I’m not a huge country fan myself but I was just wondering if American country music has any influence outside the majority of southern US.

27 comments

  1. Modern contemporary country is pretty much nonexistant, unless you count pop stars who have a country background or country influence, like Shania Twain and Taylor Swift. Black Space or That Don’t Impress Me Much of course are hardly country, though.

    Older traditional country you might hear on a radio station that plays old music, but it’s not popular.

    >your thoughts on it

    The modern bro country is quite boring, it sounds really uninventive. Old Town Road was the most fun country song I’ve heard from the modern times, and then the country people decided it wasn’t apparently even country.

    Old country music I sometimes listen to like as a half joke. I don’t remember the name of the song or who recorded it, but the one that goes ”she got the gold mine, I got the shaft”, is a banger.

  2. On our pop radio channel / top 40s there’s no country at all, except for Lil Nas X sometimes, if you count that. Yesterday evening however, they had a one hour country special for some reason. Maybe somebody died.

    On the more “mature” channel, there is some Country, I believe. American romantism is not entirely unpopular with middle-aged, rural people; the kind who drives Harleys and has moustaches.

  3. Outside of a select few tracks, I never hear it on the radio. Don’t know of many performances here either.

  4. strong popularity in rural ireland – there’s a spin off genre of “irish country” that you wouldn’t hear on mainstream radio, but would be played on rural stations (it’s really bad)

    Garth Brooks in particular has a bit of a cult status in ireland.

  7. It’s a niche thing.

    Meaning, you’ll likely not hear country music on mainstream radio* but I’ve met a few people (mostly English) that discovered it through Spotify or the like and have become huge fans.

    *I’ve heard [“Bebe Rexha – Meant to Be”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDo0H8Fm7d0) on the radio a few times, but don’t know if that qualifies as Country – Same goes for Taylor Swift.

    I know two English couples that traveled to Nashville specifically because of it.

  8. There’s been a bit of a phenomenon of country music being embraced in rural France, I remember reading several articles about it a few years ago. Still probably a pretty small thing, but it has some cultural relevance and popularity in small-town France I’d say.

  11. Some for dancing in a few places, back home there was some line dancing and they used country music

    Afaik in Northern Ireland country is a lot more popular than down here

    I think it’s mostly shite but to each their own

  13. I personally love it and it’s 90% of the music I listen to

    But it’s not so popular or well known, Shania Twain was popular for a while, I remember hearing her on the radio when I was young but that’s about it

  14. We like it in the Norwegian countryside. We have multiple radio channels just for US country music. But it’s not the same kind of fanbase like it is in the southern US

  16. There is a lot of country music in Norway, there is probably a new country hit every week or so. Personally I dislike it.

  17. It a type of music completely ignored/unknown by most people. Each European country has their own version of traditional music, popular music, party/entertainment music, so American country music is just one type of music from the USA. Also, not everyone understands the English lyrics so for these people it is just a melody, a tune, nothing else.

  18. I’d say country in general is not particularly popular overall, but country and americana from Dutch artists does sometimes do well in the charts. On top of that we do have a tendency to send country music acts to the Eurovision Song Contest for some reason.

    Country music from American artists pretty much gets no mainstream attention whatsoever.

    >and what are your thoughts on it?

    I have some friends who like it, but I personally would never listen to it.

  19. There has been quite a few Finnish covers for country songs, for example:

    * [“Päivän työ” – Olavi Virta, 1956](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9suuye8Op5E) – “16 Tons”
    * [“Yölinjalla” – Tapio Rautavaara, 1965](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx48Jf8Ffuc) – “I Walk The Line”
    * [“Vanha Tie” – Tapio Heinonen, 1975](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY3bUgzuLIc) – “Country Roads”
    * [“Jolene” – Virve Rosti, 1977](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBfWKN0FbAE) – “Jolene”
    * [“Huomenta Suomi” – Matti Esko, 1989](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVxv7xbiJyE) – “City Of New Orleans”

  20. I’m sure there’s probably someone outside america who does listen to it but I’ve certainly never met them or even heard of them

  21. Meaning American country music it has always have had a small but rather enthusiastic group of followers here. I don’t really like the “cowboy” version of it, more like this:

    https://youtu.be/h4V4_LIxqNE

    That would maybe be more like folk than country, but i like to listen to such music and even more play it.

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