Turn on any of the top 40 radio these days and you will find the following: Florida Georgia Line, Hunter Hayes, Taylor Swift, The Band Perry and Carrie Underwood.
None of which are actually pop artists. but rather country artists.
Wait a minute, you mean its actually cool to like country music? Since when did this happen.
I grew up a teenager in the 90s. Back when Garth Brooks, LeAnn Rimes, Reba and Brooks & Dunn ruled the country stations. Back then, admitting you liked such artists did one of the following:
1) Killed your popularity no matter how big they were.
2) Made you an instant hick. Because apparently only hicks listened to such nonsense.
And so I kept a pretty tight lip back then about my love for such artist as Bryan White-who was my favorite of the moment.-not bothering to tell many because surely it was better than being uncool, I was already that enough. Why add to it? So the love of such artists was reserved for after school jam sessions in my bedroom and at a friends house. I hid my concert t-shirts and wore them only around the house when I was sure no one outside of my circle would catch me wearing it. I even laughed when people mentioned the bands myself, because back then that is what you did.
Now my son is singing in the back of the car to Taylor Swift who has thought to be beautiful since before he knew it. And to Hunter, and Fl/GA line. There is no shame in liking these as we blare it down the road and turn up the volume. Obviously country has come a long way since the days I was in school.
Or maybe it may not be that as it is this: the lines classifying what is country and what is pop these days are beginning to be a lot more blurry. If you are pop, you will duet with a country artist and the song is instantly that much cooler. The same can be said if you are a country act and you pair up with a pop artist.
And instead of country artist trying to mesh in with the likes of the Pop princess's and rock gods. You know have pop gods trying to turn into country artist. Lionel, Sheryl, Jewel even the dude from Hootie and the Blowfish (yes I know its Darius Rucker.) seem to be doing it these days.
Which means surely I was not as uncool as I would think.
Maybe I was just way ahead of the game.
Yes let's go with that.
1) Killed your popularity no matter how big they were.
2) Made you an instant hick. Because apparently only hicks listened to such nonsense.
And so I kept a pretty tight lip back then about my love for such artist as Bryan White-who was my favorite of the moment.-not bothering to tell many because surely it was better than being uncool, I was already that enough. Why add to it? So the love of such artists was reserved for after school jam sessions in my bedroom and at a friends house. I hid my concert t-shirts and wore them only around the house when I was sure no one outside of my circle would catch me wearing it. I even laughed when people mentioned the bands myself, because back then that is what you did.
Now my son is singing in the back of the car to Taylor Swift who has thought to be beautiful since before he knew it. And to Hunter, and Fl/GA line. There is no shame in liking these as we blare it down the road and turn up the volume. Obviously country has come a long way since the days I was in school.
Or maybe it may not be that as it is this: the lines classifying what is country and what is pop these days are beginning to be a lot more blurry. If you are pop, you will duet with a country artist and the song is instantly that much cooler. The same can be said if you are a country act and you pair up with a pop artist.
And instead of country artist trying to mesh in with the likes of the Pop princess's and rock gods. You know have pop gods trying to turn into country artist. Lionel, Sheryl, Jewel even the dude from Hootie and the Blowfish (yes I know its Darius Rucker.) seem to be doing it these days.
Which means surely I was not as uncool as I would think.
Maybe I was just way ahead of the game.
Yes let's go with that.
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