you heard it pots? What are your thoughts?

He talks about being country, but I think his image alone kinda swaggers the whole genre, so how is he to speak against Luke who is simply bending the strings a little more than "typical" country artists in the past?

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nchangin wrote:

Guess I'll have to make sure to announce that at our camp pa before he plays at wefest next summer (
www.wefest.com
). Kinda funny he's the headliner, probably good Luke Bryan won't be there. I have yet to hear that song that you mention, have you heard it pots? What are your thoughts?

He talks about being country, but I think his image alone kinda swaggers the whole genre, so how is he to speak against Luke who is simply bending the strings a little more than "typical" country artists in the past?

 

LOL..I think the song is garbage too. It's a country guy dropping lyrics about T-Pain and a bunch of other cliches. Pound a repetitive chorus a few hundred times and you have a hit.

As far as Zac Brown goes I'm the wrong guy to ask- I really haven't heard anything from him that I didn't think was well-written.  ;)   I say it all of the time but if you've never listened to the non-radio Zac Brown Band stuff do yourself a favor and pick up the discs. I cannot stand country music but can't get enough of that band.

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There is almost no- no, I take that back- absolutely no modern country out right now I think is worth a crap. Pop, country and rock are all converging into one giant bowl of commercial glop. Teams of writers sit around rooms and bounce ideas off each other, tossing around bumpers stricker slogans. Market researchers do demographic studies and select songs aimed at certain markets. And just as in days of old, when the empire grew it had to daw on more and more scant resources to keeo it growing, so Country Music INC has to suck up more and more different styles and genres to keep growing the audience and keep the cash machine churning. . 

Country music has always been the tail of the dog. I watched this whole thing happen in Christian music in the 90s. Vineyard Music International became the first major Christian music organization marketing series of worship albums internationally to use extensive demographic market research, way back in the early 80s.  Ever wonder how Christian music got to sound so mind-numbingly the same, with some high tenor effiminate sounding singer playing mom rock on an acoustic guitar? it's because the demographic study showed the largest consumer of recorded worship music then was single white women between the ages of 35 and 50. Now, with, MP3 and iphones, the demographic is shifting to younger people, and now modern woship bands are all emo-looking hipsters with spiky hair, horn rimmed glasses and skinny jeans playing mom rock with distorted guitars. The market changes, but the delivery method remains the same. 

 

Country has fallen into this as well. Market research has always existed, but nothing like today. Information gathering has never been easier or more complete. Surveys aren't even needed anymore. Buying habits and preferences can be discovered in a myriad of ways without the consumer even being aware he's being watched. 

 

The rural demographic once nearly the sole purview of country and certain kinds of blues is disappearing. Country is chaging with it. The number one female award nominee for country music this year is Taylor Swift. Her new album is full of stuff like this. 

 

 

 

I won't comment on the quality of the song. But Country? There's a Lady Gaga-JayZ pop station called "zoo FM" here a that plays this as much as the country station does. Marketing genius I suppose. But one tries to imagine Kris Kristofferson or Waylon Jennings or Ray Price doing this and the mind just can't go there.  

 

Ultimately, like every form of music, it separates itself into art and commerce. Country has always had novelty and schmaltz (Remeber Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton doing "Islands in the Stream?") but it was perhaps the last genre where art and commerce intersected regularly. Like everything else, the gap has widened considerably. For every "Whiskey Lullaby", you get 10 "Red Solo Cups" and "She Thinks My Tractotr's Sexy."  Maybe it'll change, but i doubt it. Fortunatley, the internet llows me to listen to Hayes Carll and James McMurtry and Chris Knight, guys who are putting out honest to God country music and not bad pop with banjos and fiddles.  

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Yeah. Part of the issue with country music today is that commercial radio has one country format. That's it. So LukeBrown and  ZacBryan are played back to back.  All to anyone looking for anything that falls under that umbrella of "country". But there is hope in the new satellite stations and what effect they're beginning to have. The digital music stations coupled with Direct TV, there are maybe 5 different country styles and stations. Sirius too.

 

The good news is that people who crave sincere and artistic expression in their music, be it country, jazz, folk, or EDM... they can find fairly easily. And that appears to be a trend.  

 


BlueStrat wrote:

 

There is almost no- no, I take that back- absolutely no modern country out right now I think is worth a crap. Pop, country and rock are all converging into one giant bowl of commercial glop. Teams of writers sit around rooms and bounce ideas off each other, tossing around bumpers stricker slogans. Market researchers do demographic studies and select songs aimed at certain markets. And just as in days of old, when the empire grew it had to daw on more and more scant resources to keeo it growing, so Country Music INC has to suck up more and more different styles and genres to keep growing the audience and keep the cash machine churning. . 

 

Country music has always been the tail of the dog. I watched this whole thing happen in Christian music in the 90s. Vineyard Music International became the first major Christian music organization marketing series of worship albums internationally to use extensive demographic market research, way back in the early 80s.  Ever wonder how Christian music got to sound so mind-numbingly the same, with some high tenor effiminate sounding singer playing mom rock on an acoustic guitar? it's because the demographic study showed the largest consumer of recorded worship music then was single white women between the ages of 35 and 50. Now, with, MP3 and iphones, the demographic is shifting to younger people, and now modern woship bands are all emo-looking hipsters with spiky hair, horn rimmed glasses and skinny jeans playing mom rock with distorted guitars. The market changes, but the delivery method remains the same. 

 

 

 

Country has fallen into this as well. Market research has always existed, but nothing like today. Information gathering has never been easier or more complete. Surveys aren't even needed anymore. Buying habits and preferences can be discovered in a myriad of ways without the consumer even being aware he's being watched. 

 

 

 

The rural demographic once nearly the sole purview of country and certain kinds of blues is disappearing. Country is chaging with it. The number one female award nominee for country music this year is Taylor Swift. Her new album is full of stuff like this. 

 

 

 

 

 

I won't comment on the quality of the song. But Country? There's a Lady Gaga-JayZ pop station called "zoo FM" here a that plays this as much as the country station does. Marketing genius I suppose. But one tries to imagine Kris Kristofferson or Waylon Jennings or Ray Price doing this and the mind just can't go there.  

 

 

 

Ultimately, like every form of music, it separates itself into art and commerce. Country has always had novelty and schmaltz (Remeber Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton doing "Islands in the Stream?") but it was perhaps the last genre where art and commerce intersected regularly. Like everything else, the gap has widened considerably. For every "Whiskey Lullaby", you get 10 "Red Solo Cups" and "She Thinks My Tractotr's Sexy."  Maybe it'll change, but i doubt it. Fortunatley, the internet llows me to listen to Hayes Carll and James McMurtry and Chris Knight, guys who are putting out honest to God country music and not bad pop with banjos and fiddles.  

 



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Everything both Lee and Blue said is spot on.

As "crossover" as country has become, it's still hard for me to see how the latest Taylor Swift stuff fits into that.  Heck, it doesn't even have the prequsite fiddle and banjo overdubs.    But I think her stuff is pretty awesome for what it is.   She nails that "somewhat misfit young girl lying on her bed pinning for a guy she'll never be able to get" market perfectly and in a way nobody has since probably Stevie Nicks was at her prime.

She's the new Queen of the Unicorn People.  How much of it is Swift's doing and how much of it is the marketing people telling her what to do, I dunno.   But it's being done perfectly.  And that they can still sell her to the country audiences is even more of a testament to how well they are doing it.

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Potts wrote:

 

I love the Taylor Swift stuff.

 

 

 

I'll defend ZB again and recommend you look up Martin, Highway 20 Ride or Colder Weather. I challenge you to explain that its commercial crap.

 

I agree- (though ZB is just not my cup of tea).  like I said, there is still some intersection of art and commerce in Country, for now. But the ratio of crap to art is roughly 10 to one and  widening. 

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Pop music has always been about the convergence of styles and country has always been a part of this to varying degrees. Many of Elvis' early hits charted on both country and R&B. country purists hated Eddie Rabbit and the whole Urban Cowboy thing. A couple of years ago I was wondering why there were no country songs on pop radio and now they play "Cruise" every 10 minutes.

 

There's always been room for both and that a big chunk if the country market is swinging for pop radio doesn't really say anything about those who don't.

 

And the pendulum swings back and forth as well

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I have to agree. How many songs about the beach is Zac going to write? He's as guilty as Luke Bryan or any other contemporary country artist of derivativeness aimed at pandering to the masses.

 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy ZBB, but I think he should probably talk less and sing more.

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guido61 wrote:

 

Pop music has always been about the convergence of styles and country has always been a part of this to varying degrees. Many of Elvis' early hits charted on both country and R&B. country purists hated Eddie Rabbit and the whole Urban Cowboy thing. A couple of years ago I was wondering why there were no country songs on pop radio and now they play "Cruise" every 10 minutes.

 

 

 

There's always been room for both and that a big chunk if the country market is swinging for pop radio doesn't really say anything about those who don't.

 

 

 

And the pendulum swings back and forth as well

 

I read through this twice, and you know,  I have to agree. I guess I had forgotten about (or blocked out!?) the whole Urban Cowboy deal. In retrospect, there was indeed a lot of pop crossover into country in the late 70s/80s. I just didn't pay that much attention back then. 

 

Just gettin' old, i guess. As the John Gorka lyric goes:

"Well I guess no one should be afraid of change

But tell me why is there a fence for every open range

Maybe its a sign I'm gettin' on in years

when  nothin' new is welcome to these eyes and ears"- Houses in the Fields

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I had read Zac's comments earlier today, and had some different thoughts about it.

I have a friend who worked at one of the bars that ZB played a lot before he "made it". He would cover stuff like Rage Against The Machine in his sets. (I think he still does.) And it seems that he got to where he is on his own terms, without compromising his music. That IMO, is commendable.

I don't, however, consider him "country" in the purest/purist sense. As Potts mentioned, his stuff is (usually) so well-written that I would put him more in a singer-songwriter category. He just managed to fall into the country market. I think past performances with artists such as Amos Lee and James Taylor support that.

As a disclaimer, I have to say that my band is guilty of playing some of these lowest-common-denominator songs. It's what people want to hear. And my job is to play stuff they like. However, I wonder if some of these songwriter guys have some Magic 8-ball of "country-isms" that they use to fill in the blanks of the lyrics. I was raised on a hog farm, and I'm not sure if these guys have ever seen a tractor.

Incidentally, I had read an article last week about country lyrics that kind of drives the point home.

jamieb

+++++

 

 

 

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