As with blues, I have found that if you avoid electricity in the music (with the exception of steel guitars), your chances are much better.

And drums. Drums are a bad thing.

The thought of country music gives me the shivers.

I must say, I like some country music. But not the Nashville-pop scene with Garth Brooks (a no-talent douchebag, and I dont mind saying so), Keith Urban (who has nothing urban about himself), etc. etc. who think they're just good ol' boys and are in turn really making a fucking fortune of the stupidity and tone deaf ears of stupid white people. I like REAL country music: Woody Guthrie (more of a folkie), Bob Dylan (folk/country), Neil Young (folk/country), and yes the Meat Puppets do wonderfully as well.

I could just never understand the appeal of all this country music crap though. It's annoying Southern Drawl vocals, way too twangy guitars, stupid subject matter (drankin' and fightin' and fuuuckin' and beatin' yo baby's mama), it's just trite jackassery. But when Guthrie, Dylan and Young do it, it had soul, a genuine life force of it's own. Country western has the potential to have wonderful songs written, but so few people can do it properly. Every single time I see or hear a jackass on tv/radio singin about bein drunk and depressed I want to find out where they live and stab them in the face with a soldering iron.

Can't stand any country music.

At the risk of sounding like an indie kid (on a forum full of indie kids), I wouldn't really consider any of the bands you mentioned real country. But, whatever, so long as you eat healthy and wear a condom, you'll get no criticism from me.

Meat Puppets have a strong country influence at times, but I wouldn't call them a country band by any stretch.

uh oh.....

story about Charlie Parker

Charlie would sit in this bar where a lot of jazz cats would hang between sessions, and charlie would drink his drinks in solitude constantly going to the jukebox and playing country songs, back when country was country and western was western you know? he would play these songs and sit there and drink,a nd he woudl get a constant ribbing from his hep cat jazz buddies, who derided country music. They wold poke fun at him and ask "hey man, why are you playing this stuff? This nasal whiny cracka stuff?"
and Charlie would look at them and reply, "just listen to the stories man, just listen to the stories."
and he was right. Old country music, beofr ethe country pop pap that exists today, was about telling stories from the heart, stories that touched your heart, stories that described life as they saw it. charlie parker saw that and would soak it all in.

But seriously, they may not be the real country as in they only perform country music, but I meant it in the sense that they are better country music composers than the shitty country-pop musicians I mentioned. Bob Dylan and Neil Young are great when they write country songs. Yeah, they were folky, and rock and heavy metal (N. Young), but they made much better country music than pretty much everybody alive now.

Merle Haggard was in Folsom Prison when Johnny Cash played there! Cool trvia

country is stuupid...

Most of what I've wanted to say has been said already. Hank, Johnny, Loretta, Dolly and that whole crew...speaking of Dolly, I was especially drawn to her as a small child. She is such a funny, clever lady.

I haven't really paid much attention to the state of popular country music as of late. The last time I really remember watching a music video on CMT, it was probably Shania Twain singing "Any Man of Mine." I wish she would do more songs in that vein.

I do watch the show Nashville Star with my mom. I probably never would have seen it had it not been for the fact that it plays on the USA network, and that's where I watch my Law & Order CI/SVU, so Nashville Star is hard to miss. I am mostly unimpressed by the people on that show, with the exception of Angela Hacker, who I adore. http://www.usanetwork.com/series/nas...ela/index.html

Around these parts (I've always wanted to say that) listening to country music used to be accepted and encouraged among the younger kids. But now, the only younger people who do listen to country music are just doing it for laughs, you know, like "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" and all that jazz. I don't even know who sings that. But younger people who proclaim to hate certain genres of music (really only country and rap) always seem to latch onto the worst possible example of each, and proceed to like it in an ironic way. And of course everything else in the genre "sucks," but they can make an exception for "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" because it's "funny."

I will never understand the greatest phenomenon of the 90s, otherwise known as Garth Brooks. The only time that I recall enjoying him was when my brother made himself a mix CD of his favorite gangsta rap songs, but had "Friends in Low Places" as the second-to-last track. I think it was sandwiched between "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" and some Eazy-E song I didn't know.

For some reason I like more female than male country artists. Maybe it's because with men, their singing "country" voices can easily turn into what sounds like farts. Farts probably isn't the right word...it's just this sound that I hear coming out of the mouths of the male country singers on the radio. It's like they try to put too much twang into their voice, and their voice isn't that great to begin with, so now it's coming out all nasally, and anyway, it just has to stop.

And I suppose I agree with the sentiment about drums and electric guitars, for the most part. It's almost like it wouldn't come out sounding so horrible if there wasn't someone going, "Well this sounds okay, but let's make it sound BIGGER!" That's how I imagine it going at least.

And I want to add that really sad country songs are usually 10x sadder than most sad songs from other genres.

It's rather remiss of me really to have not mentioned my beloved Cowboy Junkies in this thread. I don't actually consider them country, but other people do, so WTF, I'll say it:

Cowboy Junkies are godlike.

'G', the one that's not Warren, has been shit since forever. I heard his first album recently, thanks to a friend with a perverse humour, and it's entirely consistent with the rest of his career. With country, usually there's a spark of life in early stuff (yes, even Shania) but with 'G' there's absolutely nothing. He is the modern face of evil, truly.

You know this one is Pure Country Gold.

that dude from the Spin Doctors is gonna be ramming lil' Julie on her 16th birthday, she will have a hard time sitting for a week, and he will ensure that she remembers his scrotum all on her forehead while she tickles his taint a la tongue technique. pervert.

I'm so hiring you as compére for my wedding.

hahah, I showed my girfriend that recor dcover and she said this

he's saying "baby, you know i love you... but i can't afford to go to prison right now when my musical career is just picking up damnit, you gotta understand!!!!!!"