Friday, January 14, 2011

Friday Night Cool Country Music

Have you watched any so-called "country" videos lately? Well, they're hideous. Don't even get me started.

Okay, I'll start a little.

One weekend afternoon, I couldn't find anything on TV, so I thought I'd check out the latest happenings in country music. (I don't listen to it on the radio, so I'm completely clueless.)

Well, let me tell you; it's hideous. One can only take so much of it, I found. I listened (sorry, watched) about four videos, hoping there would be some semblance left somewhere of actual country music. Alas.

What I found is, there are a bunch of very young guys, with names like Wade or Chad or Lance or whatever; and they're all horribly henpecked, apparently.

Some poor guy (Wade or Chad or...wait...let me look it up....Walker Hayes! Hey, I wasn't far off the mark!) was singing about how his girl can "wear the pants" in the relationship. In the video, we see her apparently scolding him for something, or everything. He ends up in a park singing his pitiful song, and she drives up to pick him up, and nags him about whether he made any money today.

Really? Is this his mommy or his girlfriend? But he seems perfectly happy with the arrangement (poor little sissy), so who am I to judge?

Another video, by some boy/girl group (or should I say girl/boy?) was a poorly-made ripoff of Grease. I don't know what it was about, frankly, but they were in a bowling alley, and each had their "posse" with them. I don't know; I'm so confused.

Then I saw something where Reba McEntire (Eek! Plastic surgery gone awry!) was a Dear Abby-type character, and the fighting couple ended up at her house for...tea or something. I turned the sound off at some point.

Thus ended my experiment.

I am so out of touch. Have I been asleep for the past twenty years?

When I last left country music; scratch that; when I last ENJOYED country music, it was great. I've loved country music my whole life. I don't recognize THIS STUFF. What the hell is it? Seriously. Can people actually perform these songs with any modicum of self-respect?

I'm not saying you have to be in love with Hank Williams or Ray Price or, you know, Webb Pierce or Hank Snow or Kitty Wells. Heck, even I don't like all those people.

I'm not talking 60 years ago; I'm talking about music in the not-that-distant past.

Stuff like this:



Or this:



Okay, this is from 2005, so c'mon; it's not old!



Frankly, I could throw any Dwight Yoakam video on here, and be done. But I don't want to short-change others.

Can't find any recent Marty Stuart videos, but trust me, he's doing GREAT work. It's just that his label didn't support him, so he can't make videos nowadays. Bastards. But I still like this one:


Hey, how about this?



Not to leave the ladies out. When Paulette Carlson was still with Highway 101, they were great. Here's one to prove that:



What can one say about Mark Chesnutt? He's cool, ultimately cool. What a voice. Too damn bad the record labels don't get that.



Pick any song by George Strait. Yea, pick any one.



I could go on and on. But I won't. If you wanna know what country music used to be, well, here you go.

Now it's all about gym lockers and men wearing aprons.

But have at it, kids. If that's what you like. I still have all my CD's, so I'm good. And yea, I do have ALL these CD's.

Hey, I'd still be buying music if y'all hadn't ruined it. But y'all do whatever your business model calls for.

Time marches on.

Yet, I leave you with this:



Makes me remember when I used to love music.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I completely agree. Country music videos... Frightening.

BrittanY! said...

lets just say ANY music video right now is well cheezy!!!! ; ) and your post is absolutly true!!!

CHEERs!