When burdens seem to overcome, there's a higher power

And that power is: country and western music!

Country is one of those genres which, along with rap and sometimes reggae, recieves much scorn even from people who claim to be open minded. I would need four or five hands to count the number of times I have heard someone, in response to the question "what music do you like," reply with "I like everything... except for rap and country." Now, my extreme love of hip-hop is something which I've already devoted one essay to - but although my collection of country isn't as big as certain other genres, it does include a lot of my favorite songs and artists, and is a style which people certainly shouldn't write off so easily.

The sad thing is, the anti-country attitude is sort of understandable. A good deal of the material currently marketed as "country" is in fact little more than straight pop music, maybe with a few slide guitars thrown on as an afterthought. Shania Twain is the textbook example of how far country has strayed from its roots - it's upbeat, it's girly, it's overproduced, and is the last thing I think of when I think of "the country" (i.e. scruffy men in beards who like to drink a lot and wear stupid hats). And this poppification is not a recent development - I can trace it back to Garth Brooks, although as I am not a scholar on country history, it could go back even farther.

Even someone like me, who likes to consider himself open-minded, bought his first country album as a joke. The record was "Satan Is Real" by the Louvin Brothers, purchased solely due to the novelty that the front cover looked like this:

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And while the hilarity of the album's opening spoken-word track had me at first convinced that yes, I had found yet another great bad album - it was followed by my surprise at the extreme quality of the songs. These were not goofy throwaways, they were well-written songs delivered in an extremely catchy manner, with strange harmonies and all the atmosphere of that masterpiece film "Raising Arizona." As much as I wanted to dismiss the album as a funny one, I couldn't fight the fact that I actually enjoyed it - in fact, I even felt "cool" listening to it (in a ridiculously retro way).

My interest in country grew from there. I started listening to big names like Johnny Cash (who, for some reason, is the only country musician that country-haters still love) and Willie Nelson (who isn't really pure country, if you ask me, but is still unbelievably good). Also forgotten stars like Tenessee Ernie Ford, and the actor Jack Palance (whose 1969 self-titled album is, without a doubt, the best album ever recorded by an actor, even beating William Shatner's "Transformed Man"). And there is still much more out there I have yet to get into - I'd love to play it like I'm a country expert, but for now I'll have to settle for being an interested party.

Still, there is far too much material out there which makes it hard for people like me to mantain interest. The most insulting modern country album I have ever heard is "Put The O Back In Country" by Shooter Jennings. He's Waylon's son, which you'd figure would give him some ability to distinguish quality from crap. But that's not the case - his album sounds like "Achy Breaky Heart" backed up with heavy instruments (apparently Shooter has worked as a stand-in for Axl Rose, which is no surprise considering how butt-rockey most of the arrangements on the record are). What is most offensive about all of this is that the lyrics are all about, you know, keeping it real, getting country back to it's roots, showing these modern pussies the sound of the *true* west, etc. Example:

You take a little country and a little rock and roll
A little Neil Young and a little George Jones
A little Merle Haggard and a little bit of the Stones
Add a little Cash and a whole lotta Waylon
You know there ain’t no soul on the radio
Let’s put the O back in country

Now, imagine those lyrics sung in a style which doesn't even pretend to recall any of those artists named. Imagine them sung in the style of, say, a little Leann Rimes crossed with a lot of Kid Rock. Perhaps Shooter really is just too dumb to know what artists his album sounds like - or maybe he thinks that the ten-second soundclip of George Jones he stuck on there is country enough to excuse a full album's worth of annoying pop rock songs. Songs which could possibly pass for a Great White reunion album (if only Great White had a fetish for singing about past stars with more talent than they).

In short - Shooter Jennings may have good intentions in trying to make country hip and rocking, but in the end all he exists as is yet another reason why most people my age would rather be caught in a car crash than in the country department at their local music store. It would seem that the only thing that can keep the roots of country alive is those roots themselves - if you're a country hater and "Pitfall" by the Louvin Bros. doesn't convince you that you're missing out on something, then perhaps you should be reading a different blog.