Trying to Redeem Country Music

 

    I've heard all the criticisms and complaints about country music. The genre is in the same company as disco, emo, mumble rap, and EDM, getting shit on by everyone who actually knows music. The genre is riddled with formulaic song structures. The recurring themes of trucks, alcoholism, farm life, sex, and men lost in their feelings, are regurgitated seemingly in every song. The genre trades in "good ole boyisms", which on the surface promote classic good manners, loyalty to family and friends, and simple rural living. However, misogyny, racism, and anti-intellectualism are baked-in features. There is a long history of the Country Music Industry making careers of POC and female performers difficult, from Charley Pride and Cleve Francis, to the Dixie Chicks, Maren Morris, and Lil Nas X. However, apparently Beyonce is Country now, so maybe the genre is finally beginning to embrace its diverse roots. 

All this combined, it shouldn't be a surprise artists are leaving the genre, reframing the music they make into other similar categories like folk, southern rock, and Americana. Americana itself was a genre created in 1999, borrowing the term from the 1940s, the goal was, as Rolling Stone put it,"to carve out a distinct marketplace for a wave of traditionally minded songwriters [. . .] artists whose work was no longer being served by (the) country music industry". This exodus of talent naturally leaves Country Music with the worst offenders, perpetuating the worst trends. 

I spent a long time disparaging this genre, like a lot of other people. I really couldn't see the appeal with the twangy country western sound. However, I do like similar adjacent genres, like folk, bluegrass, and blues. Bands like Creedance Clearwater Revival, the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and Brett Dennen are all favorites, and all flirt with country music sounds. I'm also a big fan of the Outlaw Country guys Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristopherson. Recently, I've discovered some new country acts that appear to stay out of the terribleness the rest of the genre fell into. 

From the Willie Nelson wing of Country Music, Miss Margo Price won awards from the Americana Music Awards, the American Music Prize, and the UK Americana Awards, and also was nominated for a Grammy in 2018. Being a female talent, Price suffers from the misogyny baked into the industry. Her debut album was heralded as a stellar new talent by several publications, and nominated for awards. Her newest album, above, is a must have. She is most certainly a country artist who moved into the Americana genre. 

Sturgill Simpson, unrelated to Jessica, Ashlee, or OJ, has been compared to Outlaw Country legends Waylon Jennings, and Merle Haggard. This Outlaw Country thing may be a bit of a theme in this post... The above record, A Sailor's Guide to Earth, won the Best Country Album Grammy, and was nominated for Album of the Year. He has opened for Guns n Roses, and played with Willie Nelson, Margo Price and Bob Weir. 

Adeem the Artist needs to be protected. They have a strong and important voice within the genre, however, they also identify as non binary and uses they/them pronouns.... so... within the milieu of Country Music, they're a target for the highly conservative, highly misogynist, and homophobic culture. This record dropped in 2022 and targets racism, homophobia, fundamentalist religion, and Southern culture. This is a songwriter to watch, with a message that can help dissolve the stranglehold hatred has on poor white Southern and Western communities. 

Lukas Nelson, actually related to Willie Nelson, and his band, the Promise of the Real are as much a fresh look at Country, as they are a throwback. Also Neil Young's current backup band, The Promise of the Real are the vanguard of the left wing of Country music. This band has ties to Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, Bob Weir and Neil Young (obviously) and have toured with BB King, Willie Nelson (also, obviously), and John Fogerty. 

The Dead South are Canadian, and like Stompin Tom Connors, Neil Young, and Shania Twain, they carry on the legacy of country sounds from the northernest North American nation. Technically a band that puts themselves squarely in Bluegrass as a genre, they cover a lot of the same tropes and styles of Country, especially the Appalachian styles that propelled early Country, bluegrass, and folk music. 

These three genres are very similar and share roots, and the Dead South does a great job of revealing that. In fact, the band has received criticism from "bluegrass purists" for dabbling in country and "African" sounds, and for supporting a punk ethos. This disregards the fact that bluegrass owes a lot of its genre defining sound to the banjo, a Black American instrument based on traditional African instruments.