Hi everyone! Firstly, cheers from France šŸ„šŸ„–!

Sometimes when I’m chilling on Reddit I see posts of Americans mocking country music. Now, this music genre is quite inexistent here in France (and probably in Europe as well) so I don’t really know a lot about it. From my french point of view, this style simply reminds me of the USA, and that’s it. But I think for you guys, you seems to be kinda ashamed of it or something, idk. So what’s wrong exactly with country music?

(Sorry for my potential bad english, I mean… I’m french so…)

49 comments

  1. Reddit is heavily over-represented of some specific demographics. For the sake of country music, the ones that matter are urban, liberal, not religious.

    Country music often about and celebrates demographics reddit hates, namely rural/ā€œsmall townā€, conservative, and religious (specifically, evangelical Christian).

  2. Good morning, Froggy. Country music largely speaks to people who live in the country. More recent country music has also been very heavily commoditized and repetitive. So it’s become the butt of a lot of jokes.

    [This is all the evidence you need.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o) This guy took half a dozen country music songs and demonstrated how they are basically the same with (slightly) different lyrics.

  3. I understand the appeal of music that speaks to the past and harkens back to “simpler days”. Woodie Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and definitely a ton more I don’t know.

    What I and many others don’t like is the modern “country music” that is a commercialized broken record.

    Bo Burnham [sums it up well. ](https://youtu.be/y7im5LT09a0?si=5_i5eYEnusBEWINA)

  4. There’s two things going on here:

    1. Consider the demographic(s) of Reddit. There is not much Venn overlap with the ‘Nashville’ demographic. Nashville, Tennessee, being the town where the popular (pop) country music industry is situated. Shitty trap remixes of the Fortnite soundtrack are more to the Reddit demo’s taste. Or… I don’t even know anymore. I’m old. Shoot me already.

    2. Within country music there is ongoing conflict between “we regular Americans like Nashville country music just fine, you smug elitists” vs. “Nashville country pop’s got about as much to do with authentic country music as Olive Garden does with Italian food.” What Venn overlap there may be with the aforementioned Reddit demographic, it’s going to be skewed towards that second camp.

  5. Country is associated with rural areas and people. Unsurprisingly, more urban people are fond of mocking things they see as ā€œprovincialā€ to use an old word. These days country music is also associated with conservative values and cultural which a lot of the young generations hate.

  6. Country music has changed a lot over the years. For decades it was largely confined to rural areas & the American South/Southwest. There were a lot of jokes/stereotypes about its twangy sound & downbeat lyrics. The genre became a lot more mainstream in the 90s (Garth Brooks has sold a mind-blowing number of albums) & tastes became a lot less rigid & tribal in the digital age. In the real world, the jokes & stigma are pretty much gone now.

  7. Country music is broad, but even in the most traditional sense: not on pop radio, fairly twangy, storytelling: it is enormously popular. There are people who listen to country and nothing else.Ā 

    Thereā€™s an old joke that country music is about people wanting to stay in the town they grew up in and punk music is about wanting to leave.Ā 

    More interesting is the connection between rap and country: storytelling about the place and people you know. Songs can be funny, heartbreaking, inspiring or about big butts.Ā 

    The bottom line is that itā€™s easy to make fun of because itā€™s so popular and generally sincere.Ā 

  8. I love country music, as well as rock, pop, and oldies. A lot of hate toward country is that most country songs tell stories or give life advice.

  9. It’s not exclusively a U.S. genre. Check out the Francophone country music from Canada for an unusual (to me anyway) combination.

  10. Bone-jour, French friend

    While I like *some* older country stuff, mainly Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, I just donā€™t care for the sound of the modern stuff. I prefer house, bass, pop and indie, which Iā€™m sure is just as grating to other people.

    Honestly I kind of associate country music mostly with people who are racist and homophobic (Iā€™m Latino and gay, so yay!) which isnā€™t a fair generalization, but itā€™s just not for me.

  11. What most of America knows as country music is the very commercial, highly formulaic version that’s associated with Nashville: the lyrics are often hyper patirotic, and deal with well-worn tropes about “hard living, unfaithful loves, and broke-down trucks.” ‘There’s actuallly a satirical song that starts out “i was drunk the day my mom got out of prison.”

    There’s also a rich body of much more musicallly complex music with thoughtful and emotionally evocative lyrics. There are old mountain ballads, like “The Long Black Veil,” and a long list of subgenres: old time music, bluegrass, frontier ballads, Western swing, country rock, the Bakersfield Sound. A source you might want to check out is KPIG Radio, on the web at [KPIG radio](https://kpig.com). It may be America’s most eclectic station. Here’s a few artists that represent some of the breadth of country music genres:

    * Bruce Molsky (old time fiddle)
    * The Carter Family (tradional ballads)
    * Austin Lounge Lizards (alt country)
    * Southern Culture On The Skids (satirical alt country)
    * Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (Western Swing)
    * Buck Owens and the Buckaroos (Bakersfield Sound)
    * Sons of the San Joaquin (wonderful vocal ensemble)
    * The Flying Burrito Brothers
    * Michael Martin Murphy
    * Emmylou Harris
    * Wilco

  12. I like some country music, though I prefer bluegrass.

    The stuff you hear on a lot of country radio stations is incredibly vapid, stupid, and has that same annoying twang pop sound. That’s what most people think of when they make fun of country.

    It’s also that the stereotypical demographic for country music is an easy target for mockery in America. Poor, rural, white people.

  13. You either love it or hate it. A lot of us hate it just because we hear it so fucking much everywhere we go. They play it at stores and public events and shit.Ā I can appreciate real, old school country. But fuck that yee yee pop country bullshit. It’s just an even worse version of radio trash. Why do they talk about their trucks so much?

    I think it’s a lot like rap/hip hop. The older stuff is solid. Good beats, good flow, good lyrics. Then you listen to the new age dogwater try hards and think to yourself “what the fuck happened to this genre, i can’t even understand the words coming out of this idiot’s mouth”Ā 

  14. Modern country music is designed to appeal more to a demographic that desires to be country instead of the people it was originally written by. Country music was originally written by sharecroppers and ranch hands (depending on where you define the boundary between blues and country) and over the years has come to be written by people who have never lived a rural life using cliches that somewhat appeal to them, but more importantly appeal to those who would like to think of themselves as being “country” without having the experience.

    As someone who’s been elbow deep in a heffer to fix a breech birth, modern pop country has moved far from the target audience of 70s country. But being someone born in the 90s who has been elbow deep in a cow’s birth canal, I’m a more significant minority that I would have been 20 years before. The demand of country music has continued to outpace the demand of country life. I’m far from having the authority to dictate cultural demands.

    But I will say as culture overall becomes more homogenized the same thing has occurred across genres. You’ll find many of the same people in the Midwest listening to an Australian sing about Texan life followed in the same playlist as someone singing about playing the game in Oakland. Neither of which apply to their own personal life. I’m not making any judgements on that idea with this statement.

  15. Modern popular country music has little to do with American tradition. There’s an argument to be made that country, along with blues, jazz, and rock and roll, are quintessentially American, but the modern pop scene doesn’t reflect that.

    Most of the pop country or stadium country is all the same old bullshit. Dude’s singing about beers, their girls, pickup trucks, being under stars … just the most generic shit. Most country is also incredibly conservative in its values. If you look at the history of country that is not the norm. There’s a long tradition of country musicians living at the fringes of society, thumbing their noses at the police and any other authority trying to restrict their freedoms. Those days are long gone. You’re far more likely to hear someone singing about how much they love the police and hate freedom … completely unironically.

  16. I think a good part of it is that we see a lot of other people in other places trying to force an association with Country music and Americana.

    And it’s like – there is so much other music that came into it’s own in the USA. Yes, Country Music is from the USA.

    BUT SO IS ROCK AND ROLL. BLUES. JAZZ. SOUL. FUNK. R&B. Hip-Hop! Rap! METAL! Bluegrass! Ragtime!

    Heck, even Salsa and Tejano. And who can forget Surf?

    All of these are every bit as authentically American as Country music is, and there is a lot more interesting stuff going on musically.

    And all kinds of people are like “Country is from the Heart of America”. But no, if you look up where a lot of those heavy metal or Hard Rock or R&B or Rap performers are from – they are from the Heart of America too. That music is also from the Heart of America. It is every bit as reflective of the reality of the USA.

    So it’s like, yeah, enjoy the country music if you want to, but please… don’t stop there, check out some of the other American music, a lot of which is a lot better, at least in a lot of people’s opinions.

    It’s like, please, listen to some bluegrass, listen to some Rock and Roll. Listen to some Nat King Cole and some George Clinton and some Sugar Hill Gang and some Evanescence and some Halestorm and some Red Hot Chili Peppers and some Louis Armstrong and some Miles Davis, and some Temptations and some Commadores and some… well, the list just goes on and on and on. Because there is so much more out there than Country.

    it’s OK to like country. Just please, don’t think that it is the end all be all of American Music.

  17. A (hopefully interesting) personal anecdote: my aunt is a singer/songwriter in the Americana genre, which is basically a fusion of “folk rock” and “country” (with several other genres/subgenres peppered in).

    While she had some *genre-specific* hits over here in the US, she was actually more successful in Europe and Australia (again, in genre-specific markets).

  18. Country music is a very broad genre. The ā€œpop countryā€ one hears on the radio is the genre that a lot of people might be embarrassed by. There is a massive and thriving larger country music scene with all sorts of sub-genres, and many of these artists regularly sell out European tours, as well as their American dates.

    The stuff on the radio has become a bit lowest common denominator, with mass appeal to the uneducated, undiscerning, and unrefined.

  20. Because 9/11 ruined country music. Before then, music was pretty good. Post 9/11 is I love Jesus and America cause ‘Merica is the best country ever. RIP country.

  21. It’s music. That’s it. Just like anything else.

    I live in NY and every country show in my area is always sold out. Immensely popular.

  23. I guess there’s nothing really “wrong” with it. I just hate how it sounds and I don’t like most of its subject matter. I don’t hunt/fish, don’t have a truck, never want to be on a farm, etc.

  24. Les Jones, a French comedy, might be a good intro. They are not as far from reality as I wish they were.

    Most of the disdain is aimed at the cookie-cutter crap Nashville has been generated. And every bit of it is earned.

    It doesn’t help that the music glorifies rural life when many Americans (wrongly) believe rural life these days consists of MAGA, meth, farming the Treasury, bestiality, incest and cat shooting and are maliciously well-informed on how dependent rural areas are on Uncle Sam.

  25. I guess what youā€™re hearing here isā€¦ we like country musicā€¦ we just donā€™t have very much of it anymore.

  26. You’ve already got plenty of great answers, but I’d emphasize that hating country is part of making fun of rural folks, which is common throughout the world.

  27. Thereā€™s nothing inherently wrong with country music, but itā€™s gotten a bad wrap in recent years due to some bad adaptations of it. If you want a good example of country, search for ā€œoutlaw country.ā€

  28. As far as it goes you’ve probably heard something that is called country here in the US these days just thought it was a regular rock song. A lot of Country isn’t really much different at all anymore other than sometimes the themes are just a little different, really. The ones that are the most exactly like a rock song usually get called a “crossover hit” although even that you hear loads less than you used to.

  29. I think the short of it is that country music is associated heavily with subculture that lots of Americans donā€™t like to be associated with.

    Itā€™s probably not coincidence that the two types of music that get this treatment are country music – typically associated with the rural poor – and rap music – typically associated with the urban poor.

    Both have been getting more mainstream popularity in the 21st century so actually, in real life, country music is much less denigrated than it was maybe even 20 years ago. None of my peers would admit to listening to country when we were kids but most of us openly do now. And weā€™re not rural, poor or even white for the most part.

    Part of it too is that country music as a genre seems to lend itself more to politicization and culture wars stuff too. I donā€™t quite know the urban liberal equivalent of stuff like God Bless the USA or Try That in a Small Town.

  30. The deal is that there are rich, urban people posing to be from rural US culture pandering to what they think the culture is for money.

    The comedian Bo Burnham did a piece on this called pandering.

  31. The issue isn’t country music itself. The issue is that a lot of modern country music glorifies being a trashy, uneducated bumpkin. Music from the the 80’s and early to mid 90’s was far better. The group Alabama had a lot of good music from that time. Like High Cotton, The Closer You Get, Song of the South and more. If you stick to more classic artists and avoid the modern mass-produced trash, it’s really good music.

  32. Off topic but adjacent; I think European countries also have their variations of country music.
    I was thinking about French ā€˜country musicā€™ and I remembered this Catalan band I was fond of years ago.

    Listen to this:)

    [https://open.spotify.com/track/166O2Wyza1fuYDfSfWaI5B?si=dwsO8nuqTgWLTwpV0X6rRg&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A52lQcIqz5ZsM4pvho2xPV3](https://open.spotify.com/track/166O2Wyza1fuYDfSfWaI5B?si=dwsO8nuqTgWLTwpV0X6rRg&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A52lQcIqz5ZsM4pvho2xPV3)

  33. Modern country lacks any creativity like the last “revival” of the late 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, and rarely has similar singers than those who rose before this period. Basically any singer before now started from nothing and had to sing about basically what they knew and work for it. Today it is rarely the case and before most music companies would take a variety of music within the genre, now they will only take a limited style.

    The old country was usually lumped in with western on the charts as well, as both were small markets. Like all things, before something goes big is when most who have followed it forever like it the most.

    Otherwise Alan Jackson, Dolly Parton, both started from very little, sung about what they knew, and made it after alot of work. Merle Haggard, if I recall correctly, was in the audience at Folsom Prison when Johnny Cash sung there and decided to turn his life around from that. Johnny Cash also didn’t start from a well off family.Ā 

    Modern country music is made to sell to the largest audience, which is the want to be audience, usually in the cities. Go to any rural event, a rodeo or farm show, and very little past the year 2000 is played there.

    Reddit and the internet usually hate the historical background of country music, mostly due to political reasons any more, as they see us in rural area’s as “backwards” and think like Mike Bloomberg does about our lifestyle(he said farming is just putting a seed in the ground and thats it, when it is far from it, you can’t find a farmer without some formal schooling, like at a college or university, as the name of the game is trying to push genetics, technology, and the soil to be at its very best and making the best better all the time) as most in rural areas want to be left alone, even if that means we struggle.

  34. Old country is great (Johnny Cash, etc.) but most new country (excluding Zach Brown and Kacey Musgrave who may have put out one of the best songs in music history, there are other s though, as well) revolves around dumb backwater guys doing stupid things or hyping up MAGA. They also sing about their trucks- a lot. Songs like Red Solo Cup, Fancy Like, Try That in a Small Town, Watermelon Crawl, Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy come to mind when I think of new country and it is just embarrassing.

  35. Heā€™s been mentioned in other comments but check out Ryan Bingham – he was a busker in Paris for a bit after traveling there for a job that fell through.

    Listen to ā€œBread and Waterā€ and ā€œWolvesā€, two very different takes on Country.

  37. Like with a lot of hip-hop, country’s designed for a subset of Americans. So how much you like country music is very bound up in class & geographic differences.

  38. I just can’t stand twangy music. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

    I don’t mock country music, though. That’s kind of a dumb way to deal with something you don’t like. I just don’t listen to it. Easy peasy.

  45. I love country music, especially the modern stuff. Some people act embarrassed about it, but the fact of the matter is, is that itā€™s an incredibly popular genre of music here. Its popularity may vary by region though. You are far more likely to find country fans in Texas as opposed to Boston.

  46. You are right that country music is a very quintessentially American genre. It originates in the south east of the United States, and is very popular in rural areas across the country. Country is also American in the sense that the lyrics often discuss topics that are very popular in rural America, such as growing corn, pick up trucks, cheap beer, God, football, and American pride. However, the country is huge. What is popular in the South, and rural areas is not nearly as popular in much of the rest of the country.

  47. America can be one big high school. Country is traditionally seen as the music of rural southern whites so it comes with the negative baggage (racism, inbreeding, etc) associated with them whether warranted or not. Keep in mind that the genre of country music is very diverse and ranges from bluegrass, folk, to Texas swing. Pop country does huge numbers but plenty of people despise it for being formulaic and overly produced. Some of Americaā€™s most timeless music is country though.

    I spent some time in France and while Iā€™m no expert in your music, I know you have some styles associated with more rural areas. I donā€™t think itā€™s as wildly popular throughout France as country is in the US. I also think the French approach identity in a different way than the US and it tends to be more localized and distinct and based more on genuine heritage. This is just my own speculation though.

  48. Country music is popular in the South and often among more conservative people. The whole Nashville machine is extremely white even though the South is a heavily black region of the country (it’s sorta more complicated than this because Eastern TN, Kentucky, and West Virginia as Appalachia is not a very historically black region of the country, but deep South like Georgia, Alabama, Loiusiana is extremely black).

    Basically, mostly it’s a matter of class signaling. Are you cool with being associated with people who are largely white, conservative, religious, and probably voted for Trump?

    In reality, there is really a ton of crossover between country and pop. Hell Taylor Swift is the biggest star out there right now and she’s still associated with country. Her first three albums were country albums and there are still influences in some of her more recent stuff.

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