SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
The rhythm-and-bluestinged 1962 Ray Charles album “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.” John Travolta’s mechanical-bull-riding adventures in the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy.” The star-making 1990 “No Fences” album by Garth Brooks. The 2005 Country Music Association Awards show held in Madison Square Garden rather than Nashville.
These were all milestones that increased the visibility of country music beyond hardcore fans.
Unfortunately, casual country listeners can be as fickle as a honkytonk temptress. Country has been “in” and “out” more often than a rhinestone- bedazzled housecat.
But right now, according to the Wall Street Journal, record sales, streaming, concert attendance and merchandising are in the biggest “boom” phase of the last 30 years.
Hip-hop remains America’s dominant genre, but country is once again allowed to sit at the “cool kids” table. (Admittedly, the cool kids remain jittery that longtime country fans might dress a deer carcass on the aforementioned table, but a win is a win.)
As a person with eclectic musical tastes (“Favorite CD is waaay across the room? Never mind. This’ll do”), I am cautiously optimistic about the breaking down of nonsensical cultural barriers.
For too long, urban elitists have derided country fans as in-bred, under-educated moonshiners. Likewise, many country fans have dismissed fans of jazz/blues/pop/ classical as “city slickers” and softies who wouldn’t know how to pour urine out of a boot. (Job applicants, please wait for the interviewer to ask before demonstrating such hidden talents.)
The Journal largely credits social media and streaming for country’s rise. With nontraditional artists gaining notoriety via Spotify and TikTok, record labels and radio programmers no longer maintain the same megalomaniacal stranglehold on playlists as they once enjoyed. (“You malcontents claim that we play the same four artists over and over and over, but that’s a doggone lie! Number Four is just Number Three on the days his drawers are too tight, Mr. Know-It-All!”) After long being associated with farms and small towns in a limited swath of the nation’s real estate, country is pushing beyond its traditional regional strongholds. At the rate the international strategy is progressing, Vladimir Putin may soon crank up “Achy-breaky Interrogation Room.” And Antarctica could someday host a rousing performance of “If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me, the Collapsing Ice Shelf Will.”
Country is also growing because of factors (such as a more diverse talent pool, fresh topics and a playful mixing of musical genres) that resonate with a younger demographic.
Relevance matters. College students and recent grads who would have been bored to tears by maudlin tunes about Momma are intrigued by songs about Momma Who Used To Be Daddy.
Underage students without a fake ID. can still stomp their feet for “I’ve Got Zits in Low Places.”
Unattached young professionals who can’t identify with songs about cheatin’ with your spouse’s best friend may latch onto one about cheatin’ with a slice of gluten-enhanced bread.
Twenty-somethings with no interest in the lingo of diesel truck drivers are fascinated with the lingo of people waiting in line at the EV charger (even if I can’t repeat the lingo here).
I remain wary of ups and downs, but I haven’t been so excited since I got an issue of “Hee Haw Magazine” for my tenth birthday.
The sky is the limit for country music. Truly. Someday a little green man may emerge from his flying saucer and demand, “Take me to your boot-scooter.”
Copyright 2024 Danny Tyree, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at [email protected] and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.”
