Home | List of Articles | Submit an Article | Contact Us

Modern Country Music Lyrics still retain the art of storytelling

Country music lyrics are blasting on urban music stations as younger American trying to escape the emergence of bad pop and even awful pop music turn to this stable genre. Country music is currently gaining on rock as the second most popular music format on American radio stations. It is right behind hip hop in terms of people’s ability to identify a feel, a demographic, and a sense of rebellion when they hear the lyrics on many songs.

If you look back into early to mid 90’s it seemed that country music was on the decline. In fact, if you look at some of the popular hits from Shania Twain and even “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston, country music lyrics could only be heard by crossover pop artists. I’m sure that many in the industry thought this would be the end of great commercial successes for modern country artists.

Fortunately, the Nashville establishment held on to their traditions and developed a new set of country artists that would appeal to young urban listeners.

So why didn’t they stray and turn country music into a subgenre of crappy pop?

The answer lies in the lessons of the 1980’s. Country music went through a moment as the “it music” during the early to mid 1980’s with detrimental results. There were more stars, doing more tours and making more money than ever before, but the most popular country music lyrics at the time did not reflect the geographic sensibilities of the south.

They became caricatures selling urbanites on the exotic possibilities of redneck culture and vain beauty queens.

The Nashville gatekeepers learned a very painful lesson.

Pop culture mangles, destroys, and makes fun of anything that comes in its path. They learned that:

1. You can still get country music lyrics played on urban radios, but you will need your own radio networks

2. You can compete with pop by developing younger artists like Sarah Evans and Faith Hill who can present a pop image with solid country music lyrics on their albums.

So where does this lead modern country?
Still on the forefront, experimenting with country-rock, and Rhythm and blues collaborations.

It certainly is a good time for country music and an even better time for country music fans.

About the Author

This article may be freely distributed as long as there's an active link to http://www.rapidlingo.com
Syd Johnson
Editor

Related Articles:

Warner Music Executive Payments - “In human life, art may arise from almost any activity, and once it does so, it is launched on a long road of exploration, invention, freedom to the limits of extravagance, interference to the point of frustration, finally discipline, controlling constant change and growth.” Susanne Langer (1895-1985) Commentary In these times of maj ...

Commentary: The Obscene Warner Music Executive Payouts - In these times of major label mergers, downsizing, the slashing of label rosters, and thousands of record company jobs being lost over the last three years--not to mention the enormous sea change and seismic shifts that technology has wrought--comes one of the most disturbing reports we have come across. It further reveals just how profoundly out-o ...

Music Business Year-End Rewind of 2004 - Welcome to our "Year-End A&R (Artist & Repertoire) Rewind of 2004," where we reflect on what occurred over the last 12 months in the world of A&R and to see the impact those events made in the music business. This is also a time of year when you begin to look forward with a strong sense of commitment, expectations and making plans for the coming ye ...

Making Music As A Lefty - Author Interview with Ryan Thomson, seacoast New Hampshire resident, and author of a new book advocating left handed violin playing by lefties. - Playing Violin and Fiddle Left Handed. This piece started out as an actual interview for an internet website article, but the author has expanded it into its present form, while maintaining the “ ...

Improving Self Esteem with Affirmations and Therapeutic Relaxation Music - Positive self-esteem is very important for our general health and wellness as human beings. Having positive self-esteem is also important for promoting any type of healing, whether physical, emotional or spiritual. Poor or low self-esteem on the other hand can be quite detrimental to our well-being and even our very existence. Negative self-este ...

Human Conditioning, Stress Management and Music - Human Conditioning, Stress Management and Music The predominant role human conditioning plays in a stressful environment. Perspective, reaction and remedy.How music can help. By Bill Reddie Creating music for stress management can be a rather complicated process. Due to the nature of stress, music must promote a ...

For a Complete list of Articles with summaries Click Here