Can someone define what country music is?

[NickInMesa]

Is country music like porn? I know it when I see/hear it?

Someone recommended I learn the bass line from Faster Car, by Keith Urban to improve my pick technique.

So here I am listening to the song and wondering... Is this country? Is this rock? Seriously... What's the difference?

I can tell it's country... The twang? The theme? The picking?

[BassieMike]

These days it's gotten hard to tell with all the crossover between country and rock... Thing is, to insure good sales it has pander to the lowest common denominator.... pop music.
Back in the day it was easier to tell. Hank senior, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash. Songs told an honest story...
And I don't even like country music much, but I sure like the old stuff better, so go figure!

-mike

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by BassieMike

These days it's gotten hard to tell with all the crossover between country and rock

+1

The only common demoninators seem to be (1) was it recorded in Nashville or funded by a Nashville-based record company, and (2) is it being marketed via "country" radio stations.

Otherwise, country music is all over the map style-wise.

My take is, as a lot of more countrified, folkified, acoustified, and rockified styles lose popularity in the mainstream pop genre, "country" artists eagerly adopt them and keep 'em going. "Southern Rock" was once the property of Mainstream Pop, but those days are gone. Now, if you want to hear something contemporary that sounds like Lynyrd Skynyrd, you need to tune into a country radio station.

And country musicians are not afraid to show their rock roots either. Lots of rock distortion electric guitars, 5-string basses, and drummers with rock licks abound.

Of course, more classic "traditional" country music stylings (in the vain of George Jones, Buck Owens, George Strait, Dwight Yokum, Vince Gill) are still perfectly acceptable and marketable. You combine all the styles that now fall in the category of "country music" and you have an amazingly wide variety.

[Deluge Of Sound]

Both in the attire and the politics, at least on the mainstream face of it.

[NickInMesa]

Originally Posted by Deluge Of Sound

Both in the attire and the politics, at least on the mainstream face of it.

So in phase with Willie Nelson, the Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, Kris Kristofferson, Toby Keith...

But hey we said no politics on TB

[dalkowski]

Originally Posted by BassieMike

These days it's gotten hard to tell with all the crossover between country and rock... Thing is, to insure good sales it has pander to the lowest common denominator.... pop music.
Back in the day it was easier to tell. Hank senior, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash. Songs told an honest story...
And I don't even like country music much, but I sure like the old stuff better, so go figure!

-mike

+1, Mike. Today, "country" music is really just pop/rock with pedal steel and/or banjo and lyrics about any or all of the following: a pickup truck, an ex, America and drankin'. It's just more "product" to my ears.

Of course, if I was axed to sit in at a well-paying country gig this weekend, I'd run out and buy new boots and a NASCAR cap for the occasion. I'm a mercenary that way.

Something I've always wondered: If the Country Music Hall of Fame is in NAshville, then where's the Western Music HoF?

[dalkowski]

Originally Posted by electracoyote

And country musicians are not afraid to show their rock roots either. Lots of rock distortion electric guitars, 5-string basses, and drummers with rock licks abound.

Hey, they even borrow from rap in that "Save a horse ride a cowboy" song. If it gets the laydeez on the floor...

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by dalkowski

Of course, if I was axed to sit in at a well-paying country gig this weekend, I'd run out and buy new boots and a NASCAR cap for the occasion. I'm a mercenary that way.

Now you're talking. I'm a mercenary that way too.

[EricF]

Country music also seems to be a place where some artists fall to when they no longer fit with the programming on current rock radio. A little tweak of the arrangement, and it becomes acceptable to the country music listening public.

That said, there still are quite a few current country music artists that are true country - Brad Paisley (one of the most talented guitar players I've ever seen or heard in any genre) comes to my mind first.

Like all forms of music, country is evolving. What is "pure country" these days is not what is was 20+ years ago. Saying that it's only country if it sounds like Merle Haggard, George Jones, etc. is the same as saying it's only rock 'n' roll if it sounds like Buddy Holly, The Beatles, etc, or it isn't blues unless it sounds like Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters.

[Tajue17]

old classic country I like! porter wagner, johnny cash, merle haggard, gorge jones, charlie pride, basically that stuff,, to me it almost hits me like pink floyd would in a funky depressing way but real life stuff I guess without the heavy drinking (the drug of choice then)

new country or current country,, I can't can't stand it.. seriously is it me or does it have absolutely no hook to the music (never mind the singing) the music just seems its missing something its missing the feel or IDK but I think the folks out there who really like new style country must be more into the vocals or what they are singing about... I have relatives who love it and I have to listen to it every now and then I say to myself who engineered this or what is it I'm not hearing?????

so with my opinion above it might be me too,,, I usually cannot appriciate a band until I see them live then I usually love them or hate them.

[electracoyote]

Originally Posted by dalkowski

Hey, they even borrow from rap in that "Save a horse ride a cowboy" song. If it gets the laydeez on the floor...

Absolutely. Cowboy Roy!

If you can twang it, hick it, redneck it, trailer-trash it, and soak it in cliches like pickup trucks, mama, God Bless America, tractor pulls, alcohol, broken hearts, prison, divorce, pouring rain, trains...

It's country music!

[dvh]

Hell: 24-7 of a blaring contemporary country music radio station

YMMV

[Rickett Customs]

Which country?

Country/Western

Conway T, Johnny Pride, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Dale Evans, Hank sr, Patsy Cline.... etc,etc,etc..... although Conway is kinda stuck between these two......

Then you also have "Alt-Country",

Kenny Rogers, Reba, Eddie Rabbit, Travis Tritt, Rosanne Cash, The Judds, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, Hank jr..etc, etc, etc...

[ColdSteelRain]

Simple: If the name on the marquee is an individual, it's country; if it's a band, it's rock. Most of the time .

[electracoyote]

I caught Gretchen Wilson last time she came through town.

In the middle of the show, she and her band break into a Led Zepellin medley. Gretchen belted it out, and her band absolutely nailed it.

It's a great time to be a country artist, you can get away with almost anything. Just don't forget the boots and Wranglers.

[EricF]

Originally Posted by dvh

Hell: 24-7 of a blaring hip-hop or death metal music radio station

YMMV

Fixed.

My point is that there's lots of music out there, and something for everyone. If you don't like something, don't listen to it, but slamming someone else's preferences is weak - especially as a musician.

[canadian_man_44]

Alternative country seems to be the only genre that has true country music now.
George Strait, Alan Jackson and a few others seem to toe the Country line as well.
Most of the stuff you hear on the "country" radio stations now is regurgitated crap though.

[kenfxj]

Some Nashville type once said two of the best country bands out there are Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and The Rolling Stones, only they don't know it yet.

[kaputsport]

I pretty much go by the mantra...

If I hear pedal guitar, slide guitar, violin and southern yodeling in a song, it is country...

[Rickett Customs]

Originally Posted by kenfxj

Some Nashville type once said two of the best country bands out there are Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and The Rolling Stones, only they don't know it yet.

Not a surprise. Alt country fringes the rock 'n roll genre.