Its sad. .

Shitty patriot country music has always been a thing and there are still tons of Outlaw country artists right now. This is literally just like those "rap in the 90s vs rap today" memes that ignore the fact that trap has been a thing since the 90s and old school hip hop is having a Renaissance right now

it's bro country now

What do they drink now? Since their precious Bud Light gave way to WOKENESS.

There's lots of good old fashioned country out there. You just gotta leave the mainstream behind. You'll find men in touch with their emotions. You'll find women who won't settle down. You'll find fine American classics. You'll find new classics waiting to be known. And Mckain Lakey!

The country music community may be problematic, but country music itself is wonderful. And many country musicians are fantastic, unexpected people. If you want country like it used to be, dive into Melissa Carper's catalogue. She's the master of the brand new old time song.

Heard a lot of this growing up like Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, but also Canadians like Lightfoot and Stan Rogers. Lately I've enjoyed some of the IWWs compilations of workers' songs, Utah Philips etc. Phil Ochs is up there too.

My mother's from an assimilated Mennonite background and it was one of the non-Christian genres that was permissible to her parents, because of the pacifist and civil rights sentiments in a lot of that music at the time. Also it lacked the sex and drugs themes which rock had. "I Aint Marching Anymore" and "Where have all the flowers gone?" I remember hearing quite often.

Every song by Johnny is a banger.

I know this is obvious, but Cash's beliefs are endlessly fascinating. The same man who recorded "Ragged Old Flag" also wrote "Man in Black" and covered "Out Among the Stars." The latter is a song about a kid who commits suicide by cop because he doesn't feel like his life matters.

At least with propaganda it's the ruling class messaging the citizenry. In this case, at least for the most part seems self-inflicted and without purpose. People just gravitate to whatever fits their identity.

That’s all modern country music is. It’s the music of boring middle class white people who feel uneasy if their specific cultural touchstones aren’t constantly reinforced. There have to be trucks, land ownership, high school football, generic American jingoism, glorification of alcoholism.

Well written.

I believe that mainstream country turned to shit in the 80s, not sure why. My theory is that it's down to the money men in Nashville turning out an increasingly phony product for commercial reasons, but I don't actually know enough about that aspect of the business to have an informed opinion.

Fortunately there's always been legit musicians turning out excellent alt-country or Americana, or whatever we want to call it. Also a lot of the older country musicians never completely sold out either.

Dolly Parton is a rich theme park owner who has abused her employees and she pals around with mass murderers like George W. Bush.

At a certain point she had credibility. She came from a poor Appalachian background and made music reflecting that. After a certain point though, after decades in the industry, she completely flipped. Her 9 to 5 song used to be a genuine anthem for struggling working class people, then she flipped it a few years ago as "5 to 9" for a Sqaurespace commercial, glorifying the idea of working a second job after your main one.

She's the exact problem of modern country music. It's made and financed by people too rich to be connected to humanity anymore.

She also had an awesome cameo in The Orville.

It shocked me the first time I met a real anti-Semite, in real life, in Tennessee. I've worked in a lot of places all over the world and I've seen plenty of racism. No one else topped that guy in Tennessee. Other places racism was mostly contained to 'they stay over there and we stay over here.' Tons of problems but living together but apart was possible. That doesn't speak to every experience obviously. That old guy in Tennessee wanted another Holocaust, plain and simple. Anywhere else he'd get the shit kicked out of him, there it was tolerated.

Product placement go brrrr

There’s a YouTube channel called Western AF that has some good tunes that are closer to what country used to be. I can’t vouch for every song but the ones I’ve heard weren’t reactionary garbage.

This banger is how I found out about them.

Corn Lund

Edit: CORB, lol autocorrect

I'd argue that Ring of Fire is a metaphor about forbidden love that you know is damning you but the feelings are too powerful to resist.

Rather than a harmless metaphor, I find it an incredibly powerful metaphor about the pain and suffering caused by helplessly loving the "wrong" person.

Plus, there's an opportunity to make STD jokes.

He didn't actually write Ring of Fire

"One Piece at a Time" is less of a country song and more of a novelty song.

I don't think modern country even uses metaphors anymore. Before anyone comes at me, I'm well awair that there's some fantactic country writers out there.

"One piece at a time"

I don't imagine there's too many gay cowboys out there

I always get the sense that there are quite a few. Maybe even most of them.

The Nordic nations are societies. They care for one another. They don't resent their taxes being used to aid and elevate the other members of their society. They root for one another in more than empty rhetoric.

We the US are just a bunch of rugged individuals competing against one another at eachother's throats due to decades of propaganda by our owner class to keep us divided, isolated, and distracted from what they've inflicted upon our former society.

There's a reason they hide behind gates and door guards, they know what they've done to this country outside their steel towers and golf clubs.